Following up on the last post about rankings, here are ESPN’s projections for this week. They think Rashard Mendenhall will have 16 fantasy points, while Ben Roethlisberger will have 14. I expect a pretty run-heavy offense against the Panthers, so that makes some sense. They have the Steelers’ defense pegged for 14 points, which is a lot for a defense, but which I think might actually be a bit conservative since, as ESPN’s blurb points out, opposing defenses have actually averaged over 12 points per game against Carolina.
Mike Wallace and Hines Ward come in right after that with 12 points and ten, respectively, which I think might be a little high, given Emmanuel Sanders’ emergence in the offense and the fact that this shouldn’t be a terribly pass-centric game. It is reasonable to think that Wallace and Ward could both score tonight, however.