5 Fantasy football busts you won’t see coming in 2019

Glorified players who are supposed to lead your team, but end up pedestrian. Those are your fantasy football busts. Some are obvious, but these five players you won’t see coming.

It is hard to locate fantasy football busts ahead of time. That is the point. If we knew who would underachieve, those players would drop in drafts and become less of a bust. That’s what is happening right now with the likes of Melvin Gordon. No one knows how long he will sit out. A consensus first-round pick has now fallen into the second round and may continue to fall further as the preseason progresses.

Other big fallers in early drafts are Golden Tate (suspended four games, pending appeal), A.J. Green (major injury concern) and D’Onta Foreman (unexpectedly released).

If Tate’s suspension or Green’s injury or Foreman’s release occurred a few weeks later, those who drafted them would have busts on their hands. Timing is everything. We aren’t here to debate timing. We’re here with five players destined to be fantasy football busts, but you’d never know it. Buyer beware.

Set aside the obvious red flags. It is still hard to tell when to draft the likes of Gordon and Ezekiel Elliott. Antonio Brown may begin to drop very soon too. The premiere players will deliver points if they are healthy and playing. But how long until Gordon, Elliott and Brown are actually playing, if they return at all? Gordon has brought up Le’Veon Bell as a test case, and Brown threatened to retire.

Outside of special-situation questions like those, who are the real busts to avoid in drafts? The bust label applies to players who greatly underperform their draft slot. A bust becomes serviceable if he is drafted late enough. The problem is that these guys can’t be gotten late. They are busts you never see coming.

Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate fantasy football busts in today’s NFL Sports Debate.

Leonard Fournette, RB, Jacksonville Jaguars

Todd Salem: Fournette is a third-round pick right now. That is good value for a starting running back. Except Fournette hasn’t shown he can be the top scorer a fantasy team would need. He has been an inefficient runner in the Jacksonville offense. He also provides little to no help in the passing game, which is bad in standard drafts and a killer in PPR. Compare Fournette to a player going around the same time: Dalvin Cook.

Neither player has stayed healthy in their two years in the league. Neither should be comfortably trusted, yet neither has much in the way of competition on their team. But with Cook, because of his do-it-all talent, we at least have the impression that a 16-game slate will return huge results if he gets there.

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I’m not sure the same should be said of Fournette. Even 16 games may not offer a top-flight player. His best-case scenario requires scoring a ton of goal-line touchdowns, which isn’t something to count on.

Mike Evans, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Dan Salem: Evans has been a consistently solid wide receiver it every area but the one that counts most. His touchdown numbers are so erratic that any sane fantasy owner should be worried. He managed to slot in as the ninth fantasy receiver last season, which raises the red flag for me in 2019.

As a late second- or early third-round pick, Evans is not going to live up to WR1 potential barring a complete turnaround of Tampa’s offense. It’s possible, but his bust potential is high, considering how high he’s being drafted.

Derrick Henry, RB, Tennessee Titans

Todd Salem: No one in their right mind will pay a third-round price for Henry based on a four-game sample. Henry was disappointing in his first two seasons; so much so that he wasn’t the every-down player entering 2018. As a zero in the passing game, he averaged fewer than 12 touches per game before his breakout Week 14 performance. In the final four games, he accumulated seven of his 12 touchdowns and 55 percent of his total rushing yards for the entire season.

The Titans will certainly want to give Henry the same chance in 2019 to continue how he finished ’18, but call me skeptical he can do it. We have much more evidence that he cannot.

Baker Mayfield, QB, Cleveland Browns

Dan Salem: Don’t get me wrong, Mayfield had an excellent rookie season. He’s likely going to have a nice sophomore year and turn into a solid pro player. But how many times are we going to allow ourselves to get burned by the flashy rookie season of a new quarterback? How many times do they actually repeat their high level of success?

Via injury or otherwise, most of them take a step back. They simply started too high. Mayfield is being drafted as the fourth highest-rated quarterback, way ahead of proven stars like Drew Brees and Cam Newton and Russell Wilson. The value simply isn’t there, and the mere chance of a decline in his sophomore year rings the “bust” bell loud and clear.

Brandin Cooks, WR, Los Angeles Rams

Todd Salem: This is nothing against Cooks. He is simply the earliest of the Los Angeles wide receivers coming of the board, and I’m not sure he should be, nor if it’s worth grabbing any of this trio this early. With the return of Cooper Kupp, all three Rams receivers should be useful fantasy plays. They will all eat into each other’s production as well.

Cooks is being taken in the fourth round of drafts. Robert Woods, who outperformed Cooks last year, is being taken a full round later. Kupp, meanwhile, is going another half-round to a full round after that. He registered 95 fantasy points in less than half the season, keeping pace with both Cooks and Woods.

It would be too harsh to actually call Cooks a bust in this scenario. All three guys will be worth owning, but I know I will never get the first LAR wide receiver off the board. And I may not get any of them when other teams’ number-one options are on the board at the same time.