I have a personal investment in the place Jamaal Charles ends up on 2012 fantasy football rankings, even though I'm covering the St. Louis side of Saturday night's Rams vs. Chiefs showdown: I drafted him with a Top 5 pick last year. So as little as I care about the Kansas City Chiefs' running game as a whole—I didn't vote for Peyton Hillis in that Madden contest—I do need to know, out of morbid curiosity, where Charles goes in fantasy football in 2012.
As it turns out, that could have a lot to do with his performance in Saturday's preseason game. Charles got just four touches in last week's Chiefs preseason opener, and while he looked great in them we're reaching the point in August when fantasy leagues start to schedule their drafts and casual fans start to frantically search the internet for fantasy football draft cheat sheets.
Right now WalterFootball, for example, has Charles ranked ninth overall. A sluggish game vs. the Rams could knock him down the list in favor of someone with two fresh ACLs. As for the Rams, their lone fantasy football option, Steven Jackson, could also benefit from a strong performance—he's well outside the Top 10 in their list, thanks mostly to worries that he's about to fall off a cliff.