Posted by Christopher Harris
The Seahawks offense suffered a blow during the team's preseason game Friday when starting wideout Bobby Engram suffered a broken bone in his shoulder. Engram is expected to miss six to eight weeks and is out for the season's first two games, and perhaps as many as the first four. Also, because he's 35 years old, he's no clear bet to regain his full speed and game shape immediately.
In the Seahawks' version of the West Coast offense, Engram is the current go-to guy: He caught 94 passes last year, 44 more than anyone else on the team, and posted the first 1,000-yard season of his career. With Deion Branch out for a good portion of the season because of the ACL he tore in the playoffs last season, Seattle was counting on Engram to be a starter in the flanker spot. And while that still may be the case later in the year, someone else is going to get a chance Week 1. Engram ranked 33rd in ESPN.com's fantasy receiver rankings before this injury; now he has to be downgraded to between 45th and 50th. He's still draftable, but including the Seahawks' Week 4 bye, there just seems to be little reason to expect that Engram will play in the season's first month.
So who benefits? Nate Burleson was already a starter, but he elevates to the team's No. 1 receiver. Courtney Taylor and Ben Obomanu had been duking it out for the No. 3 job; now one of them is likely to be an opening day starter. Mike Holmgren told the Tacoma News Tribune that Taylor would step into Engram's spot for the moment, but the situation has to be considered fluid. And since the team is often in three-receiver mode no matter what the down and distance, both guys could have some fantasy value, as could 2007 practice squad player Logan Payne.
Finally, one wonders whether this possibly affects the fantasy value of quarterback Matt Hasselbeck. Engram has been his security blanket in recent years, and Hasselbeck's struggles in '06 (quarterback rating of 76.0, compared to 98.2 in '05 and 91.4 in '07) could be traced in part to Engram's health problems that year (he was diagnosed with Graves' disease). We still have Hasselbeck jumbled in the same fantasy tier as Carson Palmer, Derek Anderson, Donovan McNabb and Jay Cutler, but I wouldn't feel like I had to reach for him if I needed a quarterback as my draft went along. He's going to miss Engram (and Branch) a lot.
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