NFL fantasy diamonds for 2022 - Wide receivers

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.

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