Top Five Busts of the Year
We noted the near misses, ranked #6-10, now it's time for the top five busts of the year.
5. Laurence Maroney, Patriots - Remember how fantasy owners used to curse the Patriots passing game because they spread the ball around too much? That happened to Maroney this year in the running game. Even before his injury, Sammy Morris and Kevin Faulk were outplaying him in their roles. His strong finish (6 tds in seven weeks) gave hope for 2008, but it defied any expectations that Maroney didn’t score until Week 11 on the highest scoring team of all time.
4. Marc Bulger, Rams - Plenty of owners took Bulger ahead of Tom Brady and Tony Romo, and with good reason. He was coming off a 4,300 yard season and had never averaged under 256 yards-per-game in his career. He didn’t even crack 200 this year, and only threw 11 touchdowns while doing his best late-career Drew Bledsoe impression. Hopefully a healthy offensive line leads to better play.
3. Marvin Harrison, Colts - I tried to avoid injured players here, but Harrison’s case was special for a lot of reasons. He had missed a total of two games in the last eight years. He played at a position where almost all the top picks performed well enough. Most excruciatingly, Harrison originally got hurt in Week 3, and the Colts said it was a minor bruise. He gained 24 yards the rest of the year while he strung owners along with a brutal week-to-week non-comeback story. You get the sense around the Colts that they weren’t happy with Harrison’s long rehab, and neither were fantasy owners.
2. Shaun Alexander, Seahawks - We ranked him ninth to start the season, which seemed conservative considering his ADP around 4-5. We should have known better. Running backs over 30 rarely make true rebounds, and Alexander actually lost 150 total yards despite playing three more games this season.
To put it in perspective, the following players had more yards this year: Cedric Benson, Maurice Morris, Jerious Norwood, Selvin Young, the other Adrian Peterson. LaMont Jordan had four fewer yards, despite gaining a grand total of 87 yards in the final ten games. Let go of his TD-record season; the old Alexander is not coming back.
1. Rudi Johnson, Bengals - We opened our magazine blurb of Rudi with this line, “Squint hard, and you can see Rudi Johnson declining.” And we still ranked him in the top ten. It was difficult not to after three rock solid seasons in a row.
Rudi’s collapse was gruesome and complete: 2.9 yards-per-carry, 497 yards, and he was outplayed all year by Kenny Watson. I bet he’s not in our top 100 next years.
Comments
Gregg,
OK after seeing your top 5 I guess I can concede that while Gore was disappointing he wasn't a bust given the 49ers' horrid offense.
What about dishonourable mentions to:1)Reggie Bush who didn't have a great season with Deuce and got even worse without him 2) Willie Parker. Who racked up the yards , but could not find the endzone
3) Ahman Green - his production was expected to dip away from Green bay, but not like it did and
4) Julius Jones - you forecst him as a RB2 with upside and he finished with a season high of 66 yards in game 1 vs. the Jets.
Posted by: CdnFan | January 4, 2008 12:44 PM
Bulger not cracking 200?? Ummm...yeah he did, a handfull of times and a couple of 300+ games to boot. While definately a bust this year...your stats are off.
Posted by: Rich Scott | January 4, 2008 03:40 PM
Gregg doesn't need me to stick up for him, but his stats are right. Bulger had never averaged below 256 yards per game in his career until 2007. His total passing yardage was 2,392 yards in 12 games played or an average of 199.33yds/game in 2007.He did manage over 200 passing yards in 6 games this season and even went over 300 yards in 3 of them , but he also threw for under 200 yards in the 6 other games.
Posted by: CdnFan | January 4, 2008 04:41 PM
Rich Scott,
I'm pretty sure Gregg was talking about a 200 yd./avg for the year for Bulger...not 200 yd games.
Posted by: skiz | January 4, 2008 04:41 PM
roy williams is my top wr bust. henry and thomas jones are interchangeable as failures.
Posted by: ron in vegas | January 4, 2008 10:32 PM
S. Smith gets my vote. I needed a little consistency towards the middle of the season, and Smith killed me. Finished second, in spite of his non production as my first round pick(#8 overall), in our draft.
Posted by: geo. bailey | January 5, 2008 10:43 AM
I would put Travis Henry in the top 5. I would also put Lee Evans on the list. His inconsistency was brutal. He had 3 really good weeks (8, 9, and 14) which made up the bulk of his production. The rest of the season he was a major liability.
Posted by: Roy in Huntsville | January 11, 2008 02:59 PM