This article will focus on busts in the AFC East. There are so many different topics regarding fantasy sports: rookies to watch, regression candidates, breakout stars, sleepers, deep sleepers… etc., and, of course, busts.
Of all these categories, trying to find busts to stay away from is the most depressing. Finding rookies who’ll make a difference on your team is fun and exhilarating. And finding sleepers and breakout stars can make you feel like a genius. Even looking at regression candidates isn’t that depressing. But it’s difficult to project someone to fail, but it’s also important in fantasy.
Staying away from a player can be the difference between you winning a championship and being out of the playoffs. Knowing who will underperform to their rank or fall back to earth after a breakout year is one of the most important factors heading into your draft.
On some teams, it is nearly impossible to find a bust, and on others, it’s nearly impossible to just pick one. Such is the case for a couple of these teams.
But here they are, one player from each team who will be a bust this season:
The Bills parted ways with Stefon Diggs and effectively replaced him with Curtis Samuel. Over the last two seasons with Washington, he averaged 63 catches, 635 receiving YDs, and four TDs. And with QB Josh Allen getting him the ball, the expectation that those numbers will go up…they won’t.
In fact, they will go down. Samuel doesn’t even come into the WR room as the teams WR1. If you look at player ranks, rookie WR Keon Coleman is ahead of him on most lists. The team has WR Khalil Shakir, who is returning for his third year. Entering the season, Allen will be most comfortable getting the ball to the WR he’s played with over the last couple of seasons.
Shakir more than doubled his targets and caught nearly four times as many passes, going from 10 to 39, as well as increasing his receiving yards fourfold. His role will likely increase. Allen does like to utilize his TEs in his offense. Samuel will be hard-pressed to catch 50 passes or gain more than 500 yards.
The Dolphins are one of those teams where it is difficult to find a bust. The most likely candidate is the soon-to-be 32-year-old Beckham. It isn’t as much Beckham’s skill set diminishing, although they have; it’s that QB Tua Tagovailoa only has so many balls he can spread around.
After the touches that Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle will demand, the team has two dynamic RBs in Raheem Mostert and De’Von Achane, who will get 25-30 touches between them each game. Beckham had over 1000 receiving YDs in five of his first six seasons in the league, but not since 2019. He only caught 35 passes last year, which was a bit of a resurgence. His biggest claim to fame was always his ability to make the big play, and last year was no different, averaging 16.1 YDs per catch. But on this team, both Hill and Waddle fill that space on the team. Beckham won’t even get to 30 catches this season.
To me, the third pick in the draft needs to be the starter on opening day. Nothing coming out of Patriots training camp indicates that Maye will be starting anytime soon. He is starting to be discussed as a project. Again, that’s not what you want coming out of the third pick.
It may be premature, and it may be harsh, but Maye will be a bust. And it won’t all be his fault. The coaching staff is, for the most part, all inexperienced. Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt has never called plays. And HC Jerod Mayo has never been a head coach in the league. In fact, he wasn’t ever officially a coordinator. It is a neophyte staff coaching a neophyte QB…the kid is being set up to fail.
When one considers that he came out of college with only two seasons as a starter and is universally thought of as having lousy mechanics, this experiment is set up to fail.
Lazard followed QB Aaron Rodgers to New York, but the tandem ended before it actually started. Four minutes into the new season, Rodgers went down, and Lazard was on an island.
In his last three seasons with Green Bay, Lazard went from 33 catches to 40 and then 60 catches on 100 targets. But last season, he only caught 23 passes and less than half of his targets. He desperately needs Rodgers’s return.
Lazard isn’t currently listed as a starter. The team still has dynamic WR Garrett Wilson and grabbed Mike Williams from the Chargers. And, if they were confident in Lazard, they would have spent their draft capital elsewhere when they took WR Malachi Corley with their third-round pick. Lazard is outside of the top 100 of most WR lists. He’ll end up somewhere between 30-40 catches and no more than 500 receiving YDs. He may grab a couple of TDs, but nothing to write home about.
