Quarterback

Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons

You’re going to see Ryan on a lot of “Busts” lists this season. There is simply no more obvious candidate for regression at the quarterback position.

Ryan had an unbelievable 2016 finishing second in fantasy points behind only the great Aaron Rodgers. He led the league in touchdown rate throwing a touchdown on 7.1 percent of his attempts, and he led the league in yards per attempt with a 9.3 mark that was more than a full yard higher than the second-best mark.

The problem is that Ryan has never come close to touching numbers like that before in his career. His best touchdown rate prior to last year was 5.2 percent in 2012, and his career rate is 4.7 percent. His best Y/A attempt mark was also in 2012 at 7.7, and his career mark is 7.4.

The touchdown rate is particularly susceptible to regression as quarterbacks almost always regress toward the mean. Look no further than the two QBs who had a touchdown rate of seven percent or higher in 2015, Cam Newton and Russell Wilson. They had touchdown rates of 3.7 and 3.8 percent in 2016 respectively, which was below the league average of 4.4 percent for qualified QBs. There’s simply no history of players being able to sustain a touchdown rate at that level year over year.

Ryan is currently the seventh quarterback drafted on average, and seventh among QBs in fantasy points was his best finish in the three seasons prior to last year. His other finishes were 15th and 19th at the position. With regression almost impossible to avoid along with the departure of Kyle Shanahan, you’re paying too much for Ryan at QB7 with a finish outside the top 10 well in play.

Andrew Luck, Indianapolis Colts

After Ryan, the obvious bust candidates at quarterback dry up. There are several guys you wouldn’t be wrong to have reservations about, but it’s tough to call them out-and-out busts.

Drew Brees is going to be 38 this season, which is a concern even though quarterbacks are playing at a high level later than ever now. But he’s still throwing 650 attempts or so each season and hasn’t seen a dip in rate stats, so it’s hard to say this is the year he finally falls of a cliff with any conviction.

You also wouldn’t be wrong to wonder if Marcus Mariota is going to be able to sustain a 5.8 percent touchdown rate. That’s well above the league average, and he’s not a Brees/Rodgers/Brady pocket-ype QB that can be expected to live above average without an established history of doing so. But it’s likely Mariota sees a significant increase in volume this season, which offsets some touchdown risk he has.

Ultimately, we’re going to fall back on the “the bigger they are, the harder they fall” cliché to pick a second QB bust and go with Luck who is squarely in the top tier of QBs in ADP along with Brees/Rodgers/Brady. In fact, Luck was the second QB off the board on average as of this writing.

Luck has reached those heights before when he finished second in fantasy points in 2014, and he was a solid fourth among quarterbacks last season, though a bit removed from the top three. But in between those two seasons he had a seven-game 2015 campaign due to a shoulder injury and later a kidney/abdominal injury. It’s no secret that Indy has not been able to protect Luck, and that’s what makes him so risky as a high draft pick.

Luck was sacked on a whopping seven percent of his attempts last year, and the four Indy offensive linemen who started at least 10 games last season are all projected to be starters again this year. Until the Colts take some serious steps to keeping Luck upright, he’s a real risk to miss games. Given that you can get a high-end RB2 or mid-level WR2 at the spot where you’d have to take Luck, you’d be better off not taking on that risk.

Running Back

DeMarco Murray, Tennessee Titans 

Tennessee’s backfield usage shifted noticeably in the last five games last year. After getting 77.3 percent of all RB touches for the Titans in the first 11 games, Murray only got 63.9 percent of the touches in the last five games. Meanwhile, Derrick Henry saw his share of the touches go from 21.8 percent to 35.4 percent. Moreover, Murray scored just once in those last five games compared to four touchdowns for Henry.

Murray’s average number of touches per game dropped just more than four touches per game in the last five. If Tennessee simply distributes the ball this season more like they did down the stretch last year, Murray stands to lose 50 touches or more. And it’s not impossible that they continue to move the balance more toward an even split, in which case Murray would lose well more than 50 touches.

That likely decline in volume makes him incredibly risky to take at his current ADP in the middle of the second round in 12-team leagues, especially when you factor in the fact that he’ll be 29 this season.

Latavius Murray, Minnesota Vikings

Like Ryan, Murray should appear in many articles like this one this season. The hit he’ll take in volume moving from Oakland to Minnesota should kill his value. He touched the ball 228 times last season, but with Dalvin Cook and Jerick McKinnon around in Minnesota, he’ll be lucky to crack the 150-touch mark this season. A decline in volume also means a decline in scoring opportunities, and there’s very little chance he comes close to cracking the double-digit touchdown plateau again.

To be fair, early drafters are not expecting Murray to be what he was in Oakland as his ADP is currently around the ninth round in 12-team leagues. But even at that point, there are other options that you could define as either being more reliable or having more upside. Older backs like Matt Forte and Jonathan Stewart have similar ADPs and can be counted on for more volume barring injury. And someone like Mike Gillislee has more upside with a chance to emerge from a crowded backfield.

