Matt Stafford didn’t live up to his ADP in 2014

Brian Tesch is a correspondent at FantasyPros. To read more from Brian, check out his archive and follow him @TheRealTesch.

Whether it be a fruitcake from the Nixon administration, Ron Mexico jersey, dead houseplant, obvious knockoff, leg-lamp, or a pet rock, we’ve all been in a position where we appreciate the thought, but can’t wait to find the gift receipt.

At first glance, many of these players looked like the things holiday dreams were made of. Back in August, you saw some of these players were wrapped in fantasy-stud shaped boxes, and happily drafted away, remarking on just how clever of a fantasy manager you are as you merrily smack talked away. However, when it came holiday time, you found out that these championship piece-shaped boxes were really just a clever packaging job, and contained lumps of fantasy football coal.

Maybe you were lucky and were able pass these presents away, but for the large majority of you, these duds doomed you to the consolation bracket. Without further adieu, here is the FantasyPros’ All-Bust Team of 2014. For those with weak constitutions, you may want to look away.

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The King Grinch QB of 2014 is…

MATTHEW STAFFORD (DET)

A bit of a surprise selection, Stafford was lucky that fellow #1 draft choice Andrew Luck had a more high-profile face-plant, as it averted the public’s eye from Stafford’s second straight championship week dud against an exploitable secondary. After a promising Week 14 explosion (26-34, 311 yards, 3 TDs) at home against the Buccaneers, Stafford took a shot at crushing your championship dreams in Week 15 with a 153 yard 1TD outing at home against Minnesota. If that didn’t do the trick, he absolutely torpedoed your dreams with a Week 16, 243 yard and two interception outing at Chicago.

It wasn’t just playoff disappointment, Stafford wasn’t anywhere close to performing up to his preseason ADP of 33 in 2014. While he did have a few eruption games in weeks 1, 4, and the aforementioned 14, surrounded by solid outings in weeks 7, 8, 10, and 13, Stafford had enough duds in between to finish 14th in total points among QBs in standard leagues. While his completion percentage and QBR went up, his yards per attempt took a slight dip and his touchdowns nose-dived from 29 in 2013 to 19 this year. Making matters all the worse, many managers who selected Stafford had a likely internal debate on whether to take Stafford or Andrew Luck (Luck’s preseason ADP was 35, two picks after Stafford). Stafford’s studly 2011 is getting further away by the minute , and it remains to be seen if his three-sizes to few fantasy point 2014 is just an aberration, or a data-point in a career that is trending downward for fantasy purposes.

ALSO CONSIDERED: While many of the top preseason options at the position didn’t deliver to expectations, Nick Foles was underwhelming to the tune of 14.9 points per game (the same as the fantasy irrelevant Mike Glennon) before he was lost for the year with an injury, and Robert Griffin III spent all of 2014 as a walking testament to Murphy’s Law.

The  Scroogiest RBs of 2014 are…

ADRIAN PETERSON (MIN), DOUG MARTIN (TB) AND MONTEE BALL (DEN)

To my limited memory, there hasn’t been a situation anything close to that of Peterson’s 2014. After putting up 93 total yards in Week 1, Peterson was suspended due to a very ugly child abuse incident. While you may feel strongly one way or the other about Peterson’s personal life, its un-arguable that he’s a bust of titanic proportions in regards to fantasy football in 2014.

While Peterson didn’t come up anywhere close to his ADP, the fact that fantasy managers had no idea if or when Peterson would return made him un-droppable, which ate through a roster spot for a good chunk of your season. His situation created an awful catch-22 for managers, either trade out for pennies on the dollar, cut bait (but risk return), or hold on and burn a roster spot on a potential zero. For those who drafted Peterson, or picked him up on waivers, it was a season of frustration, as there hasn’t been a high first rounder who has delivered so little in recent memory.

