Fantasy Football Week 9 Start or Sit: Doug Martin

By Sean Cordy @SicEm18 on October 30, 2014

Aside from the season-ending injury last season that saw him only play six games, the worst thing to happen in Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Doug Martin‘s young career was ranking as the second-best running back in 2012.

That’s odd to say, but with his lack of play last season paired with his extreme success, we’ve been led to believe he’s still capable of producing. Fantasy GMs bought into his revival this season, and now he ranked outside the top 50 among his position. So the question remains, can we trust Martin?

With coach Lovie Smith coming into town, we were led to believe he’d see a similar system that treated Matt Forte so well. However, Martin hasn’t been able to distinguish himself in any manner this season. He hasn’t broken the half-century mark in yards in a game yet, and has only had a touchdown once. It was further expected he’d see passing game action, but he’s only hauled in nine receptions for three fantasy points. That’s quite lackluster.

Is there anything that’s saying he’s going to emerge once again? No, not even going against one of the bottom rush defenses in the Cleveland Browns can do that for.

The Browns have given up their fair share of big games to running backs, but when going against a similarly struggling team and running back in the Oakland Raiders and Darren McFadden last week, they put on a good show to stop them. The Buccaneers are desperate to win right now, and the only big move they made before the trade deadline on Tuesday  was sending Mark Barron to the St. Louis Rams and not sending WR Vincent Jackson away.

They’ll still be a team looking for comebacks through an aerial attack, leaving Martin in the dust.

Martin will likely continue to run with mediocrity this week. Maybe he’ll push past 50 yards this week and add on a point from receiving yards. The most he’ll be getting is six points this week, and at this point, I would be looking to trade him to someone else who has faith he can revive his 2012 self.