Falcons headline Week 14 All-Bust Fantasy Lineup

There’s no worse fate in fantasy football than running roughshod over your opponents throughout the regular season, only to be derailed in the first round of the playoffs because one of your studs turned in a dud when you needed him most.

Alas, countless people suffered through the pain in Week 14, and were especially likely to do so if they played several members of this week’s All-Bust team.

Notes: Each week’s entries are determined by calculating the difference between the projected Yahoo point totals and the actual outputs of each player. PointAfter visualizations illustrate the players with the worst sums. Players who were injured during Week 14 were not considered.

[Week 14's perfect fantasy lineup: Top scorers at each position]

QB: Matt Ryan, Falcons

Projected points (position rank): 17.0 (20th)

Actual points (position rank): 5.9 (29th)

If you had to hope Ryan would somehow regain his touch against Carolina’s vaunted defense, you were sorely disappointed, along with Atlanta’s tortured fan base. Ryan was 22-of-34 for 224 yards with an interception and lost fumble before Falcons coach Dan Quinn benched him midway through the fourth quarter of the 38-0 loss. It was Atlanta’s sixth consecutive loss and second straight humbling defeat to Carolina, who embarrassed Atlanta 34-3 in Week 17 last season for a playoff spot.

The two quarterbacks involved in that fateful game have seen their stocks take dramatic opposing turns over the last year. While Cam Newton has morphed into an MVP candidate, some are wondering if Ryan can even hang onto the starting job in Atlanta.

At the very least, Ryan will have to show improvement in his second season under Kyle Shanahan to quiet those whispers. He’s has accounted for more turnovers (18) than touchdowns (17) this year. His touchdown rate is a career-worst 3.3 percent, while his interception rate (2.7 percent) is the highest it’s been since 2009, Ryan’s second professional season.  

Matt Ryan Career TD/INT Percentages | PointAfter

RB1: Devonta Freeman, Falcons

Projected points: 14.3 (4th)

Actual points: 4.2 (T-49th)

It’s been a long fall down to Earth for the consensus fantasy MVP of the first half. Since scoring nine touchdowns between Weeks 3-6, Freeman has found the end zone just once. Even though Freeman is Atlanta’s second-leading receiver in targets (78) and receptions (61), he’s lost a lot of touches in the ground game with the Falcons having to play from behind more often during their six-game losing skid.

Atlanta Falcons 2015 Target Distribution | PointAfter

The second-year back is obviously still a huge part of Atlanta’s offense. And as the player who appears most often in Yahoo’s top 500 Public League teams, there’s a good chance the lucky owner who took a flier on Freeman in your league’s draft rode him to a postseason berth.

But with the Falcons facing a sneaky-good run defense in Jacksonville next week before another dreadful matchup against Carolina in Week 16, Freeman probably won’t be carrying that same owner through the final stretch of your league’s playoffs.

RB2: Charcandrick West, Chiefs

Projected points: 13.6 (11th)

Actual points: 5.4 (41st)

West’s fantasy owners learned just how fine the line is between a monster day and a performance worthy of the All-Bust lineup. West had a 67-yard touchdown against the Chargers called back on an offensive pass interference after Travis Kelce blocked too early on the screen play.

West is more touchdown-dependent than he was before his one-week hiatus due to a hamstring strain. Since Spencer Ware proved himself worthy of touches when West was hurt, the two have progressed into a timeshare. Over the last two weeks, West has 19 carries to Ware’s 15.

Those aren’t RB1-level touches but West has two favorable upcoming matchups against Baltimore and Cleveland, and Ware could be slowed by a rib injury he sustained against San Diego. 

WR1: Calvin Johnson, Lions

Projected points: 11.8 (7th)

Actual points: 1.6 (T-90th)

Megatron was in serious danger of recording the first catchless outing of his career. He got a reception against St. Louis with less than three minutes remaining in the 21-14 loss, but his 1-16-0 line on five targets was easily his worst of the season and his first one-catch outing since Oct. 5, 2014.

It used to be that Johnson could carry Detroit past a team like St. Louis. Not in 2015. Megatron has only one 100-yard game under his belt this season, and his average of 13.8 yards per catch is a career low.

Calvin Johnson Career REC/G and Yards per Reception | PointAfter

WR2: Amari Cooper, Raiders

Projected points: 9.1 (23rd)

Actual points: 0.0 (N/A)

DeAndre Hopkins (5.2 points) and Larry Fitzgerald (4.1 points) underperformed their lofty projections more so than Cooper, but at least they produced something. Cooper couldn’t bring in any of his eight targets against Denver.

Cooper’s hands deserve to be questioned at this point. The rookie came into Sunday tied with Mike Evans for the league lead in dropped passes (12), and he’s only caught 12-of-32 balls over Oakland’s last four games.

TE: Coby Fleener, Colts

Projected points: 7.5 (6th)

Actual points: 0.6 (48th)

The clock has seemingly struck midnight on Matt Hasselbeck’s time as a viable fill-in for Andrew Luck. The Colts were ransacked for the second straight week, and were outscored 96-26 by the Jaguars and Steelers. Indianapolis couldn’t even manufacture an offensive touchdown against Jacksonville, let alone inspire hope of a comeback with garbage-time fantasy goodness.

Fleener’s numbers have taken a nosedive since Luck lacerated his kidney. He has 11 catches for 98 yards in Indianapolis’ last four games, and hasn’t topped 50 yards since Week 4.

Fleener has been thrown to just as often as he was during the last two seasons. But with the Colts’ passing game a shell of its Luck-led self, Fleener’s yards-per-reception average has nearly been slashed in half.

Coby Fleener Career TGT/G and Reception Average | PointAfter

FLEX: Emmanuel Sanders, Broncos

Projected points: 8.7 (30th)

Actual points: -0.3 (N/A)

Sanders caught two of his six targets for 17 yards against Oakland, but a lost fumble dipped his fantasy production below zero. He’s another player whose value has taken a big hit from a QB switch -- the 28-year-old has just 11 catches for 149 yards since Brock Osweiler took over for Peyton Manning midway through a Nov. 15 loss to Kansas City.

Sanders was fed 26.9 percent of targets leading up to the Chiefs game, and has since been thrown to on just 16.6 percent of Denver’s pass attempts.

Emmanuel Sanders Targets vs. Rest of Broncos in 2015 | PointAfter

D/ST: Baltimore Ravens

Projected points: 6.3 (19th)

Actual points: -2.0 (T-31st)

Russell Wilson and Doug Baldwin continued to flash the potential of Seattle’s passing game on Sunday, this week at the expense of Baltimore’s defense.

The Ravens didn’t sack or intercept Wilson all day, managing only a fumble recovery in the sobering 35-6 home rout as Wilson tossed five touchdowns – three to Baldwin, two to Tyler Lockett.

Kicker: Sebastian Janikowski, Raiders

Projected points: 8.4 (6th)

Actual points: 1.0 (T-29th)

Kickers go through streaks just like every other football player. Janikowski and his owners are currently feeling the brunt of that cold truth.

The 37-year-old missed his only two attempts in the last two weeks, and hasn’t converted a field goal four of Oakland’s last six weeks. He even missed his first extra point since 2008 in Week 13. Both attempts were from 40-plus yards, but that’s well within Janikowski’s range.

The lefty will get a chance to awaken the force of his famously strong leg in the Black Hole against Green Bay next week (if you thought this column would be the only thing you’d read on the Internet this week without a Star Wars reference, I’m truly sorry).

Will Laws is a writer for PointAfter, a sports data aggregation and visualization website that's part of the Graphiq network.