Martin went into the season as one of a select few backs without a foreseeable backfield caddy to take away carries. With memories of his sometimes dominant rookie 2012 season in our minds, Martin’s ADP rose to 19, and he was a popular RB2 pick. After being injured in Week 1, Martin was never right, and only had one game in which he rushed for over 60 yards (Which was Week 15, long after most managers had cut bait) on the year. With the lesser heralded Bobby Rainey having some success when Martin was out, the blame for Martin’s free-falling production shifted from Tampa’s maligned offensive line onto Martin himself. With Bobby Rainey and Charles Sims still around and a deep RB draft class on the horizon, Marin is at a career crossroads, which isn’t at all where you expected him to end the year at when you drafted him in round two.

Montee Ball was a ray of hope during the fantasy offseason, Knowshon Moreno’s 2013 success and 2014 departure combined with some brief flashes of brilliance in his rookie year, made Ball a hot commodity during draft season. After a volume-driven performance in Week 1, Ball had a so-so Week 2, a disasterous Week 3, and was hurt by Week 5. After Ronnie Hillman impressed during his audition as Ball’s replacement, it was thought that he could be safely dropped. However, Ball healed, and was thought to regain his featured role in Week 10, but instead tragically re-aggravated his groin injury, and was lost for the year. With Ronnie Hillman and C.J. Anderson performing well during his absence, the 2014 late-first, early-second round pick delivered one startable week, and a whole lot of heartache.

ALSO CONSIDERED: Zac Stacy went from rookie sensation of 2013, to all but disappearing in 2014. He’s miles behind Tre Mason until further notice. While those who drafted Peterson would think that this would be a first-world problem, LeSean McCoy massively underperformed compared to his #1 ADP. Shady was less effective, had his role slightly reduced, and also had multiple TDs vultured in 2014. He was more of a high-end RB2 instead of a franchise player this year. C.J. Spiller was seen as a potential home-run pick, but was clearly the caddy to Fred Jackson in 2014. He was a boom-or-bust play until he had a shot to seize the Buffalo backfield after a Fred Jackson injury; in one of the saddest moments of 2014, he had his own season end on a breakaway run in the same game as Jackson going down … Spiller looks to escape Buffalo in the offseason. Ryan Mathews had supposedly shaken his fragile label and looked to seize the San Diego backfield, unfortunately it was more of the same with Mathews, as he again had his season cut short by injury. Reggie Bush was a popular pick as a RB2, but he simply couldn’t shake injuries as well, and he has been passed on the depth chart by the impressive Joique Bell. Bush will retain value as a receiver out of the backfield, but his days of being a reliable RB2 seem to be over. Toby Gerhart started the year as a hip RB2 pick, was struck by injuries and ineffectiveness, passed by Denard Robinson on the depth chart, ended the year on a positive note, but looked less impressive than Jordan Todman. While Ben Tate is relatively well compensated, his 2014 was a riches to rags tale. Tate began the year as the prize acquisition of the Browns, had a few weeks of production, but was cut by the Browns, and then ultimately cut by the Vikings as well. Tate is light-years away from fantasy relevance right now. All of this summed up, it was a historically bad year to pick an RB2, as more than half of the RBs picked between 12-30 busted to a degree, and most of those backs that managed to be effective were limited by either usage or injury at some point.

These WRs were about as fun as Cousin Eddie in 2014

Cordarrelle Patterson (MIN), Larry Fitzgerald (ARI), and Wes Welker (DEN)

The hype around Cordarrelle Patterson pushed the 2nd year wideout’s ADP to 42, which in retrospect, was much too bullish for a WR coming off a 45-469-3 rookie season. While the fantasy community are largely responsible for overhyping Patterson as the next Josh Gordon, nobody could have predicted him ending the year at 33-384-1. If you’re looking for a silver lining on this purple piece of fantasy coal, he’s been so cartoonishly bad that at least those who drafted him could cut bait and move on early. Patterson didn’t exactly light the world on fire in the first half of the season, but he vanished in the second half. The former Volunteer failed to catch more than three passes in a game for seven consecutive weeks to close the season. Drafted as a fantasy WR2, he ended the year as the 4th WR on the Vikings depth chart, and in the doghouse of many a fantasy manager. As they say in Minnesota, Uff da.

