The Carolina Pathers' outlook for the upcoming NFL season plummited after hearing that star wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin suffered a torn ACL and will not play all year. Rookie wide receiver Devin Funchess' fantasy football outlook did the exact opposite.
If you drafted Kelvin Benjamin in your fantasy football league, here are two tips. First, don't hold your fantasy draft until right before the season starts. And, grab Devin Funchess off of the waiver wire while you still can (he may not last there for very long).
Only one players fantasy outlook has sky-rocketed more than Funchess, and that would be tight end Greg Olsen. However, with Benjamin down, Funchess might end up being the team's second wide receiver, starting alongside of veteran Jerricho Cotchery. The only other proven offensive threat on the team is running back Jonathan Stewart, who may regress as a player after the offseason departure of long time Panther DeAngelo Williams.
Funchess has the build to be a great NFL wide receiver, standing 6'4" and weighing 225 pounds. He definitely has the hands, too. The one tool that Funchess is missing is speed. He is not nearly as fast as a lot of wide receivers in the NFL. Some people even thought he would enter the NFL Draft as a tight end because of his lack of speed.
Injuries in football are terrible and can deflate a football team. They have such a negative effect on teams, players, and players' families. The only thing that can be considered "good" about injuries is the fact that unproven players get a chance to prove themselves. It happens all the time when important players get hurt. We saw it happen a long time ago for Tom Brady when Drew Bledsoe suffered a sheared blood vessel in his chest from a hit by New York Jets linebacker Mo Lewis. We might see it again with Devin Funchess, just maybe without quite as much success as Brady.