NFL fantasy diamonds for 2022 - Wide receivers

The NFL pre-season is under way for all 32 teams and we’re right in the heart of fantasy season. It felt like a good time to give you some of the best targets in drafts at every position (other than kicker).

So just for reference – I primarily play in half-PPR leagues, with one quarterback. Of course, if you play Superflex, the whole strategy changes. And thinking of the best ball formats, you may be looking at players known for major spike weeks over guys with more consistent production.

I tried to offer names from both categories because I do believe in building rosters that way in re-draft formats.

In this edition, we're talking about wide receivers:

Courtland Sutton, Denver Broncos

Denver Broncos wide receiver Courtland Sutton

With multiple Denver Broncos players kicking off position groups, expect a significant uptick in offensive production with Russell Wilson at the helm. Javonte Williams will likely become one of the most effective two-way running back options with an extended workload, but it’ll be interesting to see which exact offense they will run and how Wilson will affect that.

The big question to answer here is where exactly they end up landing between what Nathaniel Hackett is accustomed to and how Wilson wants that offense to be structured. Considering the background of Denver’s new head coach beyond the Green Bay Packers (where he has been part of a lot of different offensive systems), I’d say he’ll be more willing to accommodate his new QB. Especially given the quantity of assets the Broncos gave up in exchange for him.

Tim Patrick is out for the upcoming NFL season due to a torn ACL that he recently suffered in training camp. So Courtland Sutton could be used as a big slot who can be an asset in the run game similar to Allen Lazard in Green Bay. Jerry Jeudy has a clear shot at becoming the sort of Tyler Lockett of this team, who Wilson loved to work those deep option routes off play-action with. They do also have K.J. Hamler coming back and could be running more 12 personnel. Plus, a lot of times I see Jeudy going ahead of Sutton, even with where Wilson typically attacks, I don't see him as a 80-to-100-catch guy.

One thing I feel very secure about is Sutton’s role as the X receiver. He becomes the alert route if given one-on-one opportunities to attack down the boundary. He's able to win with his size and speed, as well as get easy yardage on slants. Just take a look at the heat maps for Wilson and how much he targets those areas outside the hashes. Think of how productive D.K. Metcalf has been early on in his career with a healthy QB. Sutton may not be quite as freaky of an athlete, but he’s not that far off, and now Wilson doesn’t have a conservative coaching staff holding him back from letting it rip.

If you look at the AFC West, it’s obvious that this team will have to score points against Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert and Derek Carr. We’ve seen Sutton do it before – in 2019 (his second NFL season), he had over 1,100 yards and six touchdowns. This was with a combination of Joe Flacco, Drew Lock and Brandon Allen. He then got hurt in the following season-opener and was dealing with a foot injury and questionable quarterback play once again last season.

I could easily see Sutton produce like a low-end WR1 or high-end WR2 and you’re probably taking him as your third option. That’s tremendous value.

Rashod Bateman, Baltimore Ravens

Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Rashod Bateman

This one was pretty easy, because I just talked about him in depth as well, as a breakout candidate for 2022.

Rashod Bateman was the Baltimore Ravens' first-round pick in the NFL draft last year. A groin injury cost him the first five games of the season and it took him a little bit of time to get back into a groove. However, once he had acclimated himself in the NFL, there was a lot to like. The way he consistently threatened vertically, changed up his footwork at the line, was able to snap off routes, consistently frame the football and then effectively pick up yards after the catch.

Here are a few numbers from that write-up I mentioned: Bateman picked up 29 first downs on his 46 receptions, despite his average depth of target of 8.8 yards being nearly five yards less than what he averaged in college. He only dropped two catchable passes and finished fifth among NFL wide receivers with a contested catch rate of nearly 64%.

The Ravens are bound to regress to the mean in terms of run-pass ratio. Though this may work against my argument on running back J.K. Dobbins, it’s realistic to expect that number to land somewhere between 2019/20 and 2021. More importantly, with the departures of Marquise Brown and Sammy Watkins to a lesser degree, 32% of the WR target share from last season is now up for grabs. While the Ravens drafted a couple of tight-ends who could largely work detached from the line, they didn’t really add anybody else at the receiver position.

