Looking at Last Season's Finishes to Find This Year's Breakout Fantasy Football Players

Heading into Week 16 of the 2009 NFL season, Arian Foster was a nobody in fantasy circles. To that point, he had 15 career carries to his name, and he’d turned them into just 41 yards.

Over Week 16 and Week 17, with Steve Slaton on injured reserve with a neck injury, Houston let Foster carry the rock a total of 39 times, and he responded with 216 yards and 3 scores.

That next year, in 2010, Foster absolutely blew up, amassing over 2,000 total yards and 18 total touchdowns. He ended the year as the top-ranked fantasy running back, out-scoring number-two back Peyton Hillis (#WhiteRhino) by nearly 100 points.

I say all that to say this: sometimes how a player ends the previous year can be a harbinger of things to come.

The final weeks of the regular season aren’t quite as important for most fantasy owners in season-long leagues. A majority of leagues are done after Week 16 -- and even in that week, usually just two teams per league are still playing -- so a lot of people may have missed some solid performances at the end of last season.

With that in mind, let’s look at five players who ended the 2015 campaign on a high note and see what their situation looks like for this upcoming year.

All Average Draft Position (ADP) Data is taken from Fantasy Football Calculator.