After the relentless carnage of the first two weeks, last Sunday was pretty light when it comes to devastating injuries. The biggest names to go down were Dennis Pitta and Kyle Rudolph. Losing them means huge blows to their real-life offenses, with the Minnesota Vikings in particular getting hurt the worst. In a span of two weeks, Minnesota has gone from having three legitimate offensive playmakers to one. But for fantasy purposes, odds are your rosters are relatively unscathed compared to the ravaging they took last week. So with a quiet week on the injury front, I want to take this opportunity to talk about people who complain about their fantasy fortunes. It's a well-known fact that nobody besides you cares about your fantasy team, but if you get slapped with some seriously horrible luck, I'll indulge you by listening as you blow off steam. That's fine. What I'm tired of is the totally unwarranted complaining. After the Week 2 matchups, someone in my coworkers league had the gall to come up to me and complain that he got nothing out of Greg Jennings. Really, dude? You made a conscious choice to start Matt Cassel's third favorite receiving target, and you have the nerve to say you were unlucky when such a safe decision didn't pan out? This week, I faced off against another coworker. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call him Jonathan. He spent an entire Sunday visibly angry at me because I was beating him and benefitting from his "bad luck," because he left Knile Davis and his 17 points on the bench, while I got decent production out of my decision to start Alfred Blue . Seriously, bro? Blue was getting the start on a run-heavy offense and against a defense that's been porous against the run and was missing its starting middle linebacker. Meanwhile, Davis was listed as a top-10 running back on every website. The moral of the story is that while fantasy football is cruel and evil and designed to smash all of your hopes and dreams into rubble, your choices do make a difference. Learn to separate the bad luck from the bad decisions. Starting LeSean McCoy and only getting two points while Fred Jackson scored 17 on your bench is bad luck. Leaving a top-10 running back on the pine is your fault. Here's my advice: Look back on your first three weeks, identify where bad luck killed you and where you should have made a better decision. Learn from your mistakes. Cold, heartless fate will do everything it can to ruin your fantasy season. Don't help it along. Now, onto the barometer. QUARTERBACKS Aaron Rodgers (Week 3 at Detroit: 162 yards, TD): The weak showing at Seattle was understandable, but with two duds three weeks into the season, some owners might find themselves concerned. This paragraph is just to remind you that the fantasy season is a marathon, not a sprint, and there's no real reason to be concerned about the relatively slow start Rodgers is having. Don't let a couple of rusty road performances against good pass defenses blind you to the fact that Rodgers has been nothing short of an absolute monster for six years and counting. Hold strong if you've got him, and try to buy if you sense any weakness from his owner. Rodgers -- Start With Confidence Matthew Stafford (Week 3 vs. Green Bay: 246 yards, 3 turnovers): Blech. That was brutal. Also, Stafford doesn't inspire the kind of blind faith that the guy described above does. Over the last two seasons, Stafford has reliably put up a high volume of passing yards, but the overall sloppy efficiency means it isn't a given that he'll be an elite fantasy quarterback in 2014. I'm not confident enough in him to view him as a clear buy-low candidate, but I am confident in my belief that the New York Jets have a terrible passing defense. Stafford is an easy recommendation as a top 10 play for next week's trip to MetLife Stadium. Stafford -- Start RUNNING BACKS Alfred Blue (Week 3 at Giants: 13 carries, 78 yards, 1 reception, 10 yards): It is shocking, shocking, that Arian Foster wasn't able to go on Sunday. You mean to tell me that giving 55 handoffs in the first two weeks to a 28-year old running back with years of hamstring issues turned out to be an unsustainable workload? Get out. Given the start, Blue did a decent job, although the majority of his yards came on one 48-yard trot. Late in the game, Blue was given the ball on the 1-yard line. He was stopped and Ryan Fitzpatrick eventually (and annoyingly) scored the touchdown himself, but it's encouraging to see Blue get a goal line opportunity. There isn't really much to