Following a brutal hit in Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints, Danny Amendola did not practice on Wednesday for the New England Patriots and the team, surprisingly enough, actually released some information and listed the oft-injured wide receiver as having a concussion on the injury report.
Although it’s nice that the team updated his status, it shouldn’t matter for your fantasy team.
As painful as it might be to admit it (and yes that was a pun and a bad one at that), it’s time to let Amendola wander out to pasture and take his talents to the great waiver wire in the sky – at least until next season.
The most important stat in fantasy (and in real sports for that matter), one that’s not often talked about and will rarely get mentioned when citing a player’s statistics, is games played. Unfortunately for Amendola and his owners, that’s the one category where he has completely failed to produce this season and, given that a concussion can now be added to his laundry list of ailments, it’s not an area he will likely be improving in during 2013.
Counting this season, Amendola has appeared in 15 out of a possible 38 games and has racked up 84 catches, 870 yards and three touchdowns during that time span. His per-games averages when healthy over the past three seasons (5.6 catches, 58 yards, 0.2 touchdowns) aren’t exactly awe-inspiring and the fact that he’s made of glass and is somewhat unlikely to finish any game that he starts make him extremely unappealing to use as a fantasy player.
For Week 7 and the rest of the 2013 season, you’d be much better served to rely on any of Tom Brady’s other top three receivers (Julian Edelman, Kenbrell Thompkins and Aaron Dobson). For what it’s worth, all of their per-game averages are fairly comparable to Amendola’s anyway.
Edelman: 5.8 catches, 58.7 yards, 0.28 touchdowns.
Thompkins: 3.5 catches, 53 yards, 0.66 touchdowns.
Dobson: 3.8 catches, 46 yards, 0.2 touchdowns.
And, just because it’s fun, here are the 2013 per-game averages for Wes Welker, the player that Amendola was theoretically brought to New England to replace. Besides the far superior touchdown number, it’s worth noting that Welker has appeared in all seven games this season for the Denver Broncos.
Welker: 5.2 catches, 54 yards, 1.1 touchdowns
Evan Bleier is a freelance writer based out of wherever he can plug in his laptop. You can send him questions, comments and Buffalo wing suggestions @itishowitis or “like” CraveOnline Sports on Facebook.
Photo Credit: Getty
