February 1, 2017

Pierre Camus reflects on his six bold predictions prior to the 2016 fantasy football season.

Making predictions is truly a double-edged sword - it hurts so good at first, but when you bleed out later the results aren't so fun. Then again, sometimes you hit the nail right on the head and you can look back and say, "Maybe I do know a thing or two about fantasy football!" Before the 2016 season began, I made six bold statements that I firmly believed would come true. Let's see how that worked out.

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Reviewing 2016's Bold Fantasy Football Predictions

RG3 won't start more than 10 games for the Browns

That was easy. Week 1 wasn't even over before this prognostication was confirmed. Robert Griffin III suffered a serious shoulder injury in his first action as a Brown, forcing him to miss the next 12 weeks. From Week 14 on, he was given a chance to show what he had to offer. It wasn't much, apparently, with an average of 177 passing yards per game and a 2/3 TD/INT rate on the season.

You have to feel bad for Griffin at this point. Playing for the Browns is bad enough, but the guy can't seem to catch a break when it comes to staying healthy. If you rolled the dice on him as a backup QB, you knew going into the season it was a high-risk pick. At least you didn't have to wait it out before dropping him.

There won't be a single San Francisco player worth starting on fantasy teams

This was mostly true, but not completely. Carlos Hyde started out on fire, which appeared to undermine my months-long declaration of him as a bust for the 2016 season. After scoring six touchdowns and compiling 443 yards in the first five weeks, he pulled a Houdini act. Injury forced him to miss three weeks, but when he returned the value wasn't the same. He wouldn't score again on the ground, but did catch three TD. His biggest moment came in a 200-yard performance against the Jets in Week 14. Otherwise, he was a marginal RB2 from Week 10 on.

Colin Kaepernick had his moments too, providing solid streaming value and making for a tremendous DFS play in Weeks 9, 12, and 16. That's about it, though. Kap was not worth starting in single QB leagues unless you happened to get lucky because your regular starter was on bye in Week 9 or 12. As far as the receiving corps, it isn't even worth getting into details. Let's just say we all feel badly for Torrey Smith and hope he finds a better home in the near future.

The Texans' offense will be maddeningly inconsistent

Bingo! I'm pretty proud of the way I worded this one because I think it rings very true when you describe the Texans' season. I did not claim that Houston would be the worst offense, but I knew that trusting any of their starters, including first-rounders like DeAndre Hopkins and Lamar Miller, would make for a (sometimes nauseating) roller coaster ride for fantasy owners. They started out great... for exactly two weeks. Miller was getting more carries than anyone in the league, Will Fuller was making big plays and Hopkins had 167 yards and two TD in two games. Then, in Week 3 they were shutout completely, losing 27-0 to a team quarterbacked by Jacoby Brissett.

It was hit or miss from that point on. The team scored 13 points against Minnesota, nine against Denver, 12 against Cincinnati and 13 against defensive non-stalwarts Green Bay and San Diego. They also managed to score 24 or more points on four other occasions. Ultimately, Hopkins turned out to be a draft-day bust, Miller was a mild disappointment, Fuller disappeared and Osweiler was simply unplayable. With the same offensive personnel returning in 2017, will it be any different? It's too early to say, but as far as 2016 goes, don't say I didn't warn you.

Arian Foster will be a fantasy starter and top-15 RB

Maybe the Dolfan in me came out, but I really had high hopes for Foster. All accounts of his health in the preseason were positive and he did beat out Jay Ajayi for the starting RB job straight up. Foster was not so spectacular in Week 1, rushing 13 times for 38 yards, but he did catch three passes for 62 yards. This came on the road in Seattle, so it was excusable. After that, it was bust city for Foster. He carried the ball exactly three times in his next three games, not including the three weeks he missed in between due to a groin injury. Once Jay Ajayi exploded against Buffalo, pride forced Foster to hang up his cleats mid-season.

By drafting both Foster and Jamaal Charles this year (in separate leagues at least) I will now be gun shy when it comes to injury-prone veterans. It probably shouldn't have taken this experience to learn that lesson, but sometimes stubborn fandom gets in the way.

Devonta Freeman won't be a top-20 RB

Freeman wasn't a top-20 running back - he was top-10. In PPR leagues, he was the 6th-highest scoring RB all season. It turns out that Freeman was able to match his 11 TD from last season and rush for almost the exact same amount of yards. A slight dip in receiving production, thanks to the emergence of Tevin Coleman, is the only thing that made him slightly less valuable than last year. So yeah, I got this one completely wrong.

The Falcons, who incidentally are playing in the Super Bowl next week, were an unstoppable offensive machine. Whether that continues to the same level once Offensive Coordinator Kyle Shanahan leaves for San Francisco is up for debate, but Freeman has officially proven all the doubters wrong about his ability.

Martellus Bennett will be a top-10 TE

True and false. Statistically speaking, Bennett was seventh in fantasy scoring at the tight end position, so my statement was factually correct. It was still a disappointing year for him, however. There exists no logical explanation for how Bennett, in the prolonged absence of Rob Gronkowski, did not put up huge fantasy numbers for the AFC's Super Bowl representative. Bennett's stats somehow got worse after Gronk wasn't on the field any more. All three of his 100-yard games came between Weeks 1-10 and he only caught more than three balls or 35 yards once the rest of the season.

His overall stats don't look too bad for a razor-thin TE position, but Bennett did little on a weekly basis to help fantasy owners. Three of his seven touchdowns came in one game and nearly half of his receiving yards came in four games. Worst of all, he was a huge bust during the fantasy playoffs. An ankle injury that never fully went away throughout the season may be to blame. Still, that is little solace for fantasy owners who were expecting Gronk-like numbers. Where he lands next year will play a big part in his preseason value. Hopefully it isn't San Francisco...