Yahoo Sports’ Matt Harmon and Tera Roberts look at the players who disappointed fantasy managers in 2024 but could be primed for an improvement next season.
Matt, Tara, why don’t you guys jump in and give us some bounce back candidates for next season with some tough spots.
Yeah, these players were going to talk about terror.
They were definitely in some tough spots this year, did not work out to expectations, but we get to maybe be a little bit optimistic about their outlook in 2025, or maybe we won’t.
Maybe it’ll still be another bit of a disaster here.
So, uh, give me your first player that was in a tough spot this year.
My first player is CJ Stroud, and it’s weird because we didn’t think that he would be in a tough spot coming into the season, but boy has this been a big sophomore slump for him.
Very disappointing with the addition of Stefon Diggs and Joe Mixon.
We thought this was developing into a super, super team and unfortunately, The Texans, despite, you know, being on their way to the playoffs, um, via their terrible division, it’s just been a massive struggle for CJ Stroud.
The Texans have some off-season work to do.
Diggs is a free agent and will be coming off of an injury.
Tank Dell’s 2025 is at risk.
They have to find another option to complement Neo Collins.
But they will take a step back, improve their offensive line, put Stroud into better positions, and we’ll probably get a nice ADP discount on him as well.
Likely checking in as a mid-tier, uh, QB2.
So he’ll be a very interesting late round quarterback strategy pick there, in my opinion.
Yeah, I like that call.
It just really this year very overinflated ADP for a non-rushing quarterback for CJ Strout.
So he was always, even if, even if it went worse than expected, he was always kind of set up to fail from a fantasy perspective there.
Uh, also, a bit of an overinflated ADP was Arizona Cardinals rookie wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. who basically in every draft, both like the sicko freak bestball drafts and like your regular old redraft leagues, he was like a Late 1st, early 2nd round pick bare minimum, that certainly seems a little bit aggressive in hindsight.
I was asked last night, like, what is the biggest reason that his production has been held back this year?
I would say it’s a 4-part answer and I’d put it in this order in terms of the blame.
Number one, I’d say Arizona, Drew Petzing, it’s not a bad offense, but it’s a little bit of a.
Then it’s like traditional stale offensive design.
I also think his role has done him no favor.
That is part number 2.
It’s been pretty static ex receiver stuff for way too long in the season.
They’ve only now just kind of started to mix up his deployment and his route tree #3.
I would say that Kyler Murray has had a Forgettable season, not bad, but again, just kind of league average quarterback play.
But I also think that his particular style of quarterback play doesn’t really mesh with what is the actual game of Marvin Harrison Junior which is timing, rhythm, route running over the middle of the field.
Uh, Kyler is more of just kind of a chuck it up and throw type of player, and that’s the point number 4, which is.
Harrison himself has to own some of the blame here.
Uh, he has left far too many plays on the field, particularly in contested catch situations.
That has been a huge issue for Harrison.
I thought it might be like a minor negative in his scouting report.
I got that wrong.
It has been a huge issue for him as a rookie.
That’s kind of tough to decide if he’s gonna bounce back when it’s a four-part reason.
For why he struggled to meet very high expectations as a rookie, and at least a few of those things are still gonna be present.
He can absolutely get better in 2025.
I actually think he will be a nice little value draft pick because the expectations will be more in line, but he’s gonna be one of the more interesting players to discuss all offseason Tara.
At this point, I’m not 100% sure where I stand on him.
Yeah, that one’s interesting.
I’m not gonna lie, I might, I might have been one of those people that pushed up that ADP as well.
Um, someone who I feel like in 2025, whose ADP is going to be a screaming value for me is Debo Samuel.
Um, that is because the general sentiment that I that people feel around Debo is that he is washed, but this is not the first time this has happened.
Debo has never had strong back to back seasons, and I mean never actually.
Like his solid rookie season followed up by missing half a season.
A breakout performance is a top 5 receiver followed by a terrible season.
And then bounced back last year, and then here we are yet again.
He’s just, this is just the way he is.
So when we’re looking at Debo Samuel coming off yet again, another bad season, uh, this is just the cycle of Debo Samuel.
I think he keeps it alive and it just feels like the most basic analysis possible.
But this is his pattern here.
He will come back, be a fine mid-round draft pick, and have literally league winning upside for fantasy next year that everybody ends up fading.
Tara, you’re, you’re a braver person than I, because I, I think I’m one of these folks that are gonna be pretty negative on Debo in the offseason, but we’ll see if he’s even on the 49ers next year.
He’s probably the one of these 3 players that is at risk of maybe moving on in the offseason.
