Bust Profile: Miles Austin

Miles Austin is being touted as a WR2 on most ranking draft sheets, falling in the 16-20 range among WRs. He slips a bit in most cases if you play in a PPR league, but this still puts him in the WR2 range. I am not as high on Austin this year coming off a 2nd straight sub-par season in a Dallas offense that should be fairly explosive but remains just a good offense. In 2009 Austin exploded onto the scene during a week 5 match-up that went into overtime against the Chiefs with 10 receptions for 250 yards and 2 touchdowns. He had been touted as a sleeper for the 2009 season and he didn’t disappoint, finishing with a 81, 1,320, 11 line in basically 12 games (he only had 5 catches in spot duty before his week 5 breakout). That placed him squarely in WR1 territory and set him in the top 1o WRs for 2010 drafts. He disappointed in 2010 based off of his draft status, finishing with a 69, 1,041, 7 line in a full 16 games. This wasn’t horrible, but when you consider he totaled 20 receptions for 288 yards and 1 touchdown in his first two games of that season, he was basically a WR3-4 the rest of the season.

Then last year, he was drafted as a borderline WR1-2 in most drafts and dealt with some injuries en route to a final line 43, 579, 7 in 10 games. Most of his issues came from a hamstring injury that kept him out for several weeks. Once again, most of his damage was done in a week 2 match-up against the 49ers where he went 9, 143, 3. That accounts for 21% of his receptions, 25% of his yardage and 43% of his touchdown totals for the season. I don’t know if you’re seeing a trend here, but he has a tendency for the big game, but those come few and far between.

This season, Austin is already dealing with that pesky hamstring that has kept him out of just about the whole preseason. It’s still a minor questionmark heading into week 1, but it is not something to feel very comfortable. In an offense with Tony Romo, Dez Bryant, Jason Witten and DeMarco Murray, you would think that a player with as much explosive talent as Austin would be a garunteed weekly fantasy starter at WR. However, even at his best in 2009 Austin seemed to be boom or bust. As we’ve seen he has been like that each season sense, with fewer and fewer big games. Most weeks last year he probably was in a lot of lineups where there were several bench players outperforming him.

The Cowboys offense was touted as a potentially explosive offense coming into this season, but fantasy analysts seem to have been pumping the brakes a bit the closer to the season we get. Murray has injury questions and questions about if his 3 game outburst last season was for real. Witten suffered a lacerated spleen in the preseason that may force him to miss a game or two. Bryant’s tom-foolery has led the Cowboys to develop Team Bryant, a 24 hour guard to make sure he doesn’t get into trouble. Combine these facts with the inconsistencies and injury questions with Austin, and I wouldn’t take him as my 2nd WR or even 3rd most likely. Really, he should be ranked as a WR3-4 but we’re all suckers for that home run game that could single-handedly win us a week. For me, that chance of a one or two week bliss isn’t worth starting him through multiple mediocre weeks hoping for that HR.