Fantasy Football: Top 5 Busts of the 2016 Season

Cam Newton, QB, Carolina Panthers

One common theme with every player on this list is that they were coming off huge seasons. Cam Newton put together an MVP campaign in which he threw for 3,837 yards and 35 touchdowns while also running for 10 scores in leading the Carolina Panthers to the Super Bowl last season.

It wasn't a surprise to see him as the first quarterback off the draft board in most fantasy leagues. NFL.com was the only major fantasy site where another QB - Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers - had a higher ADP.

Some regression has to be expected when a player is fresh off an MVP performance, but no one in the fantasy industry saw this big of a drop-off coming.

The one constant that has made Newton a valuable fantasy commodity is his rushing numbers, especially the touchdowns. His 10 rushing touchdowns last season were more than all of Carolina's running backs had combined (9).

Believe it or not, Newton's passing yards in 2016 were actually on par with his MVP season. He threw for 328 fewer yards (3,509), but missed a game due to a concussion and didn't start another one because of the dress-code violation fiasco. The biggest differences came in touchdown passes (19, which was 16 fewer than last season) and rushing touchdowns (5, half of last season).

His completion percentage (52.9, down from 59.8) and passer rating (75.8, down from 99.4) were also easily career-lows.

Health was one factor in Newton's disappointing numbers. He took a lot of hard hits, including several to the helmet, and he played with a sore shoulder for the final month. The Panthers did scale back on him running the ball, as he finished with fewer than 100 rushing attempts (90) for the first time.

The offensive line was without All-Pro Ryan Kalil for half of the season and Michael Oher for all but three games. The wide receivers didn't help Newton much, either. Kelvin Benjamin came back from ACL surgery and did score 7 touchdowns, but caught only 53 percent of 118 targets. Ted Ginn Jr. went from 10 touchdown catches last season to 4 this season and led the team in drops.

Even standout tight end Greg Olsen only found the end zone three times.

Newton finished as the 18th-best fantasy quarterback in leagues that gave four points for touchdown passes.