That also plays into my next point, which is Bateman running 81.7% of his routes split out wide in his rookie NFL season. Now with him as the clear number one option, just reading the room in terms of the moves made, I would expect Greg Roman and company to move him around a lot. They will create opportunities for him to consistently be the primary read on plays and match very well with Lamar Jackson’s willingness to attack the middle of the field. Whether that’s being tasked with glancing routes on the backside of RPOs or running dig routes as linebackers have to creep up. That’s along with how quick he is at finding space once the initial route is dead and the scramble drill is on.

This may not necessarily be the profile analytics NFL folks love, in terms of this wanting to be a run-oriented offense, but imagining Bateman’s role in the offense. Being able to actually work with Lamar for a full offseason, the lack of investments into the receiver position and just thinking of the workload he’s due, getting him as your WR4 probably could give you a super-consistent option.

Brandon Aiyuk, San Francisco 49ers

San Francisco 49ers wide receivers Brandon Aiyuk

I once had Brandon Aiyuk ranked a lot higher than Deebo Samuel. Whether it was the risk of injury, their role in the offense or their talent, I had almost the exact same grade on them coming out of the NFL draft. Even though Samuel’s injury history certainly affected my evaluation.

Now, will I back down on any of these statements about Aiyuk? Absolutely not. His athletic profile, his burst off the line, ability to attack the ball in the air and his incredible skills after the catch are still very intriguing.

We saw him put it on display last NFL season once he made it out of the Kyle Shanahan dog house (which took about the first seven weeks of the season). Over the final ten NFL games, he averaged 69 yards and half a touchdown, which made him the WR20, tied with Mike Evans. 22 of his targets from that point on were 10+ yards downfield and outside the numbers, even though those are the areas Jimmy Garoppolo tends to avoid, looking at his heat maps.

Aiyuk is still the designated X receiver for an offense that runs a lot through that guy as the primary read in the dropback pass game. We’ve seen several amazing clips of him in camp making highlight catches down the field, taking advantage of Trey Lance’s willingness to push the ball down the sideline.

Aiyuk has had another year in a system that is hard to master for receivers. We’ve even heard him talk about how nice it is to not have Shanahan in his ear, but rather in the ears of the rookies.

Everything great about Aiyuk from the 2021 NFL campaign is still right there. It may not be as efficient of an offense as it was with Garoppolo, but it certainly will be a more explosive one. Now you can get this guy at a discount, probably as a WR4.

Let me leave you with one more statistic here from the last NFL season - Brandon Aiyuk was targeted 20+ yards downfield just six times. I’m 100% buying the post-hype year version of Aiyuk in the 2022 NFL campaign..

Christian Kirk, Jacksonville Jaguars

Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Christian Kirk

Do I believe Christian Kirk is one of the top-20 receivers in the NFL? Not really. Do I think he’s worth 18 million dollars per year? Absolutely not. But that doesn't meam he isn’t a really nice NFL fantasy option. Smart players follow the money, especially looking at who the franchise identifies as a long-term part of their plan. Especially with so many young guys still being evaluated and veteran skill-players on one-year deals.

The Jacksonville Jaguars did also sign NFL veterans Zay Jones and Evan Engram, who will have a role in that offense. But looking at the other pieces there, Kirk is the one big addition that they’ve made and they secured him for the next four years.

We don’t know exactly what that system will look like because Doug Pederson took a year away from the NFL. He will probably be transitioning away to some degree from that RPO-heavy plan we saw under him in Philadelphia. I do still believe that will be a prominent element and they would be foolish not to take advantage of Trevor Lawrence’s skills as a deep ball thrower.

