The Buffalo Bills have won 35 games in the last six seasons, the Kansas City Chiefs have won 36, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have won 37. The Bills have won six games four times in that span, and have never won more than seven or fewer than four. The Chiefs have ranged from two wins to 11, being occasionally awful and occasionally good. The Bucs have zig-zagged back and forth like a heart monitor, going from nine wins, to three, to 10, to four, to seven, to four again.
Fantasy football impact: Will the Buccaneers be good again?
Tampa Bay has gone from oscillated between good and bad for six years running. Will they improve in 2014 and keep the trend going? We break down the fantasy implications.
Al Messerschmidt
Now, the question: Which organization would you most want to be a fan of?
The Bills haven't entered any season in that span with any real hope of making a playoff run. They're the workaday team, around to win the occasional game, flash the occasional C.J. Spiller, have the occasional moment, but never have any grand aspirations. On the other hand, they leave less potential for disappointment.
The Chiefs have had some disastrous seasons, sure. That 2-14 performance in 2012, with no leads until Week 10, was one of the worst seasons on record. Still, the Chiefs won a division title in 2010, and they were one of the league’s best teams for much of last season.
And then there’s the Bucs. Tampa Bay won nine games in 2008, coming off a 2007 division title, but that nine-win season was only good for third place in the NFC South. The Bucs finished third again in 2010, despite winning 10 games. They have teased success, and entered some seasons with optimism, but have yet to sniff the playoffs in six years. Every time we start to think they’ve found something, they sink back to another awful season.
I would argue, then, that being a fan of Tampa Bay over the last six years would be the worst experience of the three teams. The Chiefs have been awful, but have made the playoffs. The Bills have, admittedly, been bad, but predictably so. The Bucs, however, have mercilessly teased their fans, only to pull the rug loose from under them time and again.
The Buccaneers had another bad year in 2013, going 4-12 overall. They ended the season with a different quarterback than they started with, their coaching situation was dicey, and their starting running back and No. 2 wide receiver each played just six games. By season's end, the only Bucs who got heavy play in fantasy leagues were Vincent Jackson and running back Bobby Rainey, who started the season with Cleveland and eventually became their third starter at the position.
Heading into 2014, the Buccaneers perhaps have reason for optimism, with a new coach, a new quarterback and a new No. 2 receiver -- Mike Williams was sent to Buffalo, and replaced by touted rookie Mike Evans. Doug Martin is back and appears to be healthy, and they've loaded up on tight ends, adding free-agent signee Brandon Myers and draft pick Austin Seferian-Jenkins to incumbent Timothy Wright.
Most of all, if the team’s pattern of waxing and waning holds, the Buccaneers are due for a rise again. Have hope, Bucs fans. Or don’t. Might be healthier that way.
With that, we move on to the positions, and the players’ fantasy prospects for 2014:
Quarterback
Imagine it's, say, January 2013, and I'm telling you that Josh Freeman is unemployed, and the Bucs would be building around a quarterback tandem of Josh McCown and Mike Glennon. You'd be pretty pumped, yeah? No? Hey, where are you going?
But yeah, that's the situation. Freeman was released by the New York Giants last Friday. In 2013, Glennon took over for him early in the season as a third-round rookie because who else were the Bucs gonna use, and he was ... eh. He maxed out at 18 fantasy points in a game, and averaged less than 12 points an outing. He wasn't a Blaine Gabbert-ian disaster, but wasn't a quarterback worthy of much fantasy talk.
Which is why new coach Lovie Smith and offensive coordinator Jeff Tedford added McCown in free agency in the offseason as the team’s likely new starter. It’s tempting to call McCown’s 2013 a resurgence -- after all, dude was an assistant high school coach during the middle of his “career” -- but that implies he had a heyday. McCown has played 10 or more games in a season just once in his career, and that was a decade ago with Arizona. He is sitting at 50 career touchdowns against 45 interceptions, and those numbers were 37 and 44, respectively, before his big half-season in Chicago last year.
The question, then: How much of McCown's 2013 was real, and how much of it was the result of having Brandon Marshall, Alshon Jeffery and Matt Forte as offensive weapons?
Smith knew McCown in Chicago, and has reason to believe that the soon-to-be 35-year-old is rejuvenated. That said, in a 10- or 12-team fantasy league, McCown isn’t worth burning a pick. I slot him in the mid-20s among quarterbacks. He’s the type of quarterback that should sit on the waiver wire. Pick him up if your guy gets hurt.
Running back
As a rookie in 2012, Doug Martin ran for 1,454 yards and 11 touchdowns. It was exciting. He went in the top couple picks in most leagues in 2013. Heck, he went first overall in the SB Nation analysts’ league.
