2015 Fantasy Football: Wide Receiver Busts
Jason Bridge-USA TODAY Sports
With the 2015 NFL season just a month away, it’s time to start doing prep work for your fantasy football draft. Over the next few weeks I will be breaking down every position with a primer, rankings, sleepers, busts, and rookies.
More from Bears Fantasy Football
- Justin Fields is showing that he is a major fantasy football riser
- Chicago Bears Fantasy Football: Should you draft Justin Fields?
- Two must-draft fantasy football players on the Chicago Bears
- 3 over/unders for Cole Kmet with Chicago Bears in 2022
- 5 Khalil Herbert over/unders in for Chicago Bears 2022
With the proliferation of passing offenses in the NFL, the WR position is becoming more important in fantasy. In PPR leagues, you can make the argument it is more important than RB, which has been a staple of early draft picks since the beginning of fantasy football. As more teams shy away from the bell-cow RB approach, the WR position is becoming a more consistent source of fantasy points.
With the growing importance of the receiver position it’s more important than ever that you don’t screw up your WR selections. I’ll be listing some players below that you should pass on at their current average draft position. By “bust” I don’t mean that they won’t have fantasy value, just not as much as you’d expect from their draft position or from Yahoo’s projections.
Wide Receiver Busts
Martavis Bryant, Steelers (avg pick=46) – I’d be happy to have Bryant on a few of my rosters this season, but not as a 4th round pick. The 2nd year receiver showed flashes of big play potential during his rookie season, but he isn’t even guaranteed a starting position with 3rd year WR Markus Wheaton the current favorite. It doesn’t help Bryant’s cause that he is just now getting his cast off from an off-season elbow surgery. The Steelers should have a prolific offense again, but Bryant has a lot of competition for touches and I don’t think he will have enough big games to justify his current draft slot.
Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
Brandon Marshall, Jets (52) – I’m not just listing Marshall here because I didn’t like his Cutler comments over the weekend. It’s not even about the declining athleticism Marshall showed last year. It’s about Geno Smith. The Jets had solid WRs last year in Eric Decker and Percy Harvin and they were both non-factors in fantasy with Smith under center. Marshall really struggled to get separation from DBs last season and it’s not going to be any easier being a year older with a QB that struggles to put the ball in the shrinking windows Marshall provides late in his career .
Golden Tate, Lions (55) – Had some huge games last season and is a good receiver, but 4 of his 5 best games came during weeks while Megatron was either out completely or left early with an injury. If Johnson stays healthy for 16 games, how many targets will there be for Tate? I think he is still ownable and could even crack some starting fantasy lineups in 2015, but I’m not comfortable taking him anywhere near the 5th round.