Who were the biggest fantasy football disappointments of 2019

Odell Beckham Jr. (CLE)

Speaking of a wide receiver with poor quarterback play, how about Odell Beckham Jr.? In the offseason, the Giants made the call to finally part ways with the talented wideout after spending the last five seasons together. When folks found out about Beckham’s destination, they felt extremely optimistic.

The Browns appeared to be on the rise after a strong finish to the 2018 campaign. They had a young talented quarterback in Baker Mayfield and plenty of great offensive weapons like Jarvis Landry and Nick Chubb as well. Beckham looked like the crown jewel in this offense considering he had been a top-five wideout the past few years.

In my opinion, I’ve never been the biggest OBJ fan. Even during his dominant days with the Giants, I had never made much of an effort to have him on my fantasy roster. While I wasn’t completely on the Beckham hype train, I certainly did not expect him to have the season he wound up having during his first year in Cleveland.

Shifting over from an old and decrepit Eli Manning to a fresh Baker Mayfield seemed like a great change of scenery for Beckham at the time. How wrong a lot of us must have felt after this dumpster fire of a season for Cleveland.

Super Bowl aspirations quickly evaporated as the team failed to gel in any sort of fashion. The offense looked like it was stuck in neutral and Mayfield seemed to have regressed from his rookie season. So many passes were thrown off target and Beckham could not build a rapport with the second-year signal-caller.

A lot of this can’t be blamed on Mayfield though. There is only so much he can do and if it appears he is struggling, then it would have made sense to shake up the play-calling. In comes head coach Freddie Kitchens, who failed to do anything innovative to save the offense from sputtering out of control. He was way in over his head as the coach of a 53-man roster and it clearly showed week in and week out this year.

While Beckham did crack over 1,000 receiving yards, it was one of the less sparkling statistical seasons of his career in most categories. This is important to note considering that he played a full 16 games for the first time since 2016, one of his better years with the Giants. He finished 2019 as WR33 averaging a lowly 12.6 fantasy points per game in the process. This is not what you would expect from your projected number one fantasy option.

A lot of fantasy managers were forced to put Beckham in their lineups every week because of his supposed role in the offense. Especially in 10- or 12-man leagues, Beckham was automatically put in, but with reluctance. It cost many people a title especially since they invested a high draft pick on him this summer.

It’s possible with a new coaching regime Beckham’s fantasy value may spring to life once again, but as it remains, he is someone I’m not willing to touch in drafts next year. Knowing my luck since I just said that, he will end up having the best season of his career in 2020.

In all seriousness though, he needs to prove himself before anyone can invest that high of a draft pick on him next year. People took the plunge on him in 2019 and it failed miserably.