Fantasy Football Cut-N-Go: Colts Become Fantasy Duds

Cut-N-Go is Fantasy Football FanHouse's weekday roundup of the NFL news with fantasy football impact.

You wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats just thinking about the possibility. You beg for it not to happen -- not during Week 16, your fantasy football championship weekend. But alas, the worst scenario imaginable has come true.

According to the Associated Press, the Indianapolis Colts starting offensive players won't lobby for playing time during the final two weeks of the NFL season.

Peyton Manning and his teammates won't even lobby Colts coach Jim Caldwell to play the final two regular-season games.

They have cobbled together a group of players who insist what's best for the team is more important than what's best for themselves. It's a throwback to a seemingly bygone era when players didn't dare publicly question the team's braintrust or try to stand out so they could win endorsement deals.

Even now, in the midst of Indy's great debate, with prestige and potentially money on the line, the Colts are content to keep it boring in the locker room. They're willing to let others discuss whether the starters should sit or play over the next two weeks while Caldwell makes up his mind.

Even tough the decision hasn't been made yet, the fact that the players have stopped fighting for the opportunity to be on the field this Sunday is a huge indicator that after the first series, the stars who have cranked out the undefeated season will be bystanders.

Peyton Manning isn't a safe play for this championship weekend . Neither are Reggie Wayne or Dallas Clark or any of the host of offensive weapons usually on display in Indianapolis. Heading into this all-important weekend of fantasy play, the superb fantasy GM -- the Bill Polian's of fantasy football -- brought with them a contingency plan. They'll enter this final week of play with worthy backups at every position they have a Colts player residing.

Their opponents will hope this news catches them off guard.

Other Fantasy Football Notes

• Drew Dougherty of HoustonTexans.com says that Arian Foster is impressing the coaching staff this week in practice. He's put together two straight good days and could see a large workload in Week 16.

• Two of my four fantasy teams are playing for league championships this weekend, which means that two are not. One of them missed out by a few lousy points, which I completely blame Reggie Bush and is injury prone ways for causing the loss. When Mike Triplett of The Times-Picayune said that Bush's injury was cramps and not a hamstring pull, I wasn't happy.

• David Elfin of the Washington Times wrote an interesting piece on Fred Davis' rise to prominence. The Redskins feared the worst when starting tight end Chris Cooley went down with a season-ending injury, but Davis stepped right in.

But Davis stepped up with eight catches for 78 yards and a touchdown that night against Philadelphia, and he hasn't stopped producing since. In his past eight games, Davis has 33 catches for 389 yards and six touchdowns. Five of those touchdowns have come in the past four games.

• John Niyo of The Detroit News says that the Detroit Lions will place Matthew Stafford on injured reserve, ending his rookie season. In other season-ending injury news, Phillip B. Wilson of the Indianapolis Star says that the Colts have ended the come-back attempt of Anthony Gonzalez, placing him on injured reserve.

• Mike Singletary wants to see a lot of his younger players over the final two weeks of the season, says John Crumpacker of the San Francisco Chronicle. He especially wants to see Alex Smith throw the ball often.