I was sitting in my hotel room in Palo Alto Sunday morning, deeply perplexed by what the the time change had done to the TV schedule ("Wait, it's 7:00, why are they showing actual football stuff instead of pointless hunting shows?!?") when Matthew Berry, ESPN's Talented Mister Roto, appeared and started yammering about new Redskins starter Quinton Ganther as one of his sleepers of the week.

I don't often take fantasy football advice from people on the TV, because I'm perfectly capable of failing catastrophically all on my own, thanks, but apparently that feeling puts me in the minority. Because at some point in the last few days, between Ganther being pitched as a sleeper and Ganther racking up 93 total yards and two touchdowns on Sunday, he's become the Chuck Norris of the ESPN Fantasy Football message boards.

Less than a month ago, I was wildly (and inaccurately, as it turned out) speculating that Quinton Ganther could be the backup running back for the Redskins in that weekend's game against the Broncos. At that time Ganther had been on the roster for a total of about three weeks, most of them as a potential backup fullback. He was still feverishly studying his playbook and looking to Rock Cartwright and Mike Sellers for advice.

"Rock and Mike, man, those are the guys right there," he told me at the time. "Those guys try to make my job as easy as possible, and I'm glad to be playing with guys like that. Because, you know, sometimes you got guys that -- when you come in, when you play the same position -- they don't wanna help you. But those guys, they want you to succeed, because they know that if I succeed we all succeed, and that's an ultimate teammate: one that's willing to do anything it takes to win football games."

Since then, he's carried the ball 19 times for 88 yards -- a 4.6 average -- but has shown both elusiveness and power in those carries. Which is, presumably, a big part of why Ganther was today named NOT the backup running back, but the STARTING running back for Sunday's game in Oakland.

And it was none other than Rock Cartwright, Ganther's mentor of a month ago, who made the announcement. (Or, more accurately, announced that he had been told that he himself wouldn't be starting.)

When I talked to new Redskins running back Quinton Ganther late last week, one of the questions that I asked him was who he compared his running style to. "You watch, then you can tell me," he told me at the time. It was an uninteresting enough exchange that even I left it out of the post.

After watching him during his limited action in Sunday's game against the Broncos, I feel safe comparing Ganther's running style to a compact lead ball rolling downhill. Probably his most notable play -- the one embedded above, courtesy of Redskins Broadcast Net -- was the eighteen yard catch-and-run that ended with him taking on one of the NFL's great safeties in Brian Dawkins ... and pretty much getting the better of the collision.

Because I hadn't seen the finish of the play clearly from the press box but had heard it about it via Twitter, Iasked Ganther in the postgame locker room if he had actually run over Brian Dawkins. "Something like that," he said, chuckling.

As near as I can tell, we have one picture of running back Quinton Ganther in a Redskins uniform, and that's it sitting up top of this post: his official team headshot. I can't find any practice photos, bench photos, anything like that. I emailed Brian Murphy (of ExtremeSkins and Homer McFanboy) to see if he had a shot on the bench or anything; between covering the team, photographing the team, and being a fan of the team, Murf is usually a perfect resource for obscure requests like this one.

Not this time. Murf's response? "Don't even know what he looks like yet."

So, yeah, Quinton Ganther is pretty much the exact opposite of a household name. Which makes it kind of unsettling to realize that he might be an active part of Sunday's gameplan. Clinton Portis is out for sure; Ladell Betts was unable to participate in practice yesterday with an ankle injury. If for some reason Betts can't go, that leaves Rock Cartwright as your top RB, and Ganther as the likely number two.

So, who the heck is Quinton Ganther?