Although Josh Reed is expected to return Sunday, the coaching staff believes Johnson has earned the right to continue getting playing time. He has more value than James Hardy, but hardly enough to warrant a late season pickup.

Johnson started on Monday and his performance makes Hardy's fantasy value negligible. If you are still holding onto him, it's time to let go.

Rideau's height (6-foot-3) is enticing, and he led the NFL in touchdown catches in the preseason with three, but he'll likely be used mostly on special teams and won't have much, if any, fantasy value.

Miller hadn't caught a pass since Week 8 as he missed two games due to an ankle injury. His health means he is once again an option for fantasy owners, though by no means a weekly must-start.

Houshmandzadeh was likely hurt by the absence of Chad Johnson, as Pittsburgh's defense could concentrate solely on him.

This certainly wasn't the kind of game most fantasy owners were expecting from Fast Willie. Mewelde Moore got 14 carries, picking up 56 yards, and was easily the more valuable of the backs on this night, as he also caught four passes for 41 yards.

Nobody really should have expected much more than this from Benson, especially against the Steelers' stout defense.

It was a snowy night and a sloppy field, so Pittsburgh dialed up more runs than throws. Roethlisberger has been dealing with a shoulder injury, but it hasn't seemed to bother him of late.

Furcal managed to appear in just 36 games last season before performing well in the playoffs. The 31-year-old shortstop hit .357 in the limited action, but it was his first season that he ever finished hitting over .300.

Walker was the Pirates first round pick in 2004 and batted .242 with 25 doubles, 16 home runs and 80 RBI for Class AAA Indianapolis this past season.

Nobody knows how good Viciedo can be but some believe he could compete for the White Sox starting third base job.

Marson has eight hits in his last ten games and has compiled an average of .324 this winter so far.

Romak is hitting just .227 in 18 games and has only one home run and six runs driven in.

Hodges is hitting .349 with six home runs and 29 RBI in 25 games. Some believe the third baseman might make the move to the majors this year.

Desmond started the AFL a little slow but has now gotten five hits in his last four games.

Brewer has had a hit in five straight games and is hitting .300.

Knicks' general manager Donnie Walsh originally drafted Harrington out of high school in 1998. In 10 seasons, he has averaged 13.0 points and 5.6 rebounds per game, including a career-best 18.6 ppg for Atlanta in 2005-06. Now he appears to be joining the league's top scoring offense but he is part of a logjam at forward that consists of Zach Randolph, David Lee, Wilson Chandler and the injured Jared Jeffries.

Martin underwent a second MRI recently that revealed no further problems, but his recovery is moving slowly. He has already missed six games and is a risky, at best, start for next week.

Kevin Martin and Francisco Garcia could both be out another week. Greene, who averaged 5.6 minutes in five games off the bench, played 35 minutes in his first NBA start. He scored 15 points, going 3 for 4 from three-point range.

Okue may still be a little bit rusty. He played 20 minutes in his first game back on Wednesday and managed just one point. However, with Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams out of the lineup, Okur will see plenty of opportunities on offense.

Boozer is off to a great start this season. The bright side of this news is that it is not his surgically repaired hamstring that will keep him out.

Williams has managed just two sub-par games this season and it looks like he could miss a few more games. Ronnie Price is starting in his place.

Prince was just 2-of-9 from the field as he did not attempt either a three-point shot or a free throw. This has been two below-average performances in a row by Prince, as he scored only 10 points his last game out.

Pierce has been having an excellent season, so fantasy owners should simply chalk this performance up to a difficult evening.

He did acknowledge that Salo does have a sore hamstring but did not feel that injury was very serious.

Nabokov, the team's star goalie, has missed the past six games because of an undisclosed lower-body injury suffered on the final play of a shootout victory over St. Louis on Nov. 6. He is 10-2 in 12 starts this season.

He is nursing an unspecified injury and apparently will be out until next week. He is an excellent source of wins, but his other stats are merely average.

Vaananen does not accomplish much from a fantasy standpoint. He'll rack up a handful of assists and penalty minutes, but little else.

Koivu is a up and coming star. He now has scored five goals and has 13 assists in 17 games this year.

Demitra has only played in 10 games this year but has racked up 10 points.

Sedin continues be a solid contributor. He now has eight goals and eight assists in 20 games.

Visnovsky is a solid fantasy option for defense. He now has four goals and seven assists to go along with 16 penalty minutes.

"The way that we ran tonight, I guess I'm glad that the season is over. We really struggled tonight, and that's not how I wanted this last race to go," Newman said.

Kenseth has been with the organization 11 years—which makes him the senior statesman.

The real test is going to be whether this momentum can survive the off-season. As talented as Roush-Fenway Racing is, we're betting on "yes."

