The perils of Joe Flacco

One of my wife's (Mrs. Scientist's) favorite television characters is Barney Stinson from the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother." Stinson is a custom-tailored-suit-wearing, catchphrase-spewing, hyperconfident womanizer whose willingness to accept any challenge puts him into a constant set of hilarious corners.

Stinson is also known as the progenitor of The Bro Code; this code details a wide variety of rules for bros to follow -- and also contains a set of warnings for dealing with women.

One of these admonitions is The Cheerleader Effect. This rule states that certain groups of women will look attractive as a group, but taken individually they will look like, in Stinson's words, "sled dogs."

That same rule can apply to certain fantasy football picks: There are a number of players whose 2010 fantasy scoring prospects look good because of their surroundings, but a closer look shows that they could be benefiting from the aforementioned effect -- and therefore should not be valued as highly as they will be in most draft rooms.

Here are four such guys.

For the full breakdown -- including good warnings and advice for early draft rounds -- you must be an ESPN Insider.

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KC Joyner

NFL Insider

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• NFL and CFB analyst for ESPN Insider
• Known as "The Football Scientist"
• Uses proprietary metrics from game tape study