This season, the Chargers will give LaDainian Tomlinson the highest honor a team can bestow by retiring his number. Let's take a trip down memory lane and look back at his career in San Diego.

In the economic world, a "black swan event" is described as followed: a surprising event that has a major effect and can be rationalized after the fact as being predictable. Think in terms of the mortgage meltdown or the dot-com bust in the late 1990s. Both of these events when looked at in hindsight seemed pretty predictable -- housing prices weren't going to go straight up forever and having a .com after your name didn't ensure that you would be the next Microsoft. Let's apply this theory to fantasy football and see what the results are. I went back 20 years (and plan to go back farther) and looked at the best seasons on record. For the sake of this article, I will define a "black swan event" in fantasy football as when a player scores 25 percent more points than the next closest player. Position groups aren't factored in, so in order for it to qualify, the player has to put up 25 percent more than everybody. Before we proceed, take a minute to ponder how frequently you actually think this type of season occurs. The surprise aspect of the event doesn't necessarily mean that the player comes from obscurity to have a historic season. The players who have accomplished it definitely have the resumes to suggest that such a performance wasn't impossible. Obviously, the major effect would be leading a fantasy team to a championship based largely on the play of one guy. As far as rationalizing it with hindsight, we will delve farther into that once the black swans have been identified. In the past 20 years, there have been two seasons that have qualified to be called a "black swan event." Ironically, they occurred in back-to-back years. In LaDainian Tomlinson 's 2006 season, he outscored second place Larry Johnson by 27.8 percent. His 427 total points are the single most in this 20-year period. He put up more than 2,300 combined yards and had an unbelievable 33 touchdowns from the running back spot. Heck, two of those touchdowns were passes, proving that Tomlinson indeed do everything that year! This "black swan event" is even more impressive when you realize that this is based off a scoring system where quarterbacks are given six points for a passing touchdown. In the second black swan, it was Tom Brady who finished with 29.2 percent more points than the No. 2 guy that year, Tomlinson. Brady threw for more than 4,800 yards on the way to 52 total touchdowns and racked up 398 points. Unlike Tomlinson, Brady's performance wasn't the highest point total ...

Rocky IV is by far my favorite of the series. Any time it's on, I'm hooked. I can come in during the opening credits, or during one of the awesome 1980's montages, or during the entrances for the final fight. Doesn't matter. I'm all in until the very end. I always get chills. And I always feel a strange mixture of excitement and exhaustion when it's over. What's the point, you say? Well, I was watching that movie the other day when I noticed the way Rocky and Drago stood up for the 15th and final round, both bloody and battered, but refusing to quit. They stand in their corners for a moment, gasping for breath, and then stumble to the center of the ring, where Drago tells Rocky, "To the end." Well, that's us. We're all punch drunk, standing in our corners waiting for one more round to begin. If you're still alive at this point in the season, you're probably running on fumes. You're reading articles, injury updates and projections from multiple sites and news outlets. Take a breath. With no Thursday night game this week, you have either an extra few days to sort out your lineup or an extra few days to stress about your decisions. Let's move on to fantasy headlines from last week. Looking at the numbers, there are some guys you can trust this week, and there are others that may even be available on the waiver wire that you can either add to your starting lineup or just prevent your opponent from grabbing. Then, we'll discuss guys and matchups that may mean tough decisions for fantasy owners. Ryan Mathews has returned to form. Coming out of college, he was a highly-touted young back, and he was drafted as the heir apparent to future Hall of Famer LaDainian Tomlinson. He's shown flashes of the talent that made him the No. 12 pick in the 2010 draft, but he's also gone through some slumps in San Diego. On Thursday night, he ran all over the Denver Broncos to the tune of 29 carries for 127 yards and a score. It marked the second straight game that he'd topped the century mark, and also the second straight game he'd rushed 29 times. I was impressed that he could carry the ball that many times on a short week, but Mathews looked great in Denver. He's now topped the 1,000-yard mark, and he'll likely end up a second-, or at least third-, round pick next year. Kirk Cousins just took step one towards an offseason trade. On Sunday, he threw for 381 yards and three scores (with two interceptions), and he almost pulled off an impressive come-from-behind victory...