Each driver returns to his roots in his own way and that often helps restore confidence.

Dodson was thrown from his car went if left the road near his home in Indiana; he was not wearing a seat belt.

Smith, along with Sam Hornish Jr., were the only two rookies to make it to the end of the season with his ride intact.

One thing fantasy owners will notice, however, is that teams like Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Racing are not listed among those scaling back massively—although they have each made small reductions. The disparity between the haves and have-nots continues to grow.

With the economy in shambles, belt-tightening is occurring everywhere.

Daly, a former British Open and PGA Championship winner now ranked No. 788 in the world, said he feels he is striking the ball well but is struggling for rhythm because he hasn't been able to qualify for consecutive tournaments. He has not had a PGA Tour card since 2006, when his two-year exemption expired from his last victory at the Buick Invitational in 2004. He made only five cuts in 17 starts on the PGA Tour this year and earned just over $56,000. Daly has also had a tumultuous year off the course, going through a divorce and spending a night in jail last month after being found "extremely intoxicated and uncooperative," police said, outside a Hooters restaurant in North Carolina.

Faldo was heavily criticized, especially in the European media, for some of his decisions in Europe's five-point loss to the United States at Valhalla in September. It was the first time since 1999 that Europe had lost the Ryder Cup. His players, however, have remained loyal. Colin Montgomerie, who was passed over by Faldo for a captain's pick in 2008, says Sandy Lyle should get the nod as captain in 2010. Montgomerie and Faldo have had a frosty relationship for the past several years. Darren Clarke, who was also passed over for a captain's pick by Faldo, agreed. "The days of doing a repeat captaincy are long gone," he said.

Cook, whose first of 11 PGA Tour victories occurred in the 1981 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach, played on the PGA Tour and Champions Tour in 2007 before joining the circuit for players age 50 and older this year. Defending champion Tommy Armour III, one of eight former event titlists in the field, had an opening-round 66, also at Del Monte. Former PGA Tour players Bubba Dickerson (Del Monte), the 2001 U.S. Amateur champion, and Brendon De Jonge (Spyglass Hill) trail Cook by five shots after shooting 67s. Dickerson and De Jonge both played on the Nationwide Tour in 2008. Jill McGill and Janice Moodie led seven LPGA entrants after both shot 68s at Del Monte. A Champions Tour player has never won the tournament. Juli Inkster, who edged Mark Brooks in 1990, is the only woman to win the event.

As a multiple champion -- he won the 1998 Buick Classic and 2002 John Deere Classic -- Hayes won't be limited in the number of sponsor's exemptions he can receive throughout the year. Based on the current prevailing feelings toward Hayes' ethical maneuver, don't be surprised if tournament sponsors are ringing his phone off the hook this week in hopes of lining him up as a special invite for their upcoming events. In fact, such an outreach could lead to a scenario in which Hayes is actually able to enter more tourneys than if he had simply swept the incident under the rug, continued on to the final stage of Q-school and qualified through those means.

Azinger, who turns 49 in January, is a 12-time PGA Tour winner who won the 1993 PGA Championship and played on four U.S. Ryder Cup teams. Two years ago, he was named captain for the matches at Valhalla, and accepted the job only upon the condition that there be changes to the team selection process. Azinger changed the points structure, and received four captain's selections (rather than two). He also came up with a team-building plan that divided the 12-man squad into three groups of four players who practiced and were paired together during the matches. The U.S. won for the first time since 1999 and only the second time in the past seven Ryder Cups.

The top five after the final round Friday will receive full exempt status for the 2009 season, while the next seven players will be conditionally exempt. In addition, the top 30 finishers and ties will be eligible to compete for spots in open qualifiers at all co-sponsored events.

No rookie had a better season than Romero, the Argentine who made the cut in all four majors (with top 10s in two of them) and finished 36th on the money list -- the highest of the rookie nominees. He also was the only rookie at THE TOUR Championship. It will be interesting to see whether players regard him as a pure rookie. Romero, 27, has played on the European Tour and nearly won the British Open last year at Carnoustie.

Love is the only winner among the candidates, at Disney World for his 20th career victory. He was recovering from ankle surgery that kept him out of golf for four months and out of contention until the final month of the season. All three of his top 10s came during the Fall Series. Limited by back injuries, Mediate lost a 19-hole playoff to Tiger Woods in the U.S. Open and had another top 10 at the Memorial to finish 74th on the money list, his best year since 2003. Hart missed most of last year during his wife's illness tending to his triplets, played this year on a family crisis extension and made it to THE TOUR Championship for the first time since 1999. He had six top 10s, including a runner-up finish at the BMW Championship, which enabled him to finish 12th in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup.