Bad Teams, Good Wide Receivers

Last year was a great year for fantasy wide receivers: eight receivers topped 1200 receiving yards, three topped 1400 receiving yards and league leader Andre Johnson was only 25 yards short of a whopping 1600 receiving yards.  Fantastic!

A closer look at the leaderboard showed something interesting though: six of the top ten wide receivers played on teams that didn't make the playoffs.   Considering that bad teams usually are behind in games and tend to throw the ball a lot, it's easy to understand why.  The problem is that there are a lot of non-playoff teams and not a lot of top ten wide receivers.   Which ones do you target?

Looking at last year's list, you can probably count on Marshall to return to the Top 10 if he stays with the Broncos.  Jennings could be a Top 5 WR this year and the combo of Johnson and Johnson are almost certain to be back (though Houston could certainly make the playoffs).

Here's my list of potentially great wide receivers on potentially crappy non-playoff teams.

Dwayne Bowe, KC - He has the talent, but his new QB might be spending too much time on his back.

Marques Colston, NO - The Saints are a very good team and they're probably only the third best team in their division.

TJ Houshmandzadeh - The Seahawks won't win the West, but Houshmandzadeh is capable of a career season.

Chad Ochocinco, Cin - He was the WR2, now he's the WR1 with a veteran WR2 (Coles) and QB (Palmer).  Sweet!

Roy Williams, Dal - This assumes Williams produces at a level he hasn't shown to date.