Fantasy football impact: Is the Carolina receiver situation really THAT awful?

My second car was a 1994 Toyota Camry. It was far from special, with a sad stereo, an engine that needed significant encouragement to do its job and a clock that for whatever reason reset to 1:00 every time you started the car.

I loved that car.

The reason I loved the car was my first car -- a 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. It had a worse stereo, no clock at all and it shook when you drove it over 45 mph. Compared to that, the Camry was a dream, even if it didn’t really have much going for it beyond that.

To be clear, I don’t consider Benjamin and Cotchery (and Jason Avant, Tiquan Underwood, et al.) to be an elite receiver corps. It could definitely stand to improve significantly -- and likely would have if not for the Panthers’ disastrous cap situation.

That said, let’s look at the positions:

But in three NFL seasons, Newton has yet to finish outside the top four quarterbacks in fantasy scoring. And he’s done that while never having a receiving corps or a running back group anyone would describe as special.

I outlined above why Newton’s wide receivers don’t particularly scare me for the season to come. The losses on the Carolina offensive line, on the other hand, could be the hangup. The team lost multiple starters and multiple backups from last season, and didn’t really replace them. Carolina’s cap situation is a big part of the reason for that.

Newton has of course always been fleet of foot -- he’s averaging almost 680 rushing yards a season -- but it’s always better to be able to run than to have to run. Still, Newton has been able to be a top-flight quarterback without significant help; I see no reason to believe that stops in 2014.

That isn’t totally illuminating, as things change all the time, but Williams gets less credit than he’s earned over his career. With the exception of 2010 when injuries limited him to six games, Williams has always put up enough numbers to be relevant as a low-end fantasy player, even if, outside of 2008, he’s never risen much above that either.

Tolbert, meanwhile, won’t be getting yards. He’s the goal-line back, and has been stealing touchdowns from the other running backs the last couple of seasons. He’s not on the field enough to be truly helpful in fantasy, especially with no real way to predict when he’ll get those scoring chances.

Really, the problem for any Carolina ball carrier is Newton. The quarterback runs the ball so much and so well on his own that it chops into the running backs’ opportunities. I rank Williams as my No. 33 running back, well out of starting range. The other guys on the roster I can’t even justify ranking at all.

Here it is. The most notorious of all position groupings in the NFL for 2014.

Benjamin in fantasy will benefit from the lack of any other WR options in Carolina, and that gives him high upside. He comes with his share of downside as well, as he hasn’t shown the speed you’d like out of a top-flight receiver. Benjamin is just about the most risk/reward receiver out there.

Cotchery, meanwhile, is close to the opposite. The 32-year-old is more likely to be the team’s new Steve Smith, the short-game receiver who bridges the gap between long target Benjamin and the tight ends. Cotchery hasn’t had a single catch of even 50 yards since 2009 -- he’s not going to be breaking off any long plays.

Carolina also signed Jason Avant from Philadelphia and Tiquan Underwood from Tampa Bay. Outside of a 108-yard, two-score game against Detroit from Underwood last year, neither guy has ever been anything special in the NFL, and it seems unlikely they’ll start to be special now.

I actually rank Cotchery above Benjamin, though not by much -- Cotchery is in my late 40s, while Benjamin is in my mid-50s. Neither is one I want to rely on, but I trust Cotchery more. Still, if you’re desperate for upside late in the draft, Benjamin certainly has more.

I’m more than a thousand words into a piece on the Panthers and I haven’t mentioned Greg Olsen yet. That’s just sort of who he is. He’s had between five and eight touchdowns and between 400 and 900 yards for six straight seasons. He hasn’t missed a game due to injury in his career, and has barely even been listed on injury reports.