say here. Blue has no starter value if Foster is healthy, and he's proven himself to be competent enough to be a quality RB2/flex when Foster can't go. Throw in a waiver claim, because Foster's hamstring could give out again at any time. Blue -- Add Joe McKnight (Week 3 at Miami: 2 rushing yards, 6 receptions, 64 yards, 2 TD): Move along, nothing to see here. Well, okay, that's not entirely true. McKnight himself doesn't have any real fantasy value going forward, especially as soon as Jamaal Charles comes back, but this performance did shine a light on some hilariously incompetent defensive coordination from Miami. Coordinator Kevin Coyle's baffling coverage decisions, which allowed McKnight to score his first- and second-ever career offensive touchdowns, have Dolphins players on the verge of a mutiny. On some level it's kind of impressive that Miami's annual widely reported organizational dysfunction happened a full two months ahead of schedule this year. Regardless, don't read into this performance as the arrival of a new star in McKnight. His 18 fantasy points had much more to do with Miami than him. McKnight -- Ignore Lorenzo Taliaferro (Week 3 at Cleveland: 91 yards, TD): This was a strong performance that made a good case for continued involvement in the backfield from Taliaferro. He isn't a lock to become a quality fantasy starter in the future, since Justin Forsett and his 6.3 yards per carry will continue to very deservedly get 10-15 touches a week, and Bernard Pierce may still get a steady diet of work when he comes back, because Baltimore's coaching staff loves him for reasons I can't even begin to understand. But still, there's enough potential here to make Taliaferro a player who should be owned in more than 95 percent of leagues by the time waivers process. If coach John Harbaugh changes course and pulls the plug on Pierce as his starter, Taliaferro immediately becomes a solid flex play in 12-team leagues. Taliaferro -- Add WIDE RECEIVERS Demaryius Thomas (Week 3 at Seattle: 4 receptions, 31 yards, 2-pt conversion): Richard Sherman spent the vast majority of the afternoon just absolutely torturing people who own Thomas. After an offseason of having Sherman crammed down our collective throats by the media, and the annoying aftermath of Week 2 in which Sherman was "exposed" because he allowed three entire receptions for modest gains, it was enjoyable to block out all of the off-field nonsense and just watch an elite cornerback shut down an elite receiver. For the people who drafted Thomas as the second receiver off the board, however, this was a very frustrating day. After three underwhelming weeks, Thomas has a Week 4 bye and a difficult Week 5 matchup against Arizona. It could be Week 6 before his owners finally start getting what they paid for. Honestly, I don't know what's up with Thomas, and I don't know why Peyton Manning has decided that he wants Julius Thomas to score 7 million touchdowns this year, but I refuse to believe that this trend will continue. He's the best receiver Manning has ever had, and a bye week to work out the kinks will work wonders. His owners (such as myself in two leagues) are undoubtedly frustrated, so do what you can to buy low. Dude had 24 touchdowns and more than 2,800 yards over the last two seasons. He can't possibly continue to suck. Buy Low Vincent Jackson (Week 3 at Atlanta: 2 receptions, 15 yards, TD): Were it not for Jackson getting away with pushing off for a garbage time touchdown in what will now be known as "The Worst Football Game Ever Played" last Thursday, he would currently be sitting on nine total standard league points through three games. Anyone who drafted him knew what they were getting into in terms of inconsistent production, but this is ridiculous. The problem here is that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are grossly incapable of executing anything that even vaguely resembles a professional offense. If Vincent Jackson were on the level of someone like Calvin Johnson or A.J. Green , he would still be able to produce strong fantasy numbers despite being surrounded by junk. Unfortunately, Jackson is merely pretty good, and pretty good is not enough to transcend Tampa Bay's disaster of an offense. Some writers have him pegged as a premier buy low candidate, but I'm not one of them. Because of name recognition, his owners will continue to treat him as a WR2. If you have him, I would recommend keeping him on the pine until we see enough offensive competence to sustain fantasy production. Jackson -- Bench