This week on the Fantasy Underground podcast (also available on iTunes), Field Yates and I talked about Drew Brees, Jimmy Graham, Pierre Garcon, Vick Ballard, Montell Owens and the impact of Cam Cameron's firing. I also gave a list of five overvalued players for 2013. Here are 10 other topics:

Five In Depth

1. Ten Downfield WRs. Fourteen weeks into the season, a fantasy analyst has to have a foot in two camps: sizing up the changing December landscape to help those still alive in their playoffs and looking ahead.

For me, a methodology that works on both levels is analyzing wideout target characteristics. Which wide receivers are getting the most looks down the field, and has that changed lately? Big plays can be the lifeblood of big fantasy upsets, as anyone who has been riding the Cecil Shorts bandwagon knows well.

Here are the 10 players who have seen the most targets that have traveled more than 20 yards in the air and their success rates on those throws:

Seeing both Tampa Bay Buccaneers wideouts in the top five is most illustrative. Josh Freeman has taken many big shots, a philosophy that offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan brought over from Eli Manning and the New York Giants. If we want to get a clue about Wallace's disappointing season, it comes in the form of a poor conversion rate on deep throws; the Pittsburgh Steelers' deep threat had only 22 such targets in 16 games last season, so the notion that Todd Haley won't call the deep ball seems misguided. I should also note that Larry Fitzgerald is 13th on the list of targets that travel more than 20 yards but that he has caught only one such target. One-for-20! Think those Arizona Cardinals quarterbacks have struggled?

Now let's look at the past three weeks to get a sense of who is potentially getting hot down the field lately, since all NFL teams have finished with their bye weeks:

There's another look at Fitz's futility and proof that Megatron eats deep double coverage for a midday snack. How about Lance Moore getting lost deeper in coverages lately, perhaps as compensation for Jimmy Graham's struggles? Rice is avoiding concussions after big hits and beginning to look like the guy Brett Favre used to such great downfield effect in 2009. Plus, for all the deep speed T.Y. Hilton has, Avery is getting more downfield use lately, though he'd do better if he didn't let long passes carom off his facemask, as he did in Week 14.

2. Why I Have Faith in Stevan Ridley. Believe me, I don't like it any more than you. I'm programmed to mistrust Bill Belichick (and, for that matter, Mike Shanahan) when it comes to running backs. Sunday night's matchup against the San Francisco 49ers presents a nasty challenge to the New England Patriots running game. Can Ridley really continue his stellar fantasy play against one of the NFL's roughest front sevens?

In a word: Yes. And this is absolutely not about me disrespecting the Niners D. It has consistently been rough on opposing rushers. By my metrics, it has held opposing backs below their average fantasy-point outputs in each of the past four contests; you have to go back to Week 10 and Steven Jackson's surprise 101-yard, one-TD output at Candlestick to find a running back who outdid his moving average.

No, this is more about believing in -- or being suckered by, depending on your perspective -- the Pats' commitment to running and to Ridley. He is not a breakaway runner and depends on volume to get on a roll, but Ridley is a powerful slasher who reminds me of a later-career Corey Dillon (i.e., without the top-end speed). Ridley's matchup Monday night against the Houston Texans was also supposed to be Kryptonite, and he didn't sweat much, racking up 72 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries. The game was out of reach early, and Ridley didn't have a carry after the 7:23 mark of the fourth quarter.

Heck, the Pats have faced some pretty decent run defenses lately, and it hasn't affected Ridley:

My defensive ranks involve how good a defense is at preventing an opposing rusher from reaching his average fantasy-point output over the past five weeks; by that measure, I have the 49ers at No. 6. From a top-level perspective, they're a greater challenge than anyone on this game log except Houston, so I understand my fellow ESPN.com rankers' skepticism when it comes to Ridley. But I think back to the BenJarvus Green-Ellis days in New England, when a short touchdown was in the offing just about every week. There just aren't enough safe running back options around the league to sit Ridley, a player who benefits from a huge workload and a high-octane, TD-crazy offense, just like the Law Firm used to do.

3. The Decline of the Receiving RB? We have to be careful not to build a one-year phenomenon into a permanent trend, as I discussed last week in regard to elite quarterbacks becoming must-draft first-rounders. But the numbers -- and the "sniff test" -- indicate that 2012 hasn't been a good one for the top pass-catchers out of the backfield. Take the top 10 receiving running backs of last season. Every one of them is on pace to see fewer targets in 2012:

I'll admit the cases of Sproles, McCoy, MJD and Stewart require special analysis because of injuries. Sproles was on pace for 119 targets before he broke a bone in his wrist, and McCoy was on pace for 80 targets before his concussion. However, MJD and Stewart were on pace for lesser receiving seasons even before they got hurt, which would have made 8-of-10 "decliners" on this list (7-of-9 if the retired Tomlinson is removed).

In addition, when you look at this year's top 10 receiving running backs, the raw totals at each slot are lower than their previous season's equivalent:

In other words, seven of 2012's 10 top running backs in terms of pass targets are on pace for lower target totals than the man who finished at their equivalent rank last season.

A league-wide calculation of how many passes have been thrown to running backs is no less illustrative. The NFL is on pace to have 3,206 passes thrown to backs this year. According to research I did using Stats LLC's database, that would be the lowest total in the NFL since 1992. Granted, last season's number was 3,301 targets, which means we've seen "only" a 3 percent drop in a calendar year. But looking at the historical data, you see that throughout the '90s it was common to have 3,800 or 3,900 passes thrown to running backs. Even throughout the '00s, that number was typically in the 3,500 region. So for however pass-happy today's NFL is, there's actually been a radical downturn in the number of passes thrown to running backs in recent years, and that downturn hit a 20-year low this season. That's something to keep in mind as we evaluate elite receiving RBs this December and into the future.

4. Tight Ends Are the New Kickers. Last week in...