Potential Busts for Week 13: Ranking the Top 10 for Fantasy Football

What better way to take out frustrations than to be negative about a bunch of fantasy players? I'm happy to say I'll be writing this article for the rest of the season highlighting the top 10 potential busts and duds of the week. Fantasy Sports writers spend most of our time writing about players we love and you don't get to hear much about the expected busts. Well I'm here to tell you why everyone sucks! While I can't say I bring the comedic value that Brian Hehir had, you can bet this piece is loaded with all sorts of good information you might not have considered otherwise.

With the playoffs starting or just around the corner, setting the right lineup is crucial. Some players might seem like obvious starts that aren't so obvious after-all. Others you may just want to temper expectations and be aware that they might not do as well as you hope. Lets get to it!

 

Top 10 Potential Busts & Disappointments for Week 13

1. Alfred Morris - RB, Washington Football Men

Finally trusting Alfred Morris again? It's been nice hasn't it? Well that's about to change. Morris has been awesome with RG3 starting the last three games, registering his top-3 rush yard performances of the season. Morris has averaged 97.8 rush yards per game in RG3's 5 starts on the season. Without RG3? An incredibly disheartening 56 rush yards per game. That is a huge difference that can't be completely explained away by any other factors. The Colts are a nice matchup so I still like him but I would limit expectations from an RB1 to an RB2.

 

2. Eddie Lacy - RB, Green Bay Packers

Eddie Lacy has been excellent over the past two weeks with a 5.54 YPC and four total touchdowns. So why do I have him as a potential bust? The Patriots are much improved against the run over their past three games, limiting guys like CJ Anderson/Ronnie Hillman and Ahmad Bradshaw to almost no value. While a large part of Lacy's recent increase in value is his four straight games with either 100 rec yards or a rec touchdown, I don't see that as an actual strength of his. I expect Belichick to shut that down and I don't see them running enough to make Lacy a great play this week.

 

3. Andre Ellington - RB, Arizona Cardinals

Ellington has been horrendous over his past three games. His BEST YPC during that time is 2.4 which is completely unacceptable. In fact over his last 9 games he is averaging just 3.0 YPC and yet still gets treated like a hot commodity at the position. Sure it helps that he is a plus on the receiving end but even there his 40 rec yards per game over the same span isn't enough. Further, if you take out his 81 yard touchdown catch that average also plummets. So while he has a nice matchup against the Falcons this week I can't imagine feeling good about starting him and there is a good chance you have better options.

 

4. Eli Manning - QB, New York Giants

Normally I don't think Manning would ever be considered for this column. However against the Jags, pretty much every player becomes a viable streaming option no matter the position. Yet the Jaguars have been greatly improved on defense over the second half of the season but the fantasy world hasn't adapted. Andrew Luck's worst fantasy game of the season? Yep, it was last week against the lowly Jaguars, the first time he did not score multiple touchdowns in a game this season. (He had just one passing touchdown against Baltimore but also had a rushing touchdown). The most common counter to this is that "Oh but he didn't have to throw, so of course he didn't score a ton of points!" It's a nice argument on paper but you could say the same for almost every single one of his wins this season including his first game against the Jaguars where he threw for four touchdowns.

Anyway, I digress. The point is that the Jaguars are playing much better on defense. Opposing quarterbacks are averaging just 12.5 points against the Jags over the past six games and that includes Luck, Romo, Tannehill and Dalton. People are going to be shocked when Manning delivers a bad game here but hopefully you now won't be.

 

5. Jeremy Maclin - WR, Philadelphia Eagles

Maclin is still being treated as a WR1 by the fantasy community but since the wonderful Sanchize takeover that hasn't been the case. Maclin is currently the FantasyPros consensus WR14 this week while teammate Jordan Matthews is the WR21. Matthews has outscored Maclin in all three of Sanchez's starts. Sure it is still a small sample size but at some point people have to begin to accept that Sanchez is clearly working better with Matthews.

Maclin is still the WR5 on the season so I understand the reluctance to accept the decline in value. With Foles at QB he averaged 15.5 points per game. With Sanchez? 7.66 PPG (Compared to 16 pts/game for Matthews). Lastly, the Cowboys are pretty good against wide receivers. If not for the amazing play of Odell Beckham Jr last week this would be even more apparent. Given these factors, I expect Maclin to be a bust again this week!

 

6. LeGarrette Blount - RB, New England Patriots

Okay this is one that I think everyone expects to not work out. Anyone that has ever owned a Belichick RB knows you can't expect anything here. Yet you can bet people see his 78 yards and 2 touchdowns last week and plan on starting Blount. I can't imagine that working out. First, the Packers have allowed just two rushing touchdowns over their past 8 games. Second, we know there will be a TON of throwing in this game which means Shane Vereen is much more likely to have a big game. Third, it's entirely possible that Belichick decides to screw with fantasy owners and give Jonas Gray 85% of the carries. Heck, given Belichick's tendencies I almost expect that to happen. Unless a Patriots RB is your only option to get 15+ carries, avoid this potential bust.

 

7. Martavis Bryant - WR, Pittsburgh Steelers

Bryant exploded onto the scene with six touchdowns in the first four games of his career. Additionally those touchdown passes averaged 26.5 yards. You can not understate how unsustainable those rates are. The law of averages certainly did some good work in his last game when he had two endzone targets that were knocked away by defenders. There is no doubt Bryant could get a touchdown in this nice matchup against the Saints but I'm not expecting it. I don't think Bryant is as good as he has looked so far (outside my top-10 rookie WRs) and I expect the touchdown regression to continue making him a great potential bust.

 

8. Jason Witten - TE, Dallas Cowboys

Witten was kind of left for dead at the beginning of the season. He has done some nice work to regain value but still on pace for his fewest yards (671) since his rookie season. During his rebound over the past six games he has scored four touchdowns but has only surpassed 35 yards in just two games. While the offense and track record make him a nice low-end TE1 because of how shallow the position is, he's really just that: a low-end TE1. I don't see him as a top-six option when we can't reasonably expect him to go over 50 yards. Last thing of note: The Eagles have only allowed one touchdown to tight ends all year and just four over the entire Chip Kelly era (28 games and counting!).

 

9. Antonio Gates - TE, San Diego Chargers

Another case of a highly-regarded tight end that is too touchdown dependent to rely on. Gates also has a tough matchup similar to Witten but not quite as tough. I think the biggest worry here is that Philip Rivers has really taken a step back over his past three games or so and it has clearly hurt Gates' value. Gates has failed to go over 32 yards in those three games without a touchdown. He's always a threat to score but there is a good chance he isn't your best option.

 

10. Colts Defense - DEF

I was really surprised to see the Colts as the FantasyPros consensus #1. Sure its a nice matchup and they aren't horrible defensively, but they aren't dominant either and this isn't the Jaguars. It looks like Colt McCoy is set to start. He is a much more conservative quarterback than RG3. While that likely means the Redskins won't score a ton of points I wouldn't expect a turnover fest either which is where the really big fantasy days come from. The Colts are in my top-ten, but not top-five and definitely not #1 overall. There is definitely bust potential here.