We're another week closer to training camp and things are finally starting to return to normal. Marcus Vick is somehow remaining relevant by posting tweets comparing his brother's past legal woes to the trial of George Zimmerman. It was revealed that two prominent Denver Broncos executives were arrested for driving under the influence. People are flipping out over Colin Kaepernick wearing a Miami Dolphins hat, but curiously there is nary a whisper of him being nude on the cover of ESPN's body issue. Robert Kraft, a self-made billionaire, claims he was duped by Aaron Hernandez. So, like I said, everything is back to normal. As normal as the NFL can be these days. This is the time of year for the pre-camp camps. The ones that get publicized by beat writers as confirmation of a player's dedication to the team. Getting an invite to Larry Fitzgerald's Minnesota campout is a great way to get ready for the upcoming season. Working with Fitzgerald has a track record of producing improved seasons for a large range of players. Fitzgerald always has a group of his teammates show up, naturally, but this year there are reports of a record high turnout of Arizona Cardinals. Fitzgerald's camp is so widely respected, it attracts players from other teams with this year's attendees being a few Jacksonville Jaguars and New England Patriots. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, we breathlessly wait to see if Geno Smith shows up for the pancake social at Mark Sanchez's "Jets West" pre-camp. While the players get ready for the season, we get ready to proudly call their names in a crowded room filled with sweaty men who treat a random Saturday like it's the tailgate of the Super Bowl. Dreams are made by making the correct selection. The fragility of your decision-making skills will produce tiny ulcers that fill the pit of your stomach and produce little beads of sweat on your forehead as you call out a name that you hope isn't chanted down in a chorus of laughter. We can only hope to be on the right side of the jeering and the only way to do that is by being prepared. Everything up to this point has been just talk and educated guessing. Once training camp kicks in, we get to see if what we have been reading and what we have been thinking is close to even being remotely true. Here are my top unanswered questions heading into training camp - Will Arian Foster emerge from his hyperbaric chamber as the fantasy stud we all know and love, or is this the beginning...

When doing draft preparation a large amount of focus should be used unearthing players that are undervalued. Winning a draft can be as easy as finding a few sleeper gems buried in the late rounds. But what about losing a draft? Losing a draft can happen just as easily with a few bad picks. Keeping your eye out for and avoiding overvalued players likely to "bust" can save you a lot of misery during the season. Some fantasy players allow "name value" to bias their picks causing them to reach for big name guys that have been fantasy staples for years. Some examples from last year included Chad Ochocinco, LaDainian Tomlinson and Thomas Jones. By ignoring name recognition you can see these players for their true value. Other players bust seemingly out of nowhere. Or do they? There are typically visible warning signs before every bust. Whether it is because of injury, situation change or just plain old age, some players will predictably underperform every year.

The news was inevitable but nonetheless still came off as a shock when it was announced on Monday that former San Diego Chargers and New York Jets running back LaDainian Tomlinson retired. Tomlinson signed a one-day contract with San Diego so that he could retire, and eventually go into the Hall of Fame, as a Charger. Originally the No. 5 overall pick of the 2001 draft, Tomlinson ends his career 13,684 rushing yards, 145 rushing touchdowns, and 624 catches for 4,772 yards and 17 touchdowns.

When reviewing the Top 100 non-points per reception league average draft positions (ADP), I can't help but to find arguments both for and against certain players. I feel as though some players are being horrifically undervalued while others don't deserve their positioning. These players mentioned are some of the most highly debated in terms of value in 2012. Some I think deserve the green light acceleration up the board while others need to come to a complete stop and back up. Ryan Mathews (ADP = 11) -- Green Light The San Diego Chargers' running back represents almost unlimited potential in 2012. Keep your injury forecast at a medium since any running back can go down at any time as proven by Adrian Peterson. The Chargers are going to be getting back to doing what they used to do best: run the ball well and pass to Antonio Gates. Mathews will be filling the role of LaDainian Tomlinson, being used as a three-down back and seeing ample opportunity in the passing game. With Mike Tolbert now with Carolina, Mathews will see a big bump in touchdowns as well. I'd strongly consider him as early as the fifth pick. Trent Richardson (ADP = 17) -- Red Light Please don't go all in on him just yet. Take a look at two former rookies in Ronnie Brown and Carnell ‘Cadillac' Williams. Both were very successful their rookie seasons but their stats don't outweigh the potential of other available players left on the board. Brown finished with 1,139 total yards and five scores while Williams rolled for 1,259 and six scores. Again, I don't want to take away from the great year they both had. But think of it this way -- how many people were upset last year when Chris Johnson finished with 1,465 yards and four scores? His numbers are right on par with Brown and Williams, so what's the difference? The difference is we expect far more out of our early picks than these kinds of numbers. Finding rookie steals like Brown and Williams aren't the same as planning your entire season around rookie production. Andre Johnson (ADP = 19) -- Red Light Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade. Sudden injuries, like those endured by running backs due to big hits, happen unpredictably. Chronic noncontact injuries, suffered by aging players, are a different story. Johnson has become a large injury concern thanks to back-to-back injury riddled seasons. Last year Johnson went down untouched twice with two different hamstring tears. He has become too much of a risk to select this ...

New York Jets running back LaDainian Tomlinson has told a San Diego radio station he is contemplating retirement.

New York Jets running back LaDainian Tomlinson plans to take a step back to examine his options.

New York Jets running back LaDainian Tomlinson exited Sunday's game against the Washington Redskins with a left knee injury.