Its nearing the beginning of August and for fantasy football fans, this means one thing. The Draft is about to begin. Last year, it seemed like the top 5 picks were pretty set. The first would be LaDainian Tomlinson followed by Shaun Alexander, you'd have Edgerrin James in the mix along with maybe Peyton Manning and for the hell of it, we'll throw in Randy Moss. How one season changes everything.

Looking at the draft that is ahead of us, it looks as though the Top-5 picks will be nothing but Running Backs. With outstanding season from Shaun Alexander, Larry Johnson, Tiki Barber, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Edgerrin James, you have to ask yourself "If I get the #1 pick, who will I choose?". Well, trust me Fantasy players, you're definately not alone on this one as, this thought is crossing every last fantasy players mind. I am going to try to break down the Top-5 in order as to who I would pick with with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th pick in the draft.

The name alone gives defensive coaches and players nightmares. He has ankle breaking cuts as well as the power and speed to back it up. Not only does he present the option to just pitch him the ball when the team is in need for some much needed yardage and points when it seems all else has failed, he can play the position of reciever or even quarterback just as effectively. Last season, LT put up staggering numbers, even though he was cursed with an injury here or there as the season came to an end. LT had 1,832 yards with 22 TD's when it came to his running attack as well as his recieving attack. Not to mention a 153.1 QB rating as he completed 3 out of 4 passes for 47 yards and 3 touchdowns.

If Tomlinson has the ball, you can be pretty sure that the result of the play is going to turn into a touchdown.

It's hard to find any negatives about this guy but one that sticks out is, the fact that he has his hands on the ball so much, it seems that he would be more prone to injuries. We saw a little bit of that last year in a 4 game stretch where he was held to very little yards and no scores as the season was ending. Could this present itself this year as, the Chargers will be relying on him heavily to take some pressure off of new quarter back Phillip Rivers? Only time will tell.

What more can you say about this guy's 2005 season? Not only did he run for 1,880 yards, but he set a new NFL record with 28 Touchdowns in a single season. Shaun Alexander displayed last year that, not only can you rely on him to score when he is needed, he can score multiple times in a game and you can damn well rely on him making it look good when he does it. Shaun Alexander is the type of running back that you want when you have one of the best offensive lines in the game. He goes out there, he gets handed the ball and he makes things happen.

With Alexander, he doesn't pose much of a threat when it comes to the element of surprise. Earlier in his career, he seemed to be a bit more of a threat when it came to the recieving part of his game but as he started to rack up more yards out of the backfield, the recieving yards seemed to go away. Last season, Alexander only had 78 yards recieving. So, this might be something to think about when looking at who to pick with your Top-3 pick. Also, the curse of the Madden cover is in full effect. Alexander will be gracing the cover of Madden 2007 and as we all know, the curse has yet to be proven wrong. Keep that in mind also.

Larry Johnson did what a select few thought he could do last year - He tore the league a part when Priest Holmes went down. Me being one of those select few, gets to laugh at all the haters but, that will be in a different article. Last year, Larry Johnson basically slapped the NFL in the face and said "There is a new top running back in the league and his name happens to be Larry Johnson". While everyone was wondering if Shaun Alexander was going to pass Priest Holmes single season touchdown record, Larry Johnson was going to see if he could beat the same record only, in 9 starts. Johnson had a total of 1,750 rushing yards with another 373 yards recieving for a total of 2093 yards with 21 scores. And he did all of that with only 9 starts. While it can be argued that he did play in the games previous, he didn't begin to flourish until Holmes went down to a brutal season ending hit layed on him by Shawn Merriman. Johnson, in his 9 starts, had over 150 total yards in every one of his games not to mention the couple of 200+ yard games he had. Johnson definately showed that he need to be looked at in all fantasy leagues as one if not the top back in the draft.

He's young, talented, fresh, and more than anything, he's hungry to be the starting running back for the Kansas City Chiefs. He will get his chance this year. The only negative that fantasy teams need to look at is, you can't go back on his past playing experience and decide if he is worthy of the #1 pick in the draft as, he had one outstanding season. Beings he is fairly new to the NFL (this will be his 4th season, his first as a starter), you must take that into consideration and really choose if you want to take him apposed to someone like Shaun Alexander or Tomlinson who have showed their dominance in the league now for 5+ years.

Edgerrin James, along with all the running backs above, proved how dominant he was last year and how much of an asset he is to his team. Contributing a total of 1,843 yards last season with 14 total touchdowns, James showed that he was one of the reasons that the Colts went undefeated for 13 games in a row. Imposing his will on the other team, James shows that you will have to fight even harder than he is in order to take him down and that an arm tackle just won't do the trick. Running Backs like this are key to their team and this makes fantasy owners very happy knowing if its 4th and goal from the 1 yard line and they have someone like James in the backfield, chances are they are going to go for the score instead of the field goal.

Of course we all know, Edgerrin James is no longer with the Colts and has moved across the country to Arizona where he will be taking over as the starting running back for the Cardinals. He goes to a team that was ranked 32nd, the worst in the NFL , in their rushing attack and he hopes he will be able to contribute to that. But whenever a great player goes to another team, you have take into consideration that he will be learning a new system with new players and new coaches. Will James be the running back he was just a year ago or will the slacking offensive line of the Cardinals be enough to stop the always dominant running back? Only time will tell.

In my opinion, those 5 will be the likely choices for the Top-5 picks in everyone's Fantasy Football leagues. Its some stiff competition but, I wouldn't mind getting any one of those guys as, they are going to likely be HUGE contributers this season to both their NFL teams as well as any Fantasy Team they land on.