A lot of wide receivers this season are coming off lousy years. Brandon Marshall, DeAndre Hopkins and Allen Robinson, most notably, all were really good two years ago, and they all fell really short of expectations last year. Can any of these guys rebound?
In these kind of situations, I think it’s always best to look first at the player and his situation. With Marshall, for example, I’m pretty comfortable writing him off. He’s an older receiver who’s lost some speed, and he’s going to a team (the Giants) who have two other good receivers (Odell Beckham and Sterling Shepard). Marshall shouldn’t make a big impact.
With Hopkins and Robinson, they’re younger receivers who should be the No. 1 wide receivers on their teams, giving them a better chance of maybe climbing back into the top 15 at their position.
Other wide receivers who really declined last year after strong 2015 seasons: John Brown, Jeremy Maclin and Allen Hurns.
I wanted to look at the historical numbers on this issue, so I decided to consider all wide receivers from the last 15 years. Considering only players who had started at least 10 games two years in a row, I isolated the 40 wide receivers who declined the most. That’s using standard fantasy scoring (6 for TDs and 1 for every 10 yards). Marshall was right up there near the top, coming in behind Michael Clayton of the Bucs.
If a wide receiver had a big year and then got hurt, benched or suspended, that wouldn’t get him on this list – he had to be playing.
Then I looked at what these 40 declining wide receivers did in their next season.
Of the 40, 12 were either deep backups or not even in the league. They are left blank in the chart below.
Of the others, I see eight that put together solid, top-20 type seasons. Most notably, Terrell Owens scored 14 TDs in 14 games in 2004. Randy Moss caught 13 TDs in 2009, though he’s a little bit of an exception (he wasn’t so much terrible in 2008 as simply insanely good in 2007, with 23 TDs). Six others averaged over 9 fantasy points per game. I’ve got those receivers flagged.
With this kind of deal, you get into the issue are trying to define a “good” receiver. Eric Moulds, Mike Wallace, Chris Chambers and Rod Smith all produced at about 1,000-yard clip, but with just 4-5 TDs. I decided to leave them up, but all should have at least been on fantasy seasons.
For rough purposes, eight of these 28 receivers were good, and another 10 were at least good enough to be on rosters in fantasy leagues – about two thirds should have been on fantasy rosters, with half of those players actually making a pretty good impact.
| RECEIVERS COMING OFF TERRIBLE SEASONS | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | St | No | Yards | TD | Points |
| 2002 | Derrick Alexander | 5 | 1.6 | 15.2 | .00 | 1.5 |
| 2003 | Rod Smith | 15 | 4.9 | 62.9 | .27 | 7.9 |
| 2003 | Johnnie Morton | 16 | 3.1 | 52.1 | .25 | 6.7 |
| 2003 | Bill Schroeder | 13 | 2.4 | 25.0 | .15 | 3.4 |
| 2003 | Qadry Ismail | |||||
| 2004 | • Terrell Owens | 14 | 5.5 | 85.4 | 1.00 | 14.5 |
| 2004 | • Donald Driver | 16 | 5.3 | 75.8 | .58 | 11.1 |
| 2004 | Eric Moulds | 16 | 5.5 | 66.4 | .31 | 8.5 |
| 2004 | Curtis Conway | 4 | 5.3 | 56.3 | .33 | 7.6 |
| 2004 | Derrius Thompson | |||||
| 2005 | • Randy Moss | 15 | 3.8 | 64.1 | .47 | 9.2 |
| 2005 | Ike Hilliard | 2 | 2.5 | 28.5 | .50 | 5.9 |
| 2006 | • Joe Horn | 10 | 3.7 | 67.9 | .43 | 9.4 |
| 2006 | Muhsin Muhammad | 16 | 3.8 | 53.9 | .31 | 7.3 |
| 2006 | Michael Clayton | 12 | 2.8 | 29.7 | .08 | 3.5 |
| 2007 | Chris Chambers | 16 | 4.1 | 61.4 | .25 | 7.6 |
| 2007 | Keenan McCardell | |||||
| 2007 | Rod Smith | |||||
| 2008 | Darrell Jackson | 2 | 2.0 | 33.0 | .50 | 6.3 |
| 2008 | Joe Horn | |||||
| 2009 | • Randy Moss | 16 | 5.2 | 79.0 | .83 | 12.9 |
| 2009 | • Chad Johnson | 16 | 4.5 | 67.4 | .56 | 10.1 |
| 2009 | Roy Williams | 15 | 2.5 | 39.7 | .47 | 6.8 |
| 2009 | Braylon Edwards | 16 | 2.8 | 42.5 | .27 | 5.9 |
| 2009 | Bobby Engram | |||||
| 2009 | Donte Stallworth | |||||
| 2010 | Anquan Boldin | 16 | 4.0 | 52.4 | .44 | 7.9 |
| 2010 | Eddie Royal | 16 | 3.7 | 43.0 | .19 | 5.4 |
| 2010 | Justin Gage | 4 | 2.3 | 35.8 | .00 | 3.6 |
| 2010 | Antonio Bryant | |||||
| 2011 | • Miles Austin | 10 | 4.3 | 58.2 | .70 | 10.0 |
| 2011 | Randy Moss | |||||
| 2013 | • Larry Fitzgerald | 16 | 5.1 | 60.1 | .63 | 9.8 |
| 2014 | Miles Austin | 12 | 3.9 | 47.3 | .17 | 5.7 |
| 2014 | Lance Moore | |||||
| 2015 | Wes Welker | |||||
| 2016 | Mike Wallace | 16 | 4.5 | 65.5 | .27 | 8.2 |
| 2016 | Brandon LaFell | 16 | 4.0 | 53.8 | .38 | 7.6 |
| 2016 | Randall Cobb | 13 | 4.6 | 49.5 | .31 | 6.8 |
| 2016 | Roddy White | |||||
| 2017 | Brandon Marshall | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2017 | DeAndre Hopkins | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2017 | Allen Robinson | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2017 | John Brown | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2017 | Jeremy Maclin | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2017 | Allen Hurns | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
—Ian Allan