Al Behrman / AP Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer (9) and star receiver Chad Johnson start their season Monday against the Ravens, which had one of the best defenses last season.

Last year in Week 7, the Colts went into Denver to face a Broncos defense that gave up two TDs the first six weeks of the season. My advice was to expect Peyton Manning to perform well because, while we know he's great, we could not yet know whether the Denver defense was truly great or whether its dominance to date was a small-sample-size fluke.

As you may remember, Manning sliced up the Denver defense that last week in October more coldly and cruelly than Michael Myers in all the Halloween sequels, prequels and remakes combined. He finished 32 for 39 for 345 yards and three TD passes in the Colts 34-31 win.

This week, the Cincinnati Bengals and Carson Palmer play at home against the Ravens. In the most recent Pro Football Prospectus, writer Bill Barnwell says the Bengals will very likely struggle offensively because the Ravens defense was so good last year. He more specifically advises that fantasy league players bench the highly coveted Palmer and presumably the similarly valued Chad Johnson (WR), T.J. Houshmandzadeh (WR) and Rudi Johnson (RB).

He reasons that when a players face the defenses most highly ranked at the end of the year, their performance declines appreciably. According to Barnwell, second-tier QBs, RBs and WRs generally perform better against low-ranked defenses than their first-tier brethren do against top-ranked defenses.

There's nothing earth-shattering about that observation, assuming we know who the great defenses are going to be at the end of the year. But if we didn't last year in Week 7, how can we this year in Week 1?

The statistics used by Barnwell are proprietary and too complicated to describe here. Let's approximate them by looking at the defenses that allowed the least yards per pass (YPA, including sack yards) and yards per rush (YPR) over an entire season. How did they fair the next year?

Chicago and Baltimore are the only top 10 pass defenses from 2005 that repeated the feat in 2006. That may legitimize Baltimore's defense for 2007. But the Eagles, Bills, Jaguars and Raiders finished with a better YPA allowed last year than the Ravens. Do you bench Palmer and his receivers against them, too?

Also, note where some other top 10 pass defenses from 2005 finished in 2006: last (Redskins, 3rd in '05), 31st (Falcons from 8th), 16th (Steelers from 4th) and 14th (Broncos from 6th).

Performance seems more consistent in defending the run. Here, 6six of the top 10 of 2005 (YPR) finished top 10 again in 2006. But the Chargers fell to 20th, the Eagles to 24th and the Seahawks to 28th.

Finally, remember the Ravens finished 2005 second in pass defense (YPA allowed) and Palmer that year tossed five TD passes versus them and, in 2004 (when the Ravens again finished top 10), he threw for 382 yards and three more TDs versus them at home.

Let's get beyond matchups and look more closely at some of the summer's interesting players.

Buy

Ronnie Brown, RB, Dolphins: Does it get darkest before dawn or, as my grandfather said, before it gets utterly, hopelessly black? I can't buy Jesse Chatman (inactive since 2005) as a threat to Brown's playing time. The talent that made him the No. 2 overall pick sits in the discount bin.

Vince Young, QB, Titans: Getting no respect in nationwide fantasy drafts. But he'll run for eight TDs and throw 16-20 more if he stays healthy. He didn't have the supporting cast at Texas, either.

Hold

Randy McMichael, TE, Rams: He didn't catch a pass this preseason. But I've never seen more vanilla August offenses or cameos by starters than this preseason. I put the over/under still at 60 catches.

Sell

Devery Henderson, WR, Saints: Everyone's favorite WR sleeper is fighting with journeyman David Patten for the No. 2 job next to Marques Colston.

D.J. Hackett, WR, Seahawks: Fantasy leaguers love him but Mike Holmgren doesn't seem so sure, as Nate Burleson is in the starting mix next to Deion Branch.

Kevin Jones, RB, Lions: His Lis Franc foot injury typically requires a full-year recovery. He'll try to play three months short of that. He's on the active roster, but don't expect much of anything until mid-October.

— Michael Salfino is a veteran fantasy football writer whose team and player performance analysis has appeared on Yahoo!, in USA Today's Sports Weekly and numerous newspapers nationwide.