If you have Giants' RB Brandon Jacobs on your fantasy team, things have probably been pretty good for you this season. His totals of 950 rushing yards (8th in the league) and 12 rushing touchdowns (2nd in the league) are the type of numbers you love to see from your RB1. If you got him as your RB2, you're likely getting ready for the fantasy playoffs.
But things haven't been so good lately. He missed Week 11 with an injury. He came back last week and while his stats were pretty good - 21 carries for 71 yards and a TD - there were signs that things weren't quite right. His 3.4 yds per carry average last week was the third lowest of the season but it was the lowest for any game when he had 20+ carries. You can't chalk that up to the Giants going easy on Jacobs for his first game back, he had 21 carries. He got the ball, he just wasn't getting it done. OK, so he's still coming back from the injury. Fine.
In the meantime, here comes RB Derrick Ward. His 630 rushing yards put him 21st in the league, but he's only 60 yards (or a mere 5 yards per game) away from jumping ahead of such fantasy stalwarts as Brian Westbrook, Larry Johnson, Julius Jones and Ronnie Brown. And remember, Ward is the backup RB.
Ward has had double digit carries in each of the last six games and has had 80 or more rushing+receiving yards in each of those six games. Even more impressive is how Ward has been integrated into the passing game lately, with 13 catches in the past three games. In fact, since the Giants came back from the bye in Week 5, there have only been two games (Week 6 vs Cleveland and Week 9 vs Seattle) where Ward had fewer receptions than Plaxico Burress! Yes, Burress missed two games due to suspension, but Ward already has more total receptions than Burress (36 vs 35) and only needs to average 21 receiving yards per game for the rest of the season to finish with more receiving yards than Plax. He's unlikely to finish with Burress's total of 4 receiving touchdowns, but the rushing yards more than make up for it.
So what I'm saying here is that if you need somebody to replace Plaxico Burress, one possible answer is Derrick Ward. He's not a better fantasy WR than Burress, but he's definitely a better all-around fantasy player. You don't care where the fantasy points come from anyway. If you have Ward as a handcuff to Jacobs, it's time to consider starting BOTH of them. The Giants practically have home field advantage wrapped up for the playoffs, they're not going to wear out a recently-injured Jacobs when they can rest him for the playoffs. Expect Jacobs to get fewer carries (though he'll still get the goal line call) while Ward gets more carries. It sounds ridiculous, but RBBC could work in fantasy football too.
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