Let’s take a look at eight players Pat Fitzmaurice is all-in on early in fantasy football drafts.
Rankings noted using FantasyPros half-PPR Expert Consensus Rankings (ECR) and Consensus ADP.
Pat Fitzmaurice’s Must-Have Players
Joe Burrow (QB – CIN)
Yards per attempt (YPA) isn’t a perfect passing statistic, but it’s a good one. With starting QBs throwing so many passes throughout a season, YPA isn’t as volatile a stat as, say, TD passes. Burrow led the NFL with 8.9 yards per attempt last season. That’s a freakishly good number. Only two other quarterbacks (Jimmy Garoppolo and Matthew Stafford) finished the 2021 season with YPAs above 7.9. Aaron Rodgers‘ career YPA is 7.8. Tom Brady‘s is 7.5
I contend that Burrow’s obscene 2021 YPA is not a fluke but rather a symptom of greatness.
It doesn’t hurt that Burrow has arguably the league’s best WR tandem in Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. Rostering Burrow is a great way to leverage the extraordinary talents of those two receivers. There will be games where Chase goes off, and Higgins is relatively quiet. There will be games where Chase takes a backseat to Higgins. We’ll probably get one or two big games out of Tyler Boyd as well. Those are all going to be Joe Burrow games.
Oh, by the way, it’s possible we’ll see Burrow run more now that he’s more than a year removed from the ACL tear he sustained in November 2020. Burrow had more rushing yards and TD runs in 10 games in 2020 than in 16 games last year. He ran for 12 touchdowns in his final two college seasons at LSU. So a little more rushing goodness would just be gravy on the chicken-fried steak.
Trey Lance (QB – SF)
Jalen Hurts was one of my favorite targets in 2021 because his running ability was destined to make him a valuable fantasy asset. I like Hurts this year too, but he’s gotten more expensive, so I’m pivoting to this year’s model: Trey Lance.
A quarterback who piles up good rushing numbers is a fantasy football cheat code. (Rich Hribar calls them “Konami Code” QBs.) Lance is an electric runner who averaged 12 rushing attempts in his two starts for the 49ers last season.
Lance’s passing ability is the wild card, but the 49ers probably wouldn’t have traded away their first-round picks in 2022 and 2023 (plus a third-rounder in 2022) if they had serious doubts about Lance’s arm and his processing. But then, it helps that Lance will throw to Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle and will run Kyle Shanahan’s playbook.
The continued presence of Jimmy Garoppolo is keeping Lance’s cost down, but make no mistake: The 49ers are ready to turn the page. But, unfortunately, they haven’t been able to find a trading partner for Jimmy G. because he’s due to make $24 million-plus this year.
Breece Hall (RB – NYJ)
A prospect who checks this many boxes shouldn’t be available in the fourth round. Hall has good size, he had a terrific three-year run at Iowa State, he put on a show at the combine with his freaky speed and athleticism, and he catches passes. Hall is at least as good a prospect as Najee Harris was and will have a better offensive line in front of him this year. It’s quite possible that a year from now, Hall will be a consensus first-round fantasy pick and we’ll be trying to remember why his ADP was so low in 2021.
Cam Akers (RB – LAR)
In last season’s playoffs, Akers averaged 2.6 yards per carry and failed to score a touchdown in 75 touches.
What I do care about is that less than six months after Akers tore his Achilles, the Rams handed him the keys to the backfield for their most important games of the season. Rams head coach Sean McVay chose Akers as his lead back in elimination games over Sony Michel, who had played so well when both Akers and Darrell Henderson were out. That bodes well for Akers’ 2022 workload.
Akers will be more than a year removed from the Achilles injury by the time the new season begins. And with his three-down skill set, Akers has a chance to become the Rams’ new iteration of Todd Gurley (the good version). In Sean McVay’s five seasons as head coach, the Rams have finished in the top 10 in rushing yardage three times, and in the top 10 in rushing touchdowns four times.
A.J. Dillon (RB – GB)
With Davante Adams gone and a thin group of wide receivers remaining, expect the Packers to run the ball at a higher rate and expect Aaron Rodgers to target his RBs at a higher rate. With a much-improved defense, a strong offensive line, a future Hall of Famer at quarterback and a very manageable schedule, Green Bay should get a lot of run-friendly game scripts this season. As a result, the Packers could very well produce more RB fantasy points than any other team.
In the last eight regular-season games Dillon and Aaron Jones played together, Dillon averaged 13.8 carries; Jones averaged 10.3. Dillon also took over as the Packers’ goal-line back late in the season.
And despite rarely catching passes during his collegiate career at Boston College, Dillon has proven to be a capable receiver. He caught 34 of 37 targets last year, averaging 9.2 yards per catch.
I also like Jones this year, but I’d prefer to have the much less expensive Dillon.
Elijah Moore (WR – NYJ)
Moore’s rookie season got off to a slow start, but then he caught fire. Over a five-game span from Week 9 to Week 13, Moore was the WR2 in PPR scoring, averaging 20.1 fantasy points per game. Unfortunately, he strained his quad in the last of those games and missed the rest of the season.
My colleague Matthew Freedman writes this about Moore:
“Elijah Moore balled out as a 20-year-old true junior in the SEC (86-1,193-8 receiving in eight games), he can line up across the formation, he has top-end speed (4.35-second 40-yard dash), and he flashed in his final six games as a rookie last year (34-459-5 receiving, 4-35-0 rushing).”
The Jets’ selection of WR Garrett Wilson with the 10th overall pick in this year’s draft has splashed some cold water on the Moore enthusiasm. Consider it a buying opportunity.
Kadarius Toney (WR – NYG)
Toney’s rookie season got off to a rough start when he sustained a hamstring injury that cost him much of training camp. He barely played in Weeks 1-2, then played a 66% snap share in Week 3 and caught two passes for 16 yards.
Then came the eruption: six catches for 78 yards against the Saints in Week 4 and 10 catches for 189 yards against the Cowboys in Week 5 (plus one carry for seven yards).
Toney played only six snaps in Week 6 before aggravating an ankle injury, and he was thwarted by a medley of ailments the rest of the season. That he dealt with so many minor injuries in a single season is concerning, but less concerning than if he were trying to come back from a torn ACL or some other major injury.
It’s also disconcerting that Toney was the subject of offseason trade rumors and that the Giants spent a second-round draft pick on a similar type of player, Wan’Dale Robinson.
These things would be more concerning if his ADP were WR24. However, Toney’s ADP at the last check was WR45.
Cole Kmet (TE – CHI)
He’s had lousy touchdown luck