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A year ago at this time, I wrote a post about how I thought Kansas City Chiefs WR Dwayne Bowe was a big time fantasy football sleeper and was someone to target in all leagues. Needless to say I nailed that one as Bowe put up a ridiculously great 2010 campaign when he caught 72 passes for 1,162 yards and an absurd 15 TD’s. No doubt Bowe was one of the better fantasy football values in the league last season but I will go in the other direction this season and consider him a potential bust candidate. Before you immediately click off and never come back again, allow me to explain.
When looking at Bowe’s 2010 season, the number that obviously shouts the loudest for attention are the 15 scores. Anything over 10 in fantasy football for receivers is considered top level and when you get to the mid-teens, you are having an All Pro season. No one is disputing that Bowe had this type of season in 2010 but when the best aspect of your value comes from scoring touchdowns, that’s when we could run into some issues. Quite frankly, touchdowns in fantasy football are like wins in fantasy baseball. You can count on them from year to year and they can fluctuate wildly. Like a pitcher in baseball who needs run support and good defense to win games, a receiver in football needs to have a competent QB throwing him the ball and be playing in an offense that emphasizes the pass. This is where we run into problems.
For starters, Matt Cassel is certainly not what you would consider a big time NFL QB, no matter that he threw for 27 TD’s last season. I can guarantee you in 12-team leagues, no one is drafting him to be their starter and that’s because there was a lot of flukishness to Cassel’s performance last season and in turn Bowe’s. Cassell barely threw for over 3,000 yards last season which is not a good passing total and so an inordinate amount of his throws ended up in scores which simply wont happen again unless the Chiefs open things up downfield. That wont happen as head coach Todd Haley believes in running the football and the Chiefs ran it as much as anyone last season. When you have Jamaal Charles and Thomas Jones in the backfield, its an easy decision to make. So what that means is Bowe wont be getting the number of looks like some of the other fantasy football wideouts being drafted around him like Miles Austin and Marques Colston. And expecting Bowe to replicate those 15 scores with those few amount of throws coming his way is tough. On top of all of this, we haven’t even gotten to the fact the Chiefs brought in the very capable Steve Breaston to play opposite Bowe and drafted Jon Baldwin in the 2011 draft. Those two will also compete with Bowe for precious catches and so once again its easy to surmise that Bowe will have a tough time living up to the expectations his owners will have for him this season.
All in all, I think Dwayne Bowe is someone to look past in PPR leagues in favor or a Miles Austin or a Marques Colston due to the draft spot needed to get him. In TD heavy formats, Bowe is more valuable but again asking him to reproduce those 15 scores again is not smart. Just remember I have been right in the past about this guy.
2011 PROJECTION: 70 catches 1,018 yards 11 TD