Devonta Freeman, Atlanta Falcons

Projecting Freeman as a bust is less about Freeman himself and more about extending the logic applied to Ryan to the entire Atlanta team. The Falcons led the league in yards per play last year at 6.7, which was a full yard more per play than they averaged the season prior. That would be tough to match even if Shanahan was still in town, but without him it will be even more challenging. That 6.7 Y/P number was 0.4 yards per play better than any other team averaged in any of the four seasons prior.

This is nothing personal against Freeman; it just might be a good idea not to pay what it will cost to roster Falcons this season.

Mark Ingram, New Orleans Saints

Ingram was one of 19 backs to crack the 200-carry mark last season, but it’s highly unlikely he comes near that mark again this season. Obviously, Adrian Peterson being in the mix is going to cut into Ingram’s workload to some degree. The danger is that AD happens to have some sort of resurgence (not overly likely) and really cuts into Ingram’s work. But even if he just costs Ingram 40-50 carries, it will be enough to make it hard for Ingram to live up to his draft day price.

Ingram isn’t being drafted in a spot that would imply he’s expected to equal last year’s production, but he is still going in a spot where you should expect to get 200 carries from a back, barring injury. Guys going around the same spot as Ingram are Isaiah Crowell, Spencer Ware and Carlos Hyde who do not have the same volume concerns that Ingram does.

Wide Receiver

Brandin Cooks, New England Patriots

Cooks is going to get a lot of love this preseason. If you don’t believe that, his current ADP is late in the second round in 12-team leagues, which means he is being drafted as a WR1. He has finished as a top-12 receiver in each of the last two seasons, so it’s not as if the hype isn’t justified.

The problem for Cooks in New England is going to be volume. In each of Cooks’ three seasons, the Saints have ranked no worse than fourth in total plays run, and they have run more plays than the Patriots in each of those seasons. On average, the Saints have thrown 70 more passes per season than the Pats in that time frame. Last year the Saints put it in the air a whopping 124 times more than the Pats.

The wild card here is Rob Gronkowski. If Gronk can stay healthy for even most of the season, Cooks is going to be in a three-man battle for targets as opposed to only playing second fiddle to Michael Thomas in terms of target share. And again, he’ll be fighting for an already lesser total of targets to be shared.

Cooks is also going to have a negative impact on Julian Edelman’s value, but Cooks is going a full two rounds earlier than Edelman in early drafts. That gives Cooks the bigger bust potential.

T.Y. Hilton, Indianapolis Colts 

If Luck is a bust candidate, it’s only logical to extend the concern about Luck’s injury risk to Hilton. In 2014 and 2016 with a healthy Luck, Hilton topped 1,300 yards in each season and averaged 5.5 receptions per game or more. But in 2015 with Luck healthy for less than half of a season, Hilton only had 1,124 yards, he averaged only 4.3 receptions per game, and he had by far the lowest catch rate of his career at 51.5 percent. Hilton is being drafted towards the top of the second round on average, and if Luck misses any significant stretch of time, Hilton won’t live up to that price.

If there’s another thing to worry about with Hilton, it’s that he doesn’t get a ton of looks near the end zone. Hilton is obviously great in space, and his specialty is the long touchdown. But it’s a simple fact that touchdowns are more bankable if you’re getting looks in tight. Last year Hilton saw only 13 targets in the red zone, which ranked outside the top 40, and only saw five inside the 10, which ranked outside the top 50. The Luck injury risk would be easier to stomach with Hilton if Hilton was racking up more touchdowns when Luck was in the lineup.

Larry Fitzgerald, Arizona Cardinals

Remember when Fitzgerald was a bust? He has actually busted twice in his career. He first busted in 2012 when, coming off a 1,400-yard, eight touchdown season in 2011, he failed to crack 800 yards and only scored our touchdowns and finished outside the top 50 in fantasy scoring. He bounced back the following season with a respectable 954 yards and 10 touchdowns. But then he busted again in 2014 failing to crack 800 yards again and only scoring twice.

Since then, Fitz has topped 1,000 yards in each of the last two seasons and scored 15 combined touchdowns. But Fitz has become a completely different type of receiver in the last two years, essentially turning into a possession receiver. His catch rate has been over 70 percent in each of the last two seasons, a mark he had never cleared in any previous season. He has also had his two lowest yards per reception marks in each of the last two years.

You could make the argument that Fitz has adapted to his age and is finding a way to make a diminished skillset work. It’s analogous to saying a pitcher who has lost velocity has learned how to succeed with movement and precision. But the fact of the matter is that those pitchers can’t produce the same numbers they did before via different means. They’re producing lesser but still usable numbers in a transition period before their skills decline too far for fantasy use.

Fitz will be 34 this season and is being drafted among the top 25 receivers at this point. The history of receivers in their age 34 season or later and finishing in the top 25 at the position is sparse. The only receivers to do it in the last three years were Steve Smith and Anquan Boldin back in 2014. The age plus Fitzgerald’s previous bust history make him a risky bet if you’re drafting him as a WR2.