Wide receivers were all the rage back in 2018. I remember it vividly. 2018 was all about pretzel buns, zero RB, and healthy non-COVID living. The good ole days. Nowadays it’s all about brioche buns, RB heavy drafts, and catching COVID multiple times in a year. I have to say, pretzel buns are very under appreciated. Wide receivers though? You don’t necessarily need to spend up on them to win your league. Actually, you don’t really need to spend up on running backs to win your league either. If you draft the right players then it doesn’t matter what order you draft them in. Easy game! Thank you for attending my TED Talk. But seriously, there’s some upside wide receivers available in the 3rd and 4th rounds who can easily finish in the top 5 fantasy wide receivers this season. I’d rather secure a couple of running backs early and then take those shots. Anyway, here’s the top 10 wide receivers for 2022 fantasy football half PPR leagues:
1. Ja’Marr Chase – 11 months ago the Chase preseason panic was very real. Donkey told you to, “RELAX.” Owning Chase last season turned out to be more exciting than relaxing, as he set the rookie receiving records for single-game receiving yards (266 yards) and single-season receiving yards (1,455 yards), albeit in an 17-game season. Also, THIRTEEN touchdowns. Now Chase and Burrow have enjoyed another offseason of maturation and chemistry after visiting the Super Bowl together last winter. Some will be betting on the dreaded sophomore slump for the Bengals’ top receiver, just because “sophomore slump” is fun to say. Alliteration and all. I don’t see much of an argument for a slump; he received a glorious 128 targets as a rookie and there’s no reason to think Burrow won’t continue to lean even more heavily on him in year two. The stars are aligned for Chase to continue to grow and dominate NFL defenses for years to come in one of the most exciting young offenses in the league. It doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to picture Chase and Burrow next to each other in Canton one day.
2. Cooper Kupp –Â The Rams’ passing game was one of my biggest misses last preseason. I had convinced myself that Kupp’s success was highly correlated to his career-long chemistry with Jared Goff. Boy was I wrong. Stafford quickly made Kupp forget Goff was ever a part of his life. Ranking a second-year upside receiver like Chase over a player coming off 145 receptions and 1,945 yards in his first season with a new quarterback might be foolish now that I’m typing this all out. But it’s too late! The hot take is already there and Bobby has already created a Ja’Marr Chase headline for the podcast we’re recording tonight–check it out at the top of this page and watch all our shows over at the Razzball Fantasy YouTube Channel! In all seriousness, Kupp is just as deserving of the number one spot, if not more. And my decision to rank Chase ahead of him is probably more a reflection of my addiction to the sexy upside pick rather than a reflection of reality. You really can’t go wrong drafting Kupp as the first receiver off the board.
3. Davante Adams – Just like Chase and Burrow, Davante Adams and Derek Carr played together in college and enjoyed great chemistry together. How many times can I use the word “chemistry” in this top 10 wide receivers post? Let’s find out. Does the built-in college chemistry between Carr and Adams make up for the experience and talent gap between Aaron Rodgers and Derek Carr? Not quite. But it does close the gap. Carr isn’t Rodgers, but the passing yardage and accuracy he’s displayed over the past four seasons (4,000+ passing yards and 67%+ completion percentage in each of the past four seasons) have gone largely overlooked by the masses. No disrespect to the dreamboat Darren Waller, nor the young version of Amari Cooper, but Carr has never had a receiving option quite like Adams during his NFL career. If your league mates scoff at the prospect of an Aaron Rodgers-less Davante Adams, don’t hesitate to scoop him up at a discount.
4. Justin Jefferson – What Jefferson has done in the first two seasons of his career with Kirk Cousins as this quarterback is nothing short of miraculous. No player has ever accumulated 3,000 receiving yards in the first two years of their NFL career (Jefferson had 3,016 receiving yards). Sure, he had an extra game to do it thanks to these new-fangled rules. But even without the 106 receiving yards in the final game of 2021, Jefferson was still the only player to ever reach 2,900 receiving yards over his first two seasons. In fact, no other player has ever even accumulated 2,800 yards in their first two seasons and only two other players have ever totaled 2,700+ yards: Randy Moss and Odell Beckham Jr. Not bad company to keep! Jefferson also saw double-digit targets in 7 of the final 9 weeks of the 2021 season, just in case you need another reason to draft him. It’s actually mind-boggling that Jefferson is only number four on this list heading into year three.
5. Deebo Samuel – The versatility Samuel showed in 2021 coming off a lost 2022 season was beautiful. It was a story of two seasons: the first seven games where he dominated as a receiver and the final eight games where he dominated on the ground. The big questions are whether he’ll be in San Francisco when the regular season starts in August and whether the rushing production is sustainable moving forward. I’m of the opinion that this is one of those situations where you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. The toothpaste can’t go back in the tube. We’ve all seen the light, why wouldn’t his 2022 team continue to let that light shine?Â
6. Stefon Diggs – The Josh Allen/Stefon Diggs connection dropped off slightly in 2021, but Diggs still finished the season as the #7 wide receiver in half PPR formats. But it did take a career high of 10 receiving touchdowns for Diggs to hit that level. Then again, there’s no reason to think 10 touchdowns isn’t a repeatable number with how often Allen looks Diggs way in the redzone (22 redzone targets in 2020, followed by 33 redzone targets in 2021).Â
7. D.K. Metcalf – Something tells me I’ll be the high man on Metcalf headed into this season, mainly because I’m the only analyst with rankings that heavily weigh pectoral girth. Also, I might be the only person left on the planet that actually believes in Geno Smith. Even his grandma gave up on him years ago. Smith started three games last season while Russell Wilson was on the shelf, and D.K. caught three touchdowns in the last two starts. With Metcalf’s physical gifts he has a chance at producing fantasy WR1 numbers with any QB.Â
8. CeeDee Lamb – Amari Cooper’s departure from Dallas opens up a ton of targets in the Cowboys’ offense. Around 118 per game over the last three seasons, to be exact. I would be surprised if 30-40 of those targets ended up heading in Lamb’s direction which would land him in the top 5 in the league in targets. He finished 2021 at the WR17 in half PPR while missing one game and only catching 6 touchdowns. Chances of Lamb not finishing this season among the top 10 fantasy receivers seems slim as long as he and Dak stay healthy.
9. Mike Williams – Justin Herbert is exactly what Williams career needed, and Herbert is still growing into his prime. Big Mike’s consistency in 2021 did leave a little to be desired with a handful of duds midseason after a monster start, but it also went a bit under reported that he played through a knee injury which just so happened to coincide with his cold stretch. One stat that jumps out from Williams’ 2021 campaign is his incredibly unlucky 32% completion rate on his 22 redzone targets (10th most in the league). And he only caught 4 touchdowns on those 22 redzone targets, still finishing the season as the WR9 in half PPR. If those numbers normalize Williams could be a top 5 fantasy receiver in 2022.
10. Tyreek Hill – There’s a wide range of outcomes with Hill in Miami and I’m not completely comfortable ranking him this low. But as much as I like Tua’s upside, he’s a far cry from Patrick Mahomes and the Dolphins’ offense isn’t quite Chiefs’ level yet. One big question in my narrative driven mind is, how will Hill respond to a potential rough stretch of offensive games in his South Beach? Something tells me Hill will be more bust than boom in 2022. There’s a reasonable case for Jaylen Waddle to finish 2022 as the most valuable fantasy asset on the Dolphins.