That didn’t work out so well.
Martin put up double-digit fantasy points in each of the season’s first three games last year, and after Week 3 he had 316 yards from scrimmage with a touchdown. He didn’t quite live up to his preseason price tag, but Martin wasn’t a disaster by any means.
Then everything fell apart. Martin averaged just 69 yards and no scores over his next three games, leaving that last game with a torn labrum that ended his season.
Martin enters 2014 with 22 career games played. He’s topped 100 total yards 12 times in that span, with 13 total touchdowns. A running back who averages 111 yards from scrimmage a game (Martin’s career average) has value, even if it’s not the top-two, top-three value we envisioned last season.
Behind Martin, the Buccaneers still have Mike James and Rainey, both of who had their moments a year ago. James put up 19 fantasy points in Week 9, in one of only two games he played as the team's starter (he even threw for a touchdown, which I'm comfortable saying he won't repeat). After James got hurt, Rainey became the team's starter. He had one of the season's best games by any player in Week 11, when he ran for 163 yards and scored three touchdowns. Beyond that, though, he was rarely much better than mediocre.
Tampa Bay used its third-round pick (No. 69 overall) on running back Charles Sims out of West Virginia. While James and Rainey are both young players, neither has ever been seen as a great prospect. Those seeking a long-term handcuff for Martin might want to look to Sims, though if Martin gets hurt early in the season, Tampa Bay might go to James first.
Martin is going in the first round again in some mock drafts, and no later than the second. I'm fine with this, as long as he is paired with a more trustworthy option -- say, Marshawn Lynch or Alfred Morris. It's hard to imagine that Martin could be a bust if healthy, but we don't have enough data points to say for sure.
James is likely the best option as Martin’s handcuff, though Sims is intriguing. Neither of the two (nor Rainey) should be seen as anything more.
Wide receiver
Vincent Jackson is legendarily reliable for his unreliability. Every year, he puts up big numbers -- a thousand-plus yards, 7-10 touchdowns -- but gets there through a series of inconsistent performances. Jackson put up 20-plus fantasy points three different times last season, 10-15 points three other times, and single-digit points 10 times.
Compare that production with someone like Jordy Nelson, who finished two spots ahead of Jackson at the position. Nelson topped 20 fantasy points just once, but he scored at least 10 points eight times. Larry Fitzgerald, who was three spots behind Jackson, topped out at 20 fantasy points in a game, but put up 10-plus points nine times.
Jackson was the only real weapon Tampa Bay had in the passing game in 2013. The team hopes that will change in 2014 after using its first-round draft pick (seventh overall) on Texas A&M wide receiver Mike Evans. Like Jackson, Evans is a giant at the position -- both are 6’5, with Evans listed as one pound heavier that his veteran teammate.
Evans doesn’t possess blazing speed, so a lot of his receptions will be of the jump-ball variety. Then again, he’s a heck of a guy to be throwing jump balls to.
Jackson is, of course, the team’s No. 1 at the position, and he’s comfortably in the mid-teens at the position, fantasy-wise. He’ll go in the first four rounds of most drafts, and it’s warranted. As for Evans, I’m guessing he won’t be on many of my teams. He’s full of potential, but he will likely be overdrafted given that he’s joining forces with a similar-bodied receiver, an unknown quantity at quarterback and a potential superstar running back. I have him in the mid-40s among wide receivers, close to No. 150 overall. Evans’ floor is too low to buy him where he’s going to be drafted.
Tight end
If you were to pick a team’s tight end group to go into a season, Tampa Bay’s might be the choice. On the other hand, with three viable alternatives at the position and thus far little to separate one guy from the others, the Buccaneers may not have a fantasy-viable option on the roster.
The incumbent is Wright, who put up double-digit fantasy points four times last year, scoring five touchdowns. The free-agent signee is Myers, who had just 522 yards receiving a year ago with the Giants, but went for 806 yards in 2012 in Oakland and has eight touchdowns over his last two seasons. Then there’s rookie second-round pick Austin Seferian-Jenkins out of Washington.
Basically, the Buccaneers hired a new head coach who decided to spend his summer adding everything he could to the offense. That bodes well for Seferian-Jenkins, who is probably the most skilled player at his position for Tampa Bay. If you draft a Dennis Pitta, Owen Daniels or Kyle Rudolph as your starting tight end, Seferian-Jenkins could be a good tack-on in case he blossoms later in the season.
Wright and Myers both appear unlikely, now that Seferian-Jenkins is in the mix, to offer any huge fantasy production. They’ll have occasional flashes, but it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which either guy could be used reliably in fantasy, even before Seferian-Jenkins really starts lighting it up.
