Who were the biggest fantasy football disappointments of 2019
JuJu Smith-Schuster (PIT)
I’ve always been a fan of Smith-Schuster ever since he entered the league in 2017. He’s a very likable person and a great football player. Overall, the prototypical type of role model young athletes should try to look up to. It felt great having him back on my roster after being separated for a year. I was quite excited to see how he would perform as the Steelers’ top receiving option.
Just typical that not one but two of my top picks would turn into pumpkins on me this season.
I’m sure anyone who drafted Smith-Schuster this past summer must have felt pretty confident that they had a solid WR1 on their side.
Unfortunately, it was not meant to be.
You see, unlike a running back, a wide receiver is very dependent on their quarterback’s ability to throw them the ball. It seems pretty simple, and that is why I usually invest in running backs earlier in drafts over receivers. If a receiver does not have someone competent to feed them the ball on a weekly basis, it could prove to be disastrous.
This is exactly what occurred in Pittsburgh this year. Starting quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was injured in Week 2 against the Seahawks with an elbow injury on his right throwing arm. He exited the game in the second quarter unsure of what his future would hold. Sadly for Steelers fans and fantasy managers with Smith-Schuster, it was later determined that Roethlisberger would be out for the remainder of the season. He would undergo season-ending elbow surgery to recover from the injury he sustained against Seattle.
This pretty much killed Smith-Schuster’s fantasy value right then and there. Some were optimistic that backup Mason Rudolph would be a nice replacement for the injured Roethlisberger, but that proved to be wrong. The Steelers even used Devlin Hodges under center and that did not improve matters much either.
It was a total train-wreck for Smith-Schuster’s season as he struggled to find any kind of offensive productivity for Pittsburgh in 2019. By the conclusion of the season, he finished up with 42 catches (61st) for 552 receiving yards (61st) and three scores. A far cry from when he ended 2018 fifth in receptions (111) and receiving yards (1,426) for seven touchdowns.
Smith-Schuster was merely an afterthought for most of the season and never had much production in this disappointing campaign.
The fallout Antonio Brown had with Pittsburgh during the offseason could take some blame as well. Brown’s presence on the field every Sunday in 2017 and 2018 helped Smith-Schuster elevate his game immensely. Defenses had to contend with the elusive pass catcher all day, leaving some room for JuJu to fly under the radar and do his thing. So when number 84 decided to ship off to Oakland, all the responsibility fell on the young receiver’s shoulders.
Maybe the pressure was too much for him, who knows? I personally believe it was the lack of a quality signal-caller and injuries that ultimately that led to Smith-Schuster’s downfall. In the end, he let down a lot of people in fantasy this year and was one of the biggest draft duds of the season.