These are the industry's best news reporting websites.  Rotoworld and CBSsports are in a distant 1st/2nd in our opinion.

• Derrick Mason Player News @ Rotoworld
• Derrick Mason Player News @ Cbssport
• Derrick Mason Player News @ Yahoo
• Derrick Mason Player News @ Bleacherreport.com
• Derrick Mason Player News @ Fanball
• Derrick Mason Player News @ Foxsports

Derrick Mason Profile at Pro-Football-Reference

Pro-Football-Reference is open source and a highly enriched statistic website.  The guy who runs this knows what he is doing.

Compare all WRs using FFToday.com's stat cruncher.

FFToday.com's stat cruncher is the best in the biz.  It's quick and sortable and highly user friendly.

These link to the industry's best IRs. These are the sites that Stegman goes to, in order, if/when he's obsessing about data on the status of an injury.

• Rotoworld IR (most up to date – the Cadillac of NFL injury reports)
• CBS Sports IR  (a close 2^nd)
• ESPN IR 
• Yahoo IR
• Fanball IR
• Foxsports IR
• The Huddle.com IR
• NFL.com IR  
• NFLInjury.com IR  (decent independent blog for injury data)

3/10/2010: Signed a two-year, $8 million contract. The deal includes $3.5 million guaranteed.

2010: $3.5 million,

2011: $4.5 million

2012: Free Agent

Contract data sourced from Rotoworld.com

Derrick Mason isn't on any social media... maybe because he is older than some of the refs on the field.

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Days of Our Lives

If there's one thing you can count on every single year besides a shitty soap opera eating up the lives of bored and lonely housewives, it's Derrick Mason.  He has been one of the most consistent receivers in the game from a production and games played standpoint; he's missed three games since the new millennium and none in the last six seasons.   He had off-season shoulder surgery and had this to say about it, "Don't know. I really don't. All I can say for certain - well, not even for certain - if everything continues to progress the way it has been, I'll be ready for the first game."  Well, which is it, chief?  Chances are, his 35 year old bones will be suited and ready to post some vanilla starting fantasy numbers again in 2009.

Semper Fi

He has gone for 80+ catches in five of the last six years and over 1,000 yards in seven of the past eight.  He has averaged a hair under five TDs per season over the last decade, though QB ineptitude has everything to do with that low TD output.  Tony Banks, Jeff Blake, Kyle Boller, Steve McNair (RIP), and rookie Joe Flacco round out what we would call an overall piss poor crop of fantasy QBs that Mason has had to parse his Baltimore Ravens career with.  He will rarely throw up a 100-yard game (only four in the past four seasons), but he's the Ravens go-to guy as his 80 catches and 1,037 yards were more than the rest of the receivers on the team combined in '08.  The Ravens ranked 28^th in the league in passing attempts per game last year, so you probably won't see him bust out for much more.

2009 Fantasy Outlook

Mason will shake the off-season shoulder surgery and be ready for game one.  Mason is in a contract year and for most 35 year old QBs, that's not a huge eye-brow raiser, but for Mason, we think it is:

"I don't know if I'm going to be back," Mason said. 'I have one more year left on my deal, and I want to play more than one year. For a player, one year is no security. No security whatsoever. I think I've earned the right to go to management and let them know that I want to play more than just one year."

The Ravens didn't do anything in terms of WR's in the off-season and completely ignored the position in the draft, so Mason will still get his and he has plenty of motivation to do so.  You draft Mason if you are looking for a role player.  He finished 21^st overall (basic scoring format) in fantasy scoring in 2008, but there just isn't any upside from that and he spreads those points very evenly through 16 games...it's sorta painful if you own him.   After factoring in some of the young "up and comers" (not to be confused with the prolific Randy West DVD series) WRs, we would make this old man the 17th WR off of  boards on draft day.

*********************     UPDATE     *********************

Derrick Mason announced his retirement shortly after the tragic news of Steve McNair's murder was made public.  Mason and McNair played together for years on both the Titans and Ravens.  We hope Mason changes his mind and are confident that he will.  Who knows, the Ravens might even be motivated to throw some money at the situation.

*********************     UPDATE     *********************

Mason has indeed changed his mind and is back with the Ravens as their #1 WR this year.  We can hear Flacco's sigh of relief from here...