Drafting a fantasy football team can be boiled down to two simple tenets — identify breakouts and avoid busts. Today, we are looking at AFC South fantasy football busts as such players can quickly derail your season.
AFC South fantasy football busts for 2021
Let’s go team by team through the AFC South division and pinpoint potential busts that fantasy managers may want to avoid for the 2021 NFL season.
Houston Texans
The Texans are a team without any highly drafted fantasy assets. That makes it difficult to find any true fantasy football busts due to the low cost of all their players.
David Johnson, RB | ADP: 102
To be clear, I don’t necessarily think David Johnson is a strong bust candidate. He’s just the most likely Texan to bust relative to cost.
Johnson was once the undisputed best running back in football. However, that was a long time ago. Four years is an eternity in the NFL. Although he’s a young 29 years old, Johnson finds himself in a far worse situation than last season.
The Texans will almost certainly be without Deshaun Watson this year, which is a crippling blow to their offense. That will naturally decrease Johnson’s scoring opportunities. Additionally, the team brought in Phillip Lindsay and Mark Ingram, both of whom were listed ahead of DJ on the team’s unofficial preseason depth chart.
I still think Johnson has the receiving ability to make an impact in fantasy football. However, if preseason usage is any indication, he may be behind Lindsay and Ingram. If that’s the case, he doesn’t have the fantasy value for a roster spot.
Indianapolis Colts
The Colts are another team where it may be difficult to find true fantasy football busts. Outside of Jonathan Taylor, this team doesn’t have a single highly drafted fantasy asset. But surely there is someone that could bust.
T.Y. Hilton, WR | ADP: 143
It’s difficult to call a double-digit-round pick a bust, but for 2021 T.Y. Hilton, we can make an exception.
Hilton averaged just 10.8 PPR ppg last season and finished as WR50. He’s recorded 1,000 yards receiving just once in his past four seasons. Not so coincidentally, that was in 2018, the last time he played with Andrew Luck.
I do think Hilton was a talented player, but the truth is, we may never know for sure. Statistically, it sure looks like Hilton was exclusively a product of Luck. Hilton played 82 games with Luck as his quarterback. In those games, he averaged 15.5 ppg. In his 51 games without Luck, he averaged 11.4 ppg.
Hilton will turn 32 years old midway through this season. Even as your fantasy WR5, I just don’t think he’s worth it. The end is coming for Hilton, and I expect 2021 to be an uneventful farewell campaign.
Tennessee Titans
The Titans are the best team in the AFC South and have three strong fantasy assets. While I don’t believe Derrick Henry, A.J. Brown, or Julio Jones will be fantasy football busts, there is one with a higher risk than the others.
Julio Jones, WR | ADP: 38
Whether Julio Jones busts this season is likely relative. When on the field, I expect Jones to be roughly 80-90% of the guy we saw in Atlanta for the past decade. The problem is the whole being on the field part.
Jones has dealt with nagging injuries throughout his career, constantly showing up on the injury report. As a 20-year-old, Jones was able to play through those injuries. At 32, it’s much more difficult. We saw this manifest last season as Jones missed seven games due to injury.
On the positive side, Jones averaged 16.2 ppg during the nine games he played, good for a WR14 finish. He’s still capable of being a high WR2/low WR1 when healthy. I am just very concerned about his health. He’s already missing practice in training camp, and it just feels like he will be a weekly headache for fantasy managers.
Jones is not going to bust in the strictest sense of the term in that he won’t play and not produce. I just fear he won’t play nearly as much as fantasy managers need him to in order to justify selecting him in the late third/early fourth round.
Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jaguars underwent a complete retooling this past offseason. They replaced their head coach and added a new quarterback, running back, and wide receiver. So, are any of them fantasy football busts?
DJ Chark, WR | ADP: 74
As one of DJ Chark’s biggest proponents in 2020, this one hurts. A mix of poor quarterback play and injuries certainly contributed to Chark’s WR41 finish last season. However, Chark himself did not play particularly well.
He averaged just 11.8 ppg in his 13 games played, but it really wasn’t even that good. Chark had two games where he scored 29.5 and 27.6 fantasy points. That means he averaged just 8.8 ppg in his other 11 games. He truly was unstartable.
While the upgrade to Trevor Lawrence at quarterback should help, Chark also faces increased target competition from Marvin Jones. Combine that with Laviska Shenault having a full year under his belt and Chark’s broken finger costing him the entire preseason, and we have a recipe for disaster.
I’m not willing to write Chark off for the rest of his career, but I am fading him in 2021 fantasy football drafts.