With the 2017 fantasy football season over, now is a good time to reflect on what transpired over the last four months of football. Today’s focus will be on the quarterback, or more specifically on the biggest busts at quarterback in fantasy. This was a strange year for the quarterback in the NFL. Injuries and overall worse quarterback play hurt the position in 2017.
The thing to remember is a quarterback that looks bad playing can still be a good fantasy quarterback. Quarterbacks like Marcus Mariota and Dak Prescott, who looked pretty bad on film had productive fantasy seasons due to their rushing abilities. The following quarterbacks left owners wanting more, turning them into some level of bust in 2017.
Eli Manning – New York Giants
While Eli Manning cannot take the blame for all the injuries on the New York Giants roster, he can take some of the responsibility for his unproductive play in 2017. Manning went into the season with one of the best trios of wide receivers in the NFL. Although he lost two of them to season-ending injuries, he was not doing much before they went onto the IR. Manning threw for 600 fewer yards and seven fewer touchdowns in 2017 and was benched for a game. Another big knock against Eli is he scored 40% of his fantasy points in just three games this season. Removing those three games, Manning averaged only 10.0 fantasy points per game.
Jameis Winston – Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Winston was expected to make the leap in his third season. However, due to a mixture of injuries, maturity issues and mediocre play, Winston stumbled in 2017. Winston could have been worse in 2017, had he not picked up plenty of garbage time yards to pad his stats. Winston also finished the season with three games scoring 5.70 points or less. Winston also scrambled much less in 2017. Winston ran the ball 54 and 53 times in his first two seasons, but only finished 2017 with 33 carries. After scoring six rushing touchdowns as a rookie, Winston has just two rushing scores over the last two seasons. Winston did manage the finish out the season with four five double-digit performances and four with at least 16.4 points. The problem for many NFL fantasy owners is by Week 13 many had given up on Winston.
Matt Ryan – Atlanta Falcons
After winning the MVP award in 2016, Matt Ryan and the Atlanta Falcons offense looked flat in 2017. Ryan finished the season with 18 less passing touchdowns, 900 less passing yards and five more interceptions. Ryan did surpass 4000 yards passing to salvage some points. However, he ended the 2017 season with 110 fewer fantasy points than 2016, making him experience one of the biggest fantasy drop-off ever for a player who played in all 16 games of a season. Better play calling could help the Falcons and Ryan next season.
Aaron Rodgers – Green Bay Packers
While injuries are not the best reason to include someone on the bust list, Rodgers being the first quarterback selected in the majority of fantasy leagues makes him worthy of a spot on this list. Rodgers played in just seven games this season. He was quite productive in those games, topping 19.0 points five times. The biggest problem with Rodgers was his return. When Rodgers went down with an injury, many fantasy owners likely kept Rodgers on their team. Rodgers returned for a big game in Week 15, but the Packers lost, and the team decided to shut Rodgers down for the rest of the season. If they had just placed Rodgers on the IR, people could have moved on and not wasted a roster spot on a player outscored by Blake Bortles and Brock Osweiler in his one week back.
Derek Carr – Oakland Raiders
Expected to make the jump to elite quarterback this season, Derek Carr was a big disappointment in 2017. Carr finished 19th amongst quarterback this season. However, it was his lack of big performances that makes him such a large bust this season. Carr played 15 games this season. Only twice in those 15 games did Carr finish with 20 fantasy points or more. Carr played most of his season scoring in the low-teens. While that is not necessarily the worst thing, much more was expected of Carr and the Raiders offense this season.
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