The Reds will activate Aaron Harang in time to pitch for Sunday's game vs. the Astros. Edinson Volquez, who was originally scheduled to pitch on Sunday, will now open up the series in Pittsburgh on Tuesday night, according to the team's website.

Harang, who is returning from a strained forearm injury, looked good in his only rehab start Monday night at Louisville and showed no ill effects after throwing on the side at Great Amercian Ballpark on Wednesday.

"Everybody says it's fine for a while to get a couple of days off," Harang said of his time on the DL. "But once you've got to come to the field every day, being around the guys and not being able to go out there and help, it eventually gets to you." 

It is expected to make room for Harang that the Reds will send Homer Bailey back down to the minors. Bailey is 0-6, 7.93 in eight starts, not the numbers the team was hoping for. Still, they are not much worse than Josh Fogg's. It doesn't make sense to me to send the kid down and keep Fogg in the rotation, but Bailey is getting booed as hard as he is hit and maybe it is best for him to go back to the minors once again.

Quarterback is one of fantasy football's most interesting position. There's no doubt having an elite QB - i.e. Tom Brady, Peyton Manning - can be a big time plus for an owner, but the reality of it is over half of your fantasy league is going to end up with a second- or third-tier guy as their starter.  That means that having a good backup quarterback is going to be important for 50% to 60% of the teams you play against.  Getting a guy with upside as your QB as a late-round bargain or early-season waiver wire pickup has proven to be a successful formula for owners in the past, if they get the right guy.

One of my top candidate's to be that guy this year is the Vikings' Tarvaris Jackson.  Before you start going to uncontrollable laughter let me tell you why:

SURROUNDIGS - Minnesota has the best offenisve line in the league, perhaps the best running game (Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor), one of the league's premier defenses and quietly a much-improved receiving corps (added Bernard Barrian this off-season and Sidney Rice is on the rise).

SCHEDULE - The Vikings have a favorable schedule. In fact, it's real favorable to quarterbacks (9th best schedule for a QB - based off of fantasy points allowed to QB last season).

STRONG FINISH - Jackson threw for seven TD's and ran for two more over his last six games in '07 as he became more acquainted with the offense as the season progressed and averaged 190 PaYd per game, including 220 or more yards passing in 2 of his last 3 games.

JOB SECURITY -  Gus Frerotte is currently the Vikings' next best option.

I am not saying Jackson is going to be a Pro-Bowler by any strecth of the imagination. Still, I a firm believer this guy could finish as a top 12-15 quarterback as soon as this season. He looked really good in Minnesota's first preseason game vs. the Vikings on Friday night, going 8 for 11 for 118 yards and a TD in about a quarter of work. We currently have him as the No. 25 quarterback on the GSI Cheat Sheet, but a game or two more like this and he will move up quickly. 

From the Miami Herald:  

The Dolphins quarterback competition came to an abrupt conclusion late Friday night, and none of the three candidates currently in training camp will win the starting job.

Instead, Miami has agreed to a two-year deal with former Jets quarterback Chad Pennington, an agreement that will bring the former AFC East rival into town as the unspoken starter, two league sources said.

Pennington can earn up to $11.5 million over the course of the contract. His arrival also will mean the end in Miami for either Josh McCown or John Beck, two quarterbacks that have been unable to impress the coaching staff during training camp.

Vice president of football operations Bill Parcells was in charge of personnel decisions in New York when the team drafted Pennington with a first-round pick in 2000.

''It looked like a strong opportunity,'' Pennington's agent Tom Condon said. "He's had a good deal of success in this division.''

From the Philadelphia Inquirer: 

Yesterday, clearly with the owner's blessing, the Eagles did the best thing they could do for the team and acknowledged in the only way that matters - with dollars - that Westbrook is one of the best at his position. In their game of real GM, the Eagles gave Westbrook a contract extension and a significant raise, upward of $13 million guaranteed over the first two years, according to The Inquirer's Bob Brookover.

It was what Westbrook wanted. It was what the Eagles had to do. They had no choice. They knew it, and so did Westbrook. His value wasn't going down. It was on the rise. He had to be compensated accordingly. In the grand scheme of the Eagles, there is no player more valuable.

The Eagles have said for months that Westbrook had outperformed his existing contract, a rare admission in the National Football League these days. It's just a fact that after setting a franchise record with 2,104 yards from scrimmage last season, which led the league, Westbrook proved to be more valuable than he was in 2005, when the Eagles gave Westbrook his last extension. He is the one player on the Eagles' roster other teams worry about, and the one player who can bust a game wide open every time he touches the ball. 

I've been fed a lot of lines in my life.  "It's not you, it's me."  "I did not sleep with that woman."  "The Bengals are committed to putting a quality product on the field."  But perhaps the biggest line I've been given came earlier this week when ESPN reported that Favre agreed to part ways with the Packers because "...his presence at training camp would be a distraction."

Why am I the only person in the world that looks at that and calls b.s. on it?

He just decided, after demanding reinstatement, and then flying up on a private jet Sunday with the intention of practicing on Tuesday, that his presence at training camp would be a distraction.  Really?  Has he been watching the news lately?  Is it normal for him to speak to 372 reporters a day?  Does he normally throw out accusations of the team trying to control him and not have that affect their relationship?  Does he get ESPN?  Do we need to get him a DirecTV subscription?  For the love of God, the World Wide Leader gave him his own segment on their bottom line ticker!

And now, after all of that, he's just now decided that he would be a distraction?  Any reporter with more than a third grade education ought to have seen that and immediately called him on it.  Shockingly, none did.

I've got an alternate theory, and I'm not sure it's that outrageous.  I think that Favre came up there intending to start practicing with the team.  Then he met with McCarthy, who informed him that the players talked to him, and the majority of them didn't want him back.  Forget the fact that he would most certainly be a more viable option in 2008 than Rodgers; they'd just had enough.  And really, anyone who's ever been in a rocky relationship can relate to that feeling.  There's some great times, but at some point the idle threats, constant wavering, and general exasperation just make you say enough is enough, no matter how good it was.

Regardless of whether this is true or not, someone should have at least pushed the questioning further.  But, ESPN (who has been guilty of such journalistic delinquency and outrageous hero worship during this entire ordeal that, if it were a criminal offense, they would be send directly to the electric chair) and others decided to accept it at face value.

Or, maybe they were just tired of the whole thing.  And I guess if that's the case, I can't necessarily blame them for it.