Must Start

Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck, Drew Brees and Tom Brady

Tier 1

Peyton Manning vs. Cin – The Broncos new offense moves Manning down a few notches in fantasy.

Matt Stafford vs. Chi – Chicago’s D is horrendous.

Tony Romo vs. Dal – The Cowboys may rely more heavily on Romo with Murray’s status uncertain.

Matt Ryan vs. NO – This is a dream match-up for Ryan owners. Even more so with Julio Jones back.

Tier 2

Russell Wilson vs. Arz – The pass D is still an area teams exploit against the Falcons.

Eli Manning vs. Stl – ODB has returned Eli to fantasy relevance. He’s a 15-18 point candidate here.

Bust

Ben Roethlisberger vs. KC – Kansas City sports the top rated pass D.

Fantasy Sleeper

Mark Sanchez vs. Was – Sanchez killed a lot of fantasy teams’ hopes in the divisional round. Lucky for him this is a great match-up.

1. San Francisco 49ers (-10) vs. Mia – 10 points is a lot to give but Miami, outside of their win over Seattle, has regressed the past month. And the 49ers D will be very tough on QB Ryan Tannehill Sunday.

Expect a convincing win and for the 49ers to easily cover the point spread.

Next

2. Cincinnati Bengals (-3) vs. Dal – The Cowboys don’t match up very well with the surging the Bengals. Look for Cincy’s D to make life miserable for Romo and Co. at home.

3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-7.5) vs. Phi – The Eagles are racing towards a top 5 NFL Draft pick. The Bucs will roll in this one.

4. Baltimore Ravens (+2.5) vs. Was – See Money Line Bet.

The Rest

Arizona Cardinals (+10.5) vs. Sea – John Skelton scares nobody, but he’s competent enough to put some points on the board while the defense keeps this game within 10.

Cleveland Browns (-6.5) vs. KC – The Chiefs rallied a week ago to pull off the small upset vs. the Panthers. The Browns will show this week that that was an aberration.

St. Louis Rams (+3) vs. Buf – This game will be close throughout and the Rams have a decent chance to pull off the mini upset.

Money Line Bet

Baltimore Ravens (+120) vs. Was – The Skins have won three in a row – all vs. the NFC East – and RGIII is on fire. Their last win was an emotional one over the New York Giants on Monday Night.

The Ravens lost a heated game vs. hated rival Pittsburgh and will get back into the win column on Sunday. We think it’ll be hard for Washington to carry that emotion over to another game and they’re ripe for a letdown.

Today’s game vs. Tampa Bay represents the 1st of three big tests for the Cowboys. After Tampa, they get the Giants in New York and the Redskins in Washington. There’s an outside chance they’ll have QB Tony Romo back for the Redskins game, which is after the bye, but realistically, this team is staring 4-6 right in the face. And if they do fall to two games under .500, things will get very ugly in down in Big D.

They’d be two games behind the Redskins (at the very least) with two head-to-head losses, and with its loss to NY, they’d fall even further behind the division leaders while Philly, sitting at 3-3, is now heading into its easy part of the schedule and has the ability to make some headway with Westbrook back in the fold.

Unfortunately for Jerry Jones, who recently mortgaged the near future to get WR Roy Williams in an attempt to solidify this team’s chances at a Super Bowl, things are looking very bleak… almost as bleak and the US economic situation. While the US is waiting for the bailout to take effect, everyone in Dallas is waiting for their own “bailout” to take effect in the form of Tony Romo returning.

When reports surface that he’s out until mid-November minimum, we don’t think they’re false. If they rush Romo back, they risk losing their star QB for the rest of the season if he damages that pinkie further, so it’s better to take their chances for at least the next two games to see what transpires before calling #9′s number. If the team does end up 4-5, they’ll have no choice but to expedite Romo’s return to try and salvage the season.

So as the Cowboys head into Sunday’s game, don’t look at this match-up as just another game at the midpoint of the season, which oh by the way is vs. a very tough, disciplined team. For Dallas, it’s virtually a do or die situation because if they lose, which we think will happen, they’ll sit at 4-4 with two scary match-ups on the horizon. And should they lose both of those games to fall to 4-6, they’ll put themselves in a near impossible position of trying to overcome a huge deficit to earn a post season berth.

That’s why today’s game is big. Much bigger than for most at this junction in the season.