In our “Closer Look” series, we’re examining ambiguous, hard-to-read position groups and offering advice on how to handle them in 2022 fantasy football drafts. In this installment, Herms takes a closer look at the WR position for the Denver Broncos.
- A Closer Look at the Chiefs Wide Receivers
- A Closer Look at the Falcons Running Backs
- A Closer Look at the Cardinals Wide Receivers
- A Closer Look at the Dolphins Running Backs
- A Closer Look at the Patriots Running Backs
A future Hall-of-Fame quarterback throwing the ball, two veterans with a combined $53,400,000 in guaranteed contract extensions, a former first-round pick with a high pedigree, and a 4.27-second 40-yard speedster all in a brand new offense. This is one busy kitchen with many a cook.
The mile-high sky may not be the limit for the Broncos’ offense in 2022 and beyond, but who exactly will emerge from the receiving corps with Russell Wilson under center is still unclear. With so much change and talent in Denver, this group is one of the trickier to diagnose. For that reason, unlike other installments in this series, it is perhaps best to begin by setting the stage with what we know about new Broncos head coach and former Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett’s offense, how the new offense may function, and what we can glean from Wilson’s past that could be telling as we look to project fantasy relevance for these pass catchers.
Analysis
From 2019 to 2021, Nathaniel Hackett led a West Coast offense in Green Bay that ran 11 personnel ≈60% of the time per Sports Illustrated. For greater context, Green Bay ranked 21st, 23rd, and 18th in 11 personnel usage annually during that period per Sharp Football Stats. Moreover, the league average for 11 personnel frequency in those three years was ≈60%, but why does this matter? What’s the point?
11 personnel refers to formations in which only one running back and one tight end are on the field; it’s a convoluted way of saying three-wide receiver sets. Teams like the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams, for example, run 11 personnel more frequently and (for the most part) can support multiple, consistently reliable fantasy wide receivers. The more WRs you have on the field at a time, the more opportunity is given to multiple players to produce. This, however, is not a hallmark of the Hackett offense. With a slightly below league-average rate of three-wide receiver sets, likely, the Broncos will only be able to support one rock-solid WR and toy with another depending on the matchup week-to-week.
One wrinkle to consider before we move forward is that Hackett had great success with a deep-ball throwing QB in Aaron Rodgers and will likely continue incorporating long-bomb concepts with Wilson. There is a borderline copy-and-paste going on here in this area. Take a look at this QB rating “heat map” and compare the similarities between Rodgers and Wilson:
Primary Contributors
Courtland Sutton (WR – DEN)
Considering everything we know about Hackett’s offense and Wilson’s propensity to throw a deep pass, the newly-minted wealthy man Sutton is the perfect candidate to be the Broncos’ WR1. By certain measures, he could be the new DK Metcalf. This past year, Sutton was the 11th-best graded receiver whose contested catch rate compared favorably to that of the aforementioned Metcalf (56.5% and 53.1%, respectively) per Pro Football Focus (PFF).
Now, a lot can be made of the lack of eye-popping raw stats from Sutton in the past due to injury and suboptimal quarterback play from Drew Lock and Teddy Bridgewater, to name a couple, so let’s look squarely at what Sutton has done when healthy and passes thrown his way have been good. Since the beginning of the 2019 season, Sutton has been nearly identical to Metcalf in success percentage, yards after catch (YAC), and air yards on a per catchable deep-ball target basis per Football Outsiders. Put simply, Sutton performs like Metcalf when he’s given long passes he can catch.
If none of this convinced you of anything, just read what Footballguys’ Senior Writer and Broncos whisperer Cecil Lammey has been saying for months. If we are to pick the receiver likeliest to be the primary contributor, it’s Sutton.
Other Potential Contributors
Tim Patrick (WR – DEN)
The caveat here is that Patrick has been the healthiest of all Broncos receivers since 2019, but at the same time, these raw stats in that time are nothing to scoff at. Patrick has proven he can be a quality NFL and fantasy wide receiver. Beyond the simple counting stats, the factor that puts Patrick over Jeudy on this list ties back into the point about 11 personnel outlined earlier. Given that Denver is likelier to run more two-wide receiver sets, Patrick’s wide snap percentage of 72.3% to Jeudy’s 23.2% from 2021 per PFF suggests the former has a greater chance of simply being on the field more. Especially when factoring in blocking responsibilities, Patrick stands 6-foot-4, 212 pounds to Jeudy’s 6-foot-1, 194 pounds; the bigger-bodied receiver wins in this regard. Bringing back the word of Cecil Lammey into the fold, Patrick over Jeudy at this stage is not much of a stretch.
Jerry Jeudy and K.J. Hamler (WRs – DEN)
This leaves the two slot receivers left to potentially cannibalize each other. To be perfectly clear, the goal is not to say that the primary slot receiver cannot thrive in this offense. The issue is more to do with the scheme and that whoever becomes the slot guy will need to be extremely efficient on all targets.
That said, both players are supremely talented and have flashed at times. In the 2020 NFL Draft, Jeudy was the second receiver taken off the board and Hamler with the 14th pick of the second round. High draft capital can be argued as a significant reason for faith being placed in a player, but schematically, neither one of these wideouts seem likely to factor in for anything remarkably consistent given the team’s anticipated tendencies without high per target efficiency.
It would be best to assume Jeudy has the advantage of these two, but offering up choice stats and anecdotes about their respective traits would merely be fodder at this stage. Training camp has not occurred yet, and we lack clarity around who will emerge in the pecking order behind Sutton, so it is best to leave this section here.
How to Value These Players
Presently sitting at WR21 in half-PPR per our expert consensus rankings (ECR) here at FantasyPros, Courtland Sutton’s penchant for big plays and a glove-like fit for the new situation has him priced well below his ceiling. Heck, Metcalf himself sits at WR18 in ECR, and he’s the one who lost Wilson as his QB. That doesn’t add up. Sutton at cost is an absolute must-draft target.
Jerry Jeudy at WR24 in ECR is quite aggressive. To his credit, Jeudy is an elite-level receiver as a target separator, a trait that will serve him well should he relegate Hamler into obscurity en route to securing the dominant slot role, but there is too much we do not know at this stage about the offense. The probability of him busting at cost is high, but that does not make him unworthy of draft consideration. Conservatively, Jeudy is a matchup-dependent WR3 and at best can be a low-end WR2 on a weekly basis. News out of camp in the coming weeks will tell us more about Jeudy.
From a value standpoint, Tim Patrick at WR60 is the greatest of the bunch and could be argued as the definitive primo optimum value amongst all fantasy receivers. The assumption that Jeudy will rise above the schematic obstacles that stand in his way has dropped Patrick too far when considering the topics discussed in this piece. At cost, Patrick is the lowest risk, highest relative reward selection. As far as K.J. Hamler is concerned at WR90 in ECR, the high end of his production as a 4.27 40 burner could be a poor man’s Tyler Lockett should we grasp at the lazy comparison, but at this stage, he is best thought of as a deeper-league draft consideration and early waiver wire monitor target.
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