While Fitzgerald wasn’t as utterly un-startable as Patterson, his season followed a similar arc. Fitzy didn’t score until Week 6, then found the end zone again in Week 8, but would not see pay dirt after that. He failed to exceed 40 receiving yards for five consecutive weeks to end the season. The former dominant wideout has been washed away by a perfect storm of poor QB play, injuries, and competition for targets. He finished the year being outproduced on a per-game basis by the unheralded Allen Hurns. It seems like just yesterday that Fitzgerald was in the conversation as the #1 WR in all of fantasy football, but his last 1000 yard season came in 2011.

Wes Welker began 2014 with his fantasy stock trending downward, and ended the year at a point where we just don’t know how much lower it can go. On the bright side, maybe you cut your losses during Welker’s two game suspension to start the year, but most likely you had to suffer through a player with a preseason ADP of 59 (slightly ahead of fantasy stalwarts T.Y. Hilton and Jeremy Maclin) posting a sometimes unwatchable 47-422-2 line. While there exists a small probability that Welker’s career will see a dead cat bounce in 2015, he’s an aging receiver who is being gradually phased out of the Broncos offense.

ALSO CONSIDERED: While their seasons weren’t the complete flops of the aforementioned wideouts, Calvin Johnson, A.J. Green, and Brandon Marshall have to be considered busts to some extent. Johnson and Green were drafted with expectations of 15 games of WR1 production, but instead battled inconsistency and injury in 2014. Marshall also had his year limited by injury and when he was the the field, he was outplayed on a points-per-game basis by the likes of the much later drafted Mike Wallace. It’s rare to see a player who has an increase in both targets and catches per game, take as much of a dive as Keenan Allen did in 2014. His YPC dipped nearly four yards from his rookie season and his trips to the end zone dropped from eight to four. Former fantasy stalwarts Vincent Jackson and Andre Johnson were both relegated to being talented second bananas due to the emergence of precocious talents Mike Evans and DeAndre Hopkins. Pierre Garcon has had his workload nearly cut in half, as he went from 11.38 targets per game in 2013 to 6.66 in 2014, and his production plummeted.

The TE who spun Shin more often than not in 2014 was…

VERNON DAVIS (SF)

People made smart arguments against Vernon Davis during the drafting season, “his touchdowns will regress”, “targets will be spread more evenly”, “etc/all”, the experts said. But through all the pessimism on Davis, nobody could’ve predicted a final 25-236-2 line from a player widely considered one of the best in the game. Possibly the most depressing note on a melancholy season was the fact that it started out on such a high note, as Davis posted a 4-44-2 line against Dallas in Week 1. This single bright spot accounted for nearly half of Davis’ entire 2014 production, as he would never top more than four (standard) fantasy points in a game in 2014. Wether it be injury, team chemistry, QB play, alignment of the sun, or another unseen factor, something just wasn’t right for the 49ers in 2014, and Davis was the poster boy for their off-beat year.

ALSO CONSIDERED: The position as a whole outside of a few elite performers was littered by TD dependent options in 2014, but few expected Jordan Cameron to join those ranks during fantasy drafts. After a 2013 breakout, Cameron seemed ready to crash the elite TE-party in 2014, but instead had a bit too much egg-nog. He went ten weeks between his two usable (weeks 6 and 16) fantasy performances, and missed time with a concussion. Kyle Rudolph seemed to be the TE sleeper de jour of 2014 drafts, as Norv Turner was going to ride into Minneapolis, sprinkle some of his magic TE pixie-dust on the former 2nd round pick, and turn him into a fantasy factor. That fairytale was just that, as Rudolph couldn’t shake injuries in 2014 and posted an unimpressive 24-231-2 line on the season.