We've entered December, so brace yourself for the annual flurry of year-end lists. Are you braced? Good, because we're starting right now. It's too early for best-of-the-year lists, since there are still pivotal weeks of the fantasy season just ahead. But it's not too early to pass out raspberries to the biggest busts of 2009. First, a caveat: Players are not being held responsible for their injuries. That means guys such as Brian Westbrook, Clinton Portis and Darren McFadden are exempt from this list. But don't worry; we still have plenty of duds left ...

1. Matt Forté — In Forté's defense, his disappointing season can largely be pinned on his terrible offensive line and on the overall incompetence of the Bears. His drop in rushing yardage this season is mitigated to a degree by his increase in receiving yardage. Still, there's only so much makeup and lipstick that you can apply to this hog. Forté was picked between No. 2 and No. 4 overall in most leagues, and he was a top-six pick in nearly every league that doesn't overweigh QB scoring. Even if he finishes with something close to the combined rushing-receiving yardage total that he produced in his rookie year, his enormous drop-off in touchdowns, from 12 last year to just three so far this year, will have doomed most of the fantasy owners who spent an early first-round pick on him. When you whiff this badly on a first-round fantasy pick, it's difficult to recover.

2. Brandon Jacobs — Speaking of touchdown drop-offs, Jacobs plowed into the endzone 15 times during the 2008 regular season, but he's scored only three times this season. He hasn't had a 100-yard rushing game, he's been held to fewer than 70 rushing yards in seven of his 11 games, and he's produced only 66 rushing yards over the last two weeks. The consensus opinion is that Jacobs hasn't looked himself this season, and the numbers back it up. His yards-per-carry average has plummeted from 5.0 last season to 3.9 this season. Ouch.

3. Larry Johnson — It's not as if anyone was expecting another 1,700-yard, 20-TD season from L.J. We knew there would be no return to his 2005-06 heyday. But c'mon ... he still entered the season with a secure grasp on the Chiefs' No. 1 RB role. He wasn't considered part of a running-back-by-committee. Yes, the Chiefs were destined to be bad, and we knew the offensive line wasn't going to be good, but we still figured that Johnson would have some value as a No. 3 fantasy back, or maybe even as a No. 2. No dice. He had a couple of decent games with the Chiefs and a bunch of sub-decent games. Then he Twittered his way into the unemployment line before being picked up by the Bengals. He's coming off his first 100-yard game of the season, a 107-yard performance in his second game with the team, but he'll be marginalized as soon as Cedric Benson is healthy again. There's an excellent chance Johnson will finish the season without a touchdown, and a decent chance he'll go unselected in next year's fantasy drafts.

4. Terrell Owens — The recent revival doesn't begin to atone for the disappointment of his first eight games. Yes, T.O. has 378 receiving yards and two TDs over his last three games. But in his first eight games, he'd scored only two touchdowns, and his single-game high in receiving yardage amounted to 60 yards. He was held to fewer than 40 receiving yards in four of those eight games. No doubt most of his fantasy owners had banished him to the bench by his ninth game, when he had 85 receiving yards and zero TDs. Maybe that was enough to get him back in his owners' starting lineups, maybe not. For the "nots," his 197-yard, one-TD performance in Week 11 was maddening. And even for those who had him active for the long-awaited breakout game, it was likely too little, too late.

5. LenDale White — The big guy has been a nonfactor this season. A lot of fantasy owners thought White had value as a No. 3 back, even though Chris Johnson would almost certainly be the main man for the Titans this season. Even with Johnson getting the majority of the workload, it seemed as if White would be good for about 30-50 rushing yards per game and about 6-8 short-yardage TDs. Some might have been even more optimistic than that, based on reports that White had rededicated himself to fitness in the offseason. That rededication has amounted to two TDs, 208 rushing yards and an average of 3.4 yards per carry. Can we have the fat LenDale back, please?

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