2010 Fantasy Football Draft Tips - Players to Beware Of

In the 2010 NFL season, there are a number of players that are a question mark for fantasy football owners. A former NFL fantasy football stud can be less than satisfactory coming off a serious injury or off-season surgery. Here are five players to keep an eye on during preseason before making the decision to draft them onto your 2010 fantasy football team.

Wes Welker - The New England Patriots wide receiver was a fantasy goldmine to anyone who owned him the last three seasons. Luckily, for his 2009 owners, he did not go down until Week 17 in a game that meant nothing for the Patriots. He had to have surgery to repair his ACL and MCL in his left knee as his Patriots fell in the playoffs without their big-game playmaker. Forget Randy Moss, it was Welker who averaged 116 catches and over 1200 yards over the last three years. He started 13 games in the first 16 weeks of the season and, in leagues that allow points-per-reception, averaged 22 fantasy points-per-game. While Welker plans to be ready for the start of the season, it takes awhile to recover from this injury. Watch him in preseason and during the Patriots camp and ask yourself if you are ready to take a chance on Welker for your fantasy football team after his horrendous injury.

Brandon Marshall - The former Denver Bronco malcontent finally got what he wanted. It took a year, but he finally followed the footsteps of his former teammate Jay Cutler and got out of the Mile High City. Marshall was traded to the Miami Dolphins and that should not give any fantasy football owner confidence. To add to the uncertainty, Marshall almost immediately underwent hip surgery. While the minor surgery may not be too much to worry about, his new team will be. Marshall averaged 102 catches, 1237 yards and 8 TDs per season over the last three years but only eclipsed 100 yards three times in 2009. If you eliminate those three games, Marshall only averaged five receptions for 51 yards-per-game, not the kind of numbers that will win many fantasy football games. With Chad Henne a work-in-progress and the Dolphins a run-first team, Marshall is not going to put up the monster stats you want from a starting wide receiver.

Ronnie Brown - Can this guy ever stay healthy? Brown is coming into training camp for the second time in three years following a season-ending injury. His 2009 season ended following a Lisfrane fracture and he will split time with Ricky Williams once again in the Dolphins backfield. Brown has never played a full NFL season, missing 25 games in his first five years in the league. With Brandon Marshall in town (see above), Brown's carries might be further diminished but his days as the powerhouse runner he was predicted to be might never come to pass (see: Veterans to drop in Fantasy Football (2010)).

Brett Favre - The Brett Favre Show has not been as lively as it was in recent years. The "will he" or "won't he" that he usually demands of the media has been tempered and the focus is instead on his offseason ankle surgery. Many pundits predict his surgery means he is coming back. So with that said, will he return or won't he? Who knows? What is known is that the Brett Favre in 2009 was much better than the Brett Favre in 2008 and that is thanks to Adrian Peterson, Percy Harvin and Sidney Rice. Out of those three players, Rice and Harvin are the ones who need Favre back the most. The problem is the fact that Favre is going to be 41 this year and he can't keep this up forever. The ankle surgery is also a sign that he might not want to keep playing in pain for much longer. Take a gamble on him as a backup but be careful if you expect him to be more than that.

T.J. Houshmandzadeh - A sport's hernia is nothing to take lightly. Look at how far Kevin Curtis fell thanks to his sport's hernia last year. Housh is returning from surgery on his sport's hernia and, with the upheaval of the Seattle Seahawks offense, he will be facing an uphill battle. Housh went to Seattle after eight years playing at Cincinnati and suffered his worst season since 2005 (79 receptions, 911 yards). If he played so poorly while healthy, imagine how he will struggle coming back from this surgery. A fantasy football owner can find many choices better on draft day then an older player coming back from injury on a bad team. He also has Golden Tate breathing down his neck.