Bruno Boys Fantasy Football

In another Bruno Boys installment of a 3-week long series titled “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” we’ll take a look back at the 2009 regular season and evaluate “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” at each position; Kyle Smith takes a look at those wide receivers who just plain flopped in 2009.

THE UGLY

1) Roy Williams (Dallas Cowboys)  —  Fifty-four million dollars just doesn’t get you what it used to. That’s the amount of money Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones bestowed on Williams after trading first, third, sixth and seventh-round picks to the Detroit Lions to acquire him.

After a less-than-robust showing in the last half of 2008, it was thought by some that Williams, with an entire offseason of work and the absence of Terrell Owens, would be a fantasy football force in 2009. That didn’t happen, to say the least. In half of the games Williams played, he accumulated less than 20 receiving yards, and for the season, he totaled 38 catches for 596 yards, though with a respectable seven touchdowns. Still, the 596 receiving yards he gained was 68th in the NFL, and fewer than the likes of Kevin Walter, Mohammed Massaquoi and Earl Bennett. And the 38 receptions he amassed was 107th in the NFL, and less than such luminaries as Danny Amendola, Greg Camarillo and Jason Avant.

2) Terrell Owens (Buffalo Bills)  — Speaking of Owens, he was cut by the Dallas Cowboys and hit free agency ready to sign a multi-year deal – only that never happened. Instead, he signed for one season with the Buffalo Bills, and after being greeted at the airport by fans and news cameras, he failed to deliver.

Owens was supposed to energize Buffalo’s meek passing game while opening up even more opportunities for Lee Evans, but Evans had one of the worst seasons of his career, and Owens caught only 55 passes for 829 yards and five touchdowns. Talk about being a huge disappointment in upstate New York.

3) Eddie Royal (Denver Broncos)  —  Royal didn’t just stumble in his sophomore campaign, he tripped and fell into an abyss. He caught 37 passes for 345 yards and didn’t reach the end zone from a receptions in a single game last season. Compared to 2008, he had a whopping 54 fewer receptions, 635 fewer receiving yards and five fewer touchdowns. On the bright side, he did have one fewer lost fumble in 2009 than he did in 2008!

Where Royal’s career goes from here is anyone’s guess. Maybe if Brandon Marshall gets traded, his production will ascend to fantasy-worthy levels, but it’s impossible to tell at this point. One thing seems for certain, though – his stock can’t get any lower than it is right now.

4) Ted Ginn Jr. (Miami Dolphins)  —  Carved into Mt. Rushmore are busts of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, four of the biggest in the world. Ted Ginn Jr. will never have his face etched in stone, but in terms of enormous busts, he fits right in.

Ginn was drafted ninth overall in 2007, and after a solid 2008 season in which he caught 56 passes for 790 yards and two touchdowns, it was thought that he could have a breakout season in his third, which is the year many expect wideouts to truly develop. But Ginn clearly fell out of favor with the Miami Dolphins coaching staff and collected only 38 receptions for 454 yards with one touchdown this season, and isn’t much more than a deep threat at this point.

5) Mark Clayton (Baltimore Ravens)  — Another former first-round pick who has failed to meet expectations is Clayton. In his second season, in 2006, he grabbed 67 passes for 939 yards and five touchdowns, and great things were supposedly on the way for him. That never really materialized, but some thought that part of that was simply due to Baltimore lacking a star at quarterback. The Ravens potentially have found that in Joe Flacco, and Clayton had his second-best season in 2008 with the rookie under center. So surely Clayton would blossom in 2009, right?

Wrong. Clayton’s numbers dipped to 34 receptions for 480 yards and two touchdowns this season, his fifth in the NFL. The Ravens will now be looking to find another wideout, either in free agency, the draft or through a trade, and Clayton’s days as someone fantasy football owners had hope for are likely gone.

6) Michael Clayton (Tampa Bay Buccaneers)  — The $25 million contract he signed in the offseason was ridiculous, but it raised the hopes of some fantasy football owners that maybe, just maybe, the front office of the Buccaneers saw something in the former first-round pick that none of us did. Heck, maybe with Jon Gruden gone, Clayton would finally revert back to his rookie form, when he had over 1,000 receiving yards and seven touchdowns. Any fantasy owner who took a chance on him knows how that turned out.

Clayton actually started strong, catching five passes for 93 yards in Week 1. Unfortunately, he caught only 11 more passes all season, and those 93 yards he gained in Week 1 constituted 40 percent of his total for the season. He ended the year with 16 receptions for 230 yards and one touchdown. Talk about not getting it done.

7) Brian Robiskie (Cleveland Browns)  — We heard it leading up to the draft, after the draft, and into training camp – Robiskie was the most polished receiver in the 2009 draft, and the one most likely to post respectable numbers right away.

Unfortunately, Robiskie wasn’t even the best rookie receiver on his own team, an honor that went to Mohammed Massaquoi. Robiskie was passed up on the depth chart by Massaquoi fairly early on, and for the season caught all of seven passes for 106 yards.

8) Lance Moore (New Orleans Saints): It may not be completely fair to lump Moore in with this group because he suffered from injury a lot this season, but even when he was playing, he did little. After a 2008 season that saw him catch 79 passes for 928 yards and seven touchdowns, it was thought that Moore would once again be a vital cog in the New Orleans Saints offense, but it simply never materialized.

Moore played in just seven games this season, but still amassed just 14 receptions for 153 yards and two scores, and in only one of those games did he have more than two receptions. He got healthy for the postseason, but still wasn’t a factor and has caught five passes for 32 yards in New Orleans’ three playoff games.

9) Deion Branch (Seattle Seahawks)  —  Branch was going to be healthy once the season started, and the Seahawks acquired T.J. Houshmandzadeh, and that would help Branch get more open looks. At least that was the thinking prior to the season, but as we all know, it didn’t work out that way.

After missing the first two weeks of the year, Branch had a game with six receptions for 49 yards in Week 4, raising the hopes of some. But he never caught six passes in a game again the rest of the season, and in fact accumulated more than 50 receiving yards just twice the rest of the year, and ended up with 45 catches for 437 yards (a piddling average of 9.7 yards-per-catch), and two scores.

10) Antwaan Randle El (Washington Redskins)  —  It’s not like a whole lot was expected out of Randle El, but he was at least moderately useful in 2008 as a fantasy football reserve/match-up type of player. You couldn’t even get that out of him in 2009.

Randle El posted 530 receiving yards for the year, his second-lowest total over the past six seasons, along with his lowest yards-per-catch average in that time of 10.6. Worst of all, however, was that for the first time in his career, he didn’t find the end zone even once.

2009 The Good:  QB  |  RB  |  WR  |  TE  |  K  |  DEF

2009 The Bad:  QB  |  RB  |  WR  |  TE  |  K  |  DEF

2009 The Ugly:  QB  |  RB  |  WR  |  TE  |  K |  DEF

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