In the old days, many, many decades ago, beanies were a popular type of hat that men would wear.  Unless you are over seventy (shout out to all my senior readers), you have probably never owned a beanie.  However, there’s a new kind of beanie that football fans know about nowadays and it’s not an article of clothing-- it’s the starting running back for the Arizona Cardinals!  Ladies and gentleman, Beanie Wells is your Surprise Fantasy Football Star of the Week!

Big Beanie has done exceptional in every game he’s played in this year, but he’s not getting any respect from most fantasy football experts this week.

Beanie’s Fantasy RB Rankings for Week 5:
Sports Illustrated: 18th
ESPN: 11th
NFL.com: 10th

Are you kidding me?  Take a look at his numbers!  The Man Formerly Know As Chris deserves to be ranked in the top five until a bad game proves otherwise.

Week 1: 90 rushing yards, 6 receiving yards, 1 TD
Week 2: 93 rushing yards, 12 receiving yards, 1 TD
Week 4: 138 rushing yards, 3 TDs

Beanie missed Week 3 with a hamstring injury and was a game-time decision for Week 4.  Well, he played, and he ran, ran, ran against the G-Men, receiving 27 carries.  He’ll get a ton of opportunities again this week and that pesky hamstring injury will be even less of a problem.

This week, the Cardinals play the 0-4 Minnesota Vikings.  Despite the fact that the Vikings have as many NFL victories as you do, their run defense is pretty good.  In fact, they’re ranked 5th in the league, allowing 76.2 yards per game on the ground.  The Cardinals 2009 first round draft pick isn’t scared.  In Week 2, he had an average of 6.6 yards per carry against the Redskins, the 6th ranked run defense.  The Vikings aren’t going to have an easy time dealing with him.

Bet on Beanie-- he won’t let you down.

Prediction: 101 rushing yards, 10, receiving yards, 2 TDs

Last week in Surprise Fantasy Football Star of the Week…
I predicted a monster performance from Daniel Thomas.  When it was announced that he wasn’t going to play, I went to my back-up pick, Felix Jones.  Mega Fail!  I should’ve known it was dumb to choose a running back that shares his name with a cartoon cat.
Picks for SFFSOTW (there’s an acronym for you) in 2011:
Week 1: Cedric Benson
Week 2: Shonn Greene
Week 3: Ryan Mathews
Week 4: Daniel Thomas/Felix Jones

Look, it’s a pattern!  Every other week, I’m right.  Wow, this definitively proves that Beanie will have a monster outing!  (Except I plan on being right this week AND then next week too, so that would break the pattern.)

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The views and content in this article are not necessarily the opinion of Fantasy Football Champs, www.FFChamps.com, and its in-house experts.