Tim Hightower was almost benched Week 3 for Ryan Torain
Alex Dunlap, Rosterwatch.com 

As I predicted in the preseason, the headaches are beginning for Fantasy Football owners of Redskins running backs.

Mike Shanahan (who has historically been a nightmare for fantasy football owners of his running backs) is back up to his old tricks. He told the media Late Friday that they were ready to pull starting RB Tim Hightower in the third quarter of Monday Night’s loss to Dallas. If not for the productive drive resulting in a short TD reception to Hightower, Ryan Torain would have made his first entrance of the 2011 season. He went on to say he “has a lot of belief in Ryan Torain” who was last season’s leading rusher for the Redskins.

Obviously, fantasy football owners of Tim Hightower should take notice of this. The thought coming into the season was that Hightower was the starter, and that rookie Roy Helu and Torain would end up fighting it out for the garbage-time scraps of PT. But that has not been the case. Hightower owners have been pleased to see that their later round pick has seemingly cemented a true workhorse role in a much improved Redskins offense. So much so that Torain has not even gotten into a game yet. Roy Helu has looked fantastic at times, and the clear sentiment was that the pecking order went Hightower, Helu, Torain.

Now this. Classic Skeletor-han. He said he was upset that Tim Hightower kept “slipping….losing his feet.” Out of the blue, Ryan Torain has now entered the conversation. Hightower owners who do not already have the Roy Helu handcuff should strongly consider making a prospective add of Ryan Torain. When healthy (which is rare), he has proven he can be more than just effective. He has also never gotten to play in a system that has a decent shot of getting to an early lead which paves the way to a clock-control ground game late.

Don’t freak out and sell on Hightower if you own him, but realize that this is now a situation you will have to be monitoring. No more free rides on the ShannyCoaster of Fantasy Doom. I can’t believe it took 3 games for the ride to open up. Normally it’s open for business through the entire pre-season.