Josh McCown: 2013 Fantasy Football Dark Horse Sleeper

Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

They call it the bye week blues for a reason. Week seven only had two teams, the Oakland Raiders and New Orleans Saints on bye, leaving fantasy football owners of Terrelle Pryor and Drew Brees going with their second stringers. Weeks eight and nine have six teams each on bye, including some of the offensive juggernauts of the league like the San Diego Chargers, Indianapolis Colts, Chicago Bears (week eight), Denver Broncos and Detroit Lions (week nine).

This past weekend, Bears quarterback Jay Cutler left the game with a groin injury and reports from the Windy City are that Cutler has a torn groin and will be out at least four weeks. Backup quarterback Josh McCown came in and played well, completing 14-20 passes for 204 yards, 33 rushing yards and a touchdown en route to about 16.5 fantasy points in slightly more than half of a game.

McCown is an obvious downgrade from Cutler in terms of talent, but should be on your radar in two quarterback leagues, especially if you have bye weeks coming. Coach Marc Trestman’s offense is very quarterback friendly with emphasis on quick short to mid range passes. With the Bears on week eight bye, then the Monday night game week nine at the Green Bay Packers, McCown has two weeks to get up to speed with the first teamers. The Packers are allowing the seventh most fantasy points to quarterbacks, sixth most to wide receivers, fifth most to tight ends and McCown will still have Matt Forte, Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery to get the ball to in a game that could be relatively high scoring based on both teams soft defenses. In addition the Bears host the Lions (23rd in team defense) in week 10.

In single quarterback and shallow leagues McCown should not be on your radar. In deep or two quarterback leagues, I would still recommend starting a few other quarterbacks ahead of McCown like Pryor (32 percent owned in Yahoo! leagues) or Ben Roethlisberger (56 percent) if possible. If not, McCown could be worth a flyer in a bye week crunch as a low end QB2.

As always, I welcome your comments. If you think I’m wrong, I’m willing to listen. Just back it up with some facts and solid evidence. Thanks for reading and good luck this season.

Dustin Manko is an author at Rant Sports.com. Follow him on Twitter @DustinManko, ”Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google