We’ve seen primary slot receivers like Nelson Agholor have plenty of success under Pederson. But Lawrence also has the confidence to make those far-hash throws, where Kirk may be the Z in trips and testing those quasi one-on-one’s with so many teams now adapting to quarters principles. He can do a lot of the stuff that Laviska Shenault was tasked with, in terms of jet sweeps, different variations of screens, glance routes, etc. (who did have 111 combined targets & carries).

Playing with a quarterback whose biggest issues came trying to decipher post-snap rotations, getting somebody who has been a great zone-beater could give Lawrence a security blanket. Kirk offers that vertical element we saw from him in Arizona.

Looking at Kirk this past NFL season, he put up career-highs with 9.5 yards per target, 16 catches of 20+ yards and 45 first downs picked up. Yes, that was playing with an uber-talented QB in Kyler Murray. But also consider that Murray rarely attacks the middle of the field, where Kirk is a major threat to snatch the ball and outrace defensive pursuits across the field.

I still very much believe in the talent that Lawrence has under center and that the coaching staff brings a lot more stability for the 2022 NFL season. Kirk was one guy that the power structure really targeted this offseason and I see a role for him to produce like an upper-tier WR3. So in that range he’s definitely a target of mine.

Skyy Moore, Kansas City Chiefs

Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Skyy Moore

I know I can only choose one of these guys from the Kansas City Cheifs and Skyy Moore is the one I have my eyes on in the 2022 NFL season. But let me just say that as a whole, the uncertainty about usage and target share for the entire Chiefs receiving corp has pushed everybody further down than they should be.

This is still the group that gets to play in a Patrick Mahomes-Andy Reid-Eric Bienemy-run offense, which has been between 61 and 62% pass rate in all four NFL campaigns of that constellation. Yet, even with JuJu Smith-Schuster rising in the late-20/early-30 range, the next three receivers for them are going between 50 and 60 for the position on average.

Travis Kelce will always be among the most-targeted tight-ends in the league, but Tyreek Hill led the group with 159 targets last season (which was seventh NFL-wide). With him being traded to Miami, those are now up for grabs. That's along with another 100 between Byron Pringle and Demarcus Robinson, who are also out of the building.

Let's live in this crazy universe for just a second, where Smith-Schuster takes up all the production of Hill next NFL season. Even if the WR2 for this group just hits Byron Pringle's numbers - that's still your WR57 from 2021, which is right in that range of the other targets. Now let me give you some news - JuJu Smith-Schuster is not Tyreek Hill, not even close.

Still, even without Hill, I don't imagine Smith-Schuster becoming much of a big-play machine. I am happy for him though, after having to deal with one of the lowest ADOTs in the league, catching passes from Ben Roethlisberger. I believe he has a pretty fixed role and will be a viable fantasy option, but with where his ADP has risen, that's not the guy I'm targeting from that group.

As soon as the Chiefs picked him in this year's NFL draft, I thought he was a favorite for OROY. He's just the closest thing to what Hill gave them, because there's a misconception that every pass Hill ever caught was 40+ yards down the field. As defenses started forcing Mahomes to go underneath, Hill became the guy they'd flip the ball out to and make DBs look stupid. Over the last two NFL seasons, just over 40% of his scrimmage yards have come after the catch or were counted as straight-up rush attempts. And just below that rate is his percentage of snaps spent in the slot.

That is literally what Western Michigan used Moore as, leading all draft-eligible receivers with 26 missed tackles forced this past season. However, if they do need him to threaten the defense vertically (where the only other guy with the speed to do so on that roster is a largely unreliable Marquez Valdes-Scantling), Moore did clock the fastest 10-yard split at the NFL combine. He also had the largest hands in the group, and he can position his body and snatch the ball out of the air in contested situations down the field.

Whether it's that ability to catch the ball against zone coverages and create big plays after the catch or defeat man-coverage, he can kind of do it all. Right now, I would predict he leads this WR group in yards, which for a WR5 or even WR6 in that Chiefs offense is just stealing.

If you enjoyed my breakdown, check out the full video and head over to halilsrealfootballtalk.com for more of my work!