Dream Team: Bo, Derek

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Is your fantasy football team a nightmare? Express' Chris Mincher gives his advice on who to play and who to bench.

IF YOU'RE JUST entering your fantasy football playoffs, or have since marched on to the second round, it's time to start keeping an eye on NFL roster moves for possible free agent pickups. Not because you need these players on your team — your team is awesome, so ride it out — but because it's time to deploy preventative drop-adding (PDA). In other words, if something bad happens to the starters on the other teams in the playoffs, you want to make sure that there's no one worthwhile available for them to pick up and sub in. With your bench packed with guys you'll never use, your opponent can't use them either. So, guard against these emergency fill-ins who light it up out of nowhere and send an undeserving manager to the championship by finding a spot to store them away.

Derek Anderson, QB, Cleveland Browns
Are you surprised that Charlie Frye didn't turn around the Browns this year and make them into playoff contenders? If you answered yes, thanks for reading, Charlie Frye! Hey Charlie, if you happen to have an extra bench spot on your fantasy team — or are looking at potential 2007 sleepers for your keeper league — you've seen firsthand (from the bench) how promising your replacement looks. Got to hand it to him, Chuck, he looks like a real quarterback out there. Much better than you. You stink.
TAKE? The Browns won't win until they find where they left the rushing portion of their playbook — did you guys try checking under the couch? — but in the meantime, Anderson at least knows how to find both of his wide receivers.

Bo Scaife, TE, Tennessee Titans
First it was Erron Kinney, but his knee ligaments got folded like complex origami. Then it was Ben Troupe, but his ankle got cracked like someone wanted to make an omelet with it. Now it's Scaife, who gives quarterback Vince Young a consistent safe option ... and, considering the anonymous state of the Titans' wide receivers, it's hard to call any of Young's options safe.
TAKE? The guy can catch. But, most importantly, the guy can still stand after the game.

Ike Hilliard, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
This is the way the world ends for WR Michael Clayton, not with a bang, but with a partially torn medial collateral ligament in his left knee. That makes Hilliard the starter, whose world already ended with a whisper a long time ago.
TAKE? No!

Arlen Harris, RB, Detroit Lions
On tap for Lions running back Kevin Jones: surgery, rehabilitation, the PUP list in 2007, and then we won't know anymore, because none of us will care and the media will stop bothering to find out. In the meantime, the Lions turn to Harris.
TAKE? Wait wait wait, let us finish that sentence. Ahem, thank you. In the meantime, the Lions turn to Arlen Harris for the first four carries, but then they're down by 35 points, so they don't bother to run it anymore.

Aaron Moorehead, WR, Indianapolis Colts
With Brandon Stokley out with a bad case of tendon-mangle, Peyton Manning will be looking for more people to go in on his time-share quarterbacking philosophy. Could Moorehead — who, we must say, looks like doofus maximus in his official NFL photo — be the spark that reignites the Colts' offensive fire and finally propels them to the Super Bowl? We say: Not unless the Colts can trade him for Edgerrin James. (Howaboutit, Cards? Eh? What if we toss in Dominic Rhodes for your trouble?)
TAKE? Usually being the third receiver on the Colts nets the same stats as a good starting receiver on a middling team. But as teams chip away all day at the Colts' crumbling defense, all Moorehead is good for now is Reggie Wayne's bridge partner on the sidelines until the offense can retake the field.

Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images.