Joe Bond shares his bust candidates for the 2015 season.

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I want to start out by giving you the definition of a bust according to the dictionary.

Bust (noun): A woman’s bre… wait a minute that’s not right. Let’s try this again.

Bust (noun): A failure; a flop

Hmm… that one is better. At least it is for this article.

Bust is a bad word in fantasy football, or any fantasy sport you play in. To call somebody a bust is quite possibly the worst thing you can call a player, at least when it comes to describing them in fantasy.

Drafting a bust can completely derail your fantasy team’s season. You typically only give the term bust to players that are drafted in the higher rounds because you are relying on these players to perform at a certain level. The only way to not have this affect your team is to get lucky and hit on some sleepers later in the draft. For that reason, correctly identify the busts before your draft is very important. It lets you know who to avoid when drafting so you can have a better chance at succeeding this season. Below I will discuss some players that I believe have a high chance of being this year’s busts.

Running Back

DeMarco Murray (PHI)
456 touches. That is how many Murray had last season and that was just the regular season. I don’t think I need to tell you what happens to running backs the season after they have that kind of workload. For those of you who don’t know, I will summarize it real quick. It is not good.

Even if he did not have this kind of workload trend looming over his head, Murray also has left Dallas to join the Eagles who like to spread the wealth. Just ask LeSean McCoy who saw his receptions and red zone carries decline last year drastically. Chip Kelly really has no reason to even think about giving Murray the same kind of workload because he has plenty of talent behind him with Ryan Mathews and Darren Sproles on the team. Not only that, but it’s not like Murray has been a model of health during his career, having missed eight games during his first three seasons. All of these factors below scream bust to me.

Frank Gore (IND)
How long can Gore keep being a productive NFL running back past the age of 30 with the pounding he has taken in his long career? It is a question that has been asked for a couple of seasons now. Most analysts have predicted a fairly steep decline each of those years, only to be wrong. Despite a bit of a drop off last season in fantasy, Gore was still a productive running back and would have been a good fantasy player if it weren’t for a drop off in touchdowns.

With all that said, he is now with the Colts who were the 2014 NFL leader in pass attempts with Andrew Luck under center. Because of this, I expect Gore’s rushing total to drop pretty significantly. The only way I see Gore salvaging his fantasy value is if he scores a bunch of touchdowns, which is definitely possible given the opportunities in the red zone the Colts offense will give him. However, any player that has to rely on touchdowns for their fantasy value is a bust candidate to me.

Wide Receivers

Jeremy Maclin (KC)
Maclin is a very good receiver and if he were still in Philadelphia then I would probably be ranking him in the top-15 at his position this season.

The fact is, he is not with the Eagles this season and moved on to join the Kansas City Chiefs in free agency. Maclin will go from an offense that threw 21 touchdowns to receivers, to a team that threw zero touchdowns to receivers in 2014. Yes, you read that right, the Chiefs did not throw a single touchdown to a receiver last season. Now, Maclin should help change the touchdown drought, but I don’t expect the offense to change so much that they are going to be airing it out, especially with Alex Smith still under center.

Sammy Watkins (BUF)
This has nothing to do with talent, age or even injury risk with Watkins. In fact, I believe Watkins is one of the best receivers in the game if it were just based on pure talent.

Of course for fantasy, we can’t do that. When looking at Watkins, you have to consider the quarterback or in this case, quarterbacks that will be throwing to him. At years end, it will likely be a combination of E.J. Manuel, Tyrod Taylor and Matt Cassel for Buffalo. None of these quarterbacks excite me.

The other worry I have for Watkins is the number of mouths to feed in Buffalo. This offseason, they acquired LeSean McCoy, Percy Harvin and Charles Clay. Those three will join Watkins, Robert Woods and Fred Jackson as viable weapons for this offense to use.

The combination of poor quarterback play and too many weapons will limit the number of chances Watkins will have. He will likely be reliant on the big play and might not get enough of those to return the value he needs to avoid the bust label.

Quarterback

Ben Roethlisberger (PIT)
Big Ben was phenomenal last season overall, finishing as the No. 5 fantasy quarterback. A closer look though and we see it due to a string of great games, whereas the rest were average- to sub-average.

Roethlisberger’s stats were inflated a bit by his two consecutive weeks where the threw six touchdowns each, scoring a combined 81 fantasy points. If you get rid of those games, he scored over 20 points just three times. What’s worse, he scored under 14 points six times.

That inconsistency has me very worried about Roethlisberger being able to repeat his 2014 season and return his current ADP. I get it, it’s hard to look at the weapons he has around him (Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell) and not get excited about Big Ben. Even I have him ranked No. 6 right now, due to the opportunities he will have. I just would not be at all surprised if he winds up being a bust either.

Tight End

Julius Thomas (JAC)
I kind of think this one is a no-brainer, but felt like I had to mention it since Thomas is currently being drafted as the No. 6 tight end according to the recent ADP. Let me tell you folks, there is no way he finishes the season that high, now that he has moved to the Jaguars and away from Peyton Manning to Blake Bortles.

I’m afraid some people are just looking at the last two season’s numbers and expecting the success to continue. You just can’t do that. The change in scenery must be accounted for. Something also needs to be said to the fact that in his first four seasons, Thomas, has yet to play a full 16 games. I just can’t trust him this season and think he will be a huge disappointment for those who draft him expecting him to be even half of what he was when he played for Denver.

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Joe is the creator of the Fantasy Six Pack site. You can follow him on Twitter @FantasySixPack.

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