Another year, another season of fantasy football surprises. Been a whacky year for sure, but I think we say that every season and it’s just that we get so caught up in the current moment that we forget that last year was no different, or the year before that, or the year before that.
Sam Bradford looking dejected in a loss
But what really has grabbed my attention the last few weeks is the complete meltdown of some players who were producing like fantasy football studs thru 11 weeks. Some players, like St. Louis Rams QB Sam Bradford and Tampa Bay Buccaneers WR Mike Williams have the excuse of hitting the annual rookie wall that almost all rookies tend to succumb to. It’s understandable as they’re not used to playing 16 games with little break time between. They’re used to 11, or maybe 12. Also, we have to remember, this is in all likelihood their first real job. They’ve been students before this with few adult responsibilities. It’s one thing to play football while in college. It’s quite another when it is your full time job that has a lot of off-season free time, but during the season it’s all about business. So while Bradford and Williams have seen their fantasy football production come down the last 3 weeks, they have an excuse.
But what about some of the veterans? Let’s look:
Denver’s Kyle Orton was on fire as the biggest QB surprise in fantasy thru the first 10 games. The last 3 games he’s been brutally bad.
Denver’s Brandon Lloyd’s season has been directly tied to Orton. When Orton was red hot, Lloyd was tearing it up as one of the top 3 fantasy WR’s. The last couple of games? His stats have been awful.
Chiefs WR Dwayne Bowe on his butt on the end zone
Kansas City’s Dwayne Bowe had a stretch of 7 games where he was simply unstoppable, putting up outrageous fantasy numbers. The last 2 weeks? 1 catch for 3 yards. Didn’t help that Matt Cassel was injured last game, but what about the week before when he was shut out entirely? Sure, the matchup against Champ Bailey (one of the best shut down CB’s in the game) was bad, but to get NOTHING?
We’ve certainly seen some interesting things this season. For a few games, Tennessee’s Chris Johnson was feeble in his production for fantasy owners. But he got it turned around. Tom Brady struggled at the beginning of the year, but has been red hot of late. Peyton Manning went thru a 3 game stretch where he threw 11 interceptions. Adrian Peterson is coming off a pitiful performance Monday night against the Giants.
Why these ups and down for the veterans? Goes back to something I mention every year. It’s the fantasy football law of averages. NO player, not even the studliest of studs, will put up great numbers every week. And when a player is putting up insanely huge numbers the law of averages dictates he has to have some clunkers to even his stats out.
It just stinks that for owners of players like Orton, Lloyd, and Bowe that the law of averages is catching up to them just as the fantasy playoffs are here.
