Fantasy drafts are remarkably like the real thing. Every year, a consensus emerges early about who the top prospects are, and every year talking heads race to the airwaves, to the Internet and to newspapers and magazines everywhere to put their personal tweak on the consensus. They move players up a spot or down two spots, but never suggest that any of the top prospects are going to bomb. Ratings are parsed with the famous caveat, "You can't go wrong either way." Then the season starts and some owners watch their first-round picks drag their fantasy teams down to the bottom of the standings.
Not all of these players on this list were first-round picks in everyone's fantasy draft. But each one of them massively underperformed and left owners howling at the television week in and week out. For our list of the top 10 fantasy football disappointments, we stayed away from players who simply had season-ending injuries. Instead, we went looking for players who stayed on the field and still dramatically fell short of their expected performance.
10. 1994, Scott Mitchell
Mitchell was a classic flash-in-the-pan player, a 6-foot-6-inch southpaw from Utah who spent two seasons as Dan Marino's caddie before getting an eight-game audition when Dan the Man went down with a torn Achilles tendon. Mitchell impressed enough to convince Detroit to sign him as a free agent, and with Barry Sanders and Herman Moore already on the roster, it looked like Mitchell was poised to blow up. Instead, he melted down, completing just 48.4 percent of his passes and throwing 10 touchdowns and 11 interceptions before injuries sidelined him. Savvy owners who picked up Dave Krieg were thrilled, however, as the veteran stepped in for Mitchell and threw 14 touchdowns to 3 interceptions, while leading Detroit to the playoffs.