Fantasy football studs and duds in 2015 NFL season

by | Dec 22, 2015

For most fantasy football owners, this is Super Bowl week.

Week 16 is the championship game in most fantasy leagues. If you have any of the following fantasy studs on this list, there’s a good chance you’re working on your lineup right now. If you have any of these duds on your list, you’re probably wondering what might have been.

Odell Beckham Jr. would have been a fantasy stud, but since he acted like more of a wrecking ball than a wide receiver on Sunday, he’s suspended for Week 16 and his fantasy owners are in just as much trouble as the Giants.

If you had Beckham on your team, you’re scouring waiver wire articles and don’t have time to read this. But everyone else can enjoy this look back on the 2015 fantasy football season. Scoring is based on Yahoo! public leagues and Fantasy Pros was used for average draft position.

Stud: Cam Newton

Cam Newton is a candidate for MVP in both real football and fantasy football.

Newton is second in the NFL with 33 touchdown passes and while he’s only 15th with 3,402 passing yards he leads all quarterbacks with 580 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns.

It never hurts when a player’s worst fantasy performance comes in Week 1 and his best comes in Week 15. Newton’s floor was 13.5 points in the opener, and his season high came in Sunday’s 38-35 win over the Giants. Newton threw five touchdown passes and produced 41.6 points.

Since the Panthers (14-0), still haven’t clinched home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, they still have something to play for Sunday at Atlanta. So fantasy owners who have Newton in the championship game of their league don’t have to worry about him sitting out.

Dud: Eddie Lacy

Many a fantasy owner built his or her team around Eddie Lacy this season, and most of those fantasy owners had a lot of free time on their hands last week because their seasons were over.

Lacy scored 15.9 points in Week 1, then went five straight weeks without a touchdown or a double-digit fantasy performance. He ended his touchdown drought in Week 8, then he went for a minus-1 and sat out a game with a groin injury.

After rushing for 100 yards in two straight games, Lacy infamously missed curfew in Detroit and touched the ball just six times. Lacy bounced back with his best performance of the year with 124 yards and a touchdown against the Cowboys in Week 14, but lost a lot of fantasy semifinals with 23 yards and no touchdowns Sunday at Oakland.

Stud: Allen Robinson

A lot of fantasy owners drafted a defense before they drafted Allen Robinson.

Bad idea.

Robinson is tied for the league lead with Doug Baldwin and Odell Beckham Jr. with 13 touchdown catches. He has 1,141 receiving yards to Baldwin’s 905. Beckham has 1,396, but he’ll get zero in Week 16.

The Jaguars’ leading receiver averaged out as the 29th receiver off the fantasy draft board, but is fifth among receivers in scoring.

Dud: DeMarco Murray

DeMarco Murray’s fantasy stock dropped even before the season began.

In 2014, he ran behind a Cowboys offensive line that Pro Football Focus ranked as the best in the NFL.

In Philadelphia, Murray figured to lose touches to Ryan Mathews, and that’s exactly what’s happened.

Murray’s 606 rushing yards puts him outside the top 25 in the league. He’s run for just four touchdowns, none since Week 9. Murray has less than 10 fantasy points combined over the last four games, and just like the Eagles in real football smart fantasy owners have benched Murray by now.

Stud: Russell Wilson

Russell Wilson is third in quarterback fantasy scoring behind Cam Newton and Tom Brady, but over the last five games he’s thrown 19 touchdown passes and no interceptions and has outscored Brady by more than 45 points. He’s scored at least 25 fantasy points in each of those games.

After throwing just one touchdown pass in eight of the Seahawks’ first nine games, Wilson has rewarded the patience of his fantasy owners. He also brings 502 rushing yards to the table, second to Newton among quarterbacks.

Dud: Matt Ryan

Just like the Falcons in real football, Matt Ryan has been a fantasy disappointment this season.

Even before throwing three touchdown passes and five interceptions over the last four games, Ryan wasn’t exactly returning value as the consensus seventh quarterback taken in fantasy drafts.

His 18 touchdown passes this season puts him in the mediocre company of Brian Hoyer and if Peyton Manning remains sidelined for the rest of the year Ryan can catch up to him in the interception department. Manning’s 17 interceptions this season are the most in the league, but Ryan has thrown 15. Tyrod Taylor, Alex Smith and Ryan Fitzpatrick are among the quarterbacks with more fantasy points this season than Ryan.

Stud: Antonio Brown

If you had Antonio Brown on your roster in Week 15, there’s a good chance you are in the championship round of your fantasy league.

Brown’s 16 receptions for 189 yards and two touchdowns added up to a season-high 30.9 fantasy points, and that performance was no outlier. He scored 29.8 fantasy points in Week 13, 28.6 in Week 8 and 27.9 in Week 9.

Even though Brown scored less than five fantasy points in three straight weeks when Ben Roethlisberger was injured, the Steelers’ star receiver is the top-scoring non-quarterback in fantasy. Brown’s 116 receptions is second only to Julio Jones, who has 118. But Brown has nine touchdowns compared to seven for Jones, and Jones went five straight games without a touchdown before catching one on Sunday.

Dud: Randall Cobb

Randall Cobb was supposed to be the man this year in Green Bay with Jordy Nelson out for the season.

It hasn’t worked out that way, at least not since Week 3.

Cobb caught three touchdown passes and scored 28.3 fantasy points that week, but has posted just one double-digit game since then.

A consensus No. 20 draft pick, Cobb is 25th in wide receiver fantasy scoring. Owners of foam cheeseheads are happy with the Packers’ 10-4 record, but fantasy owners of certain Packers players aren’t so pleased this season.

Stud: Doug Martin

Todd Gurley is grabbing headlines as a Rookie of the Year candidate and DeAngelo Williams is getting a lot of attention as the Steelers’ savior with Le’Veon Bell injured, but Doug Martin has more fantasy points than both of them.

Only Devonta Freeman and Adrian Peterson have more fantasy points among running backs than Martin, but Martin has more points than both of them over the last three games.

Martin has a shot at the league rushing title. His 1,305 yards are only nine behind Peterson. The Buccaneers’ running back hasn’t been touchdown dependent for his fantasy success. His five TDs are the fewest among the top 10 fantasy running backs.

Not a bad bounceback year after two straight sub-500-yard seasons.

Dud: C.J. Anderson

Players who have missed significant time with injuries are excused from this list. While C.J. Anderson has been dinged up for most of the season, he’s only sat out one game and since many fantasy owners drafted him in the first round, he’s been a major fantasy dud.

Anderson officially lost his starting job to Ronnie Hillman after the Broncos’ Week 7 bye. He gained 101 yards with a touchdown in a Week 8 win over the Packers and had 113 yards with two touchdowns when the Broncos ended the Patriots’ quest for perfection in Week 12.

Both of those games were fool’s gold. Anderson hasn’t scored more than 7.2 fantasy points in any other game. He and Hillman failed to combine for 100 yards in Week 13 against a Chargers team that’s allowed the seventh-most rushing yards this season, and the Broncos had a two-touchdown lead for most of that game.

The Broncos still could miss the playoffs this season, and fantasy owners who took a chance on the Broncos backfield would probably love to see that happen assuming they don’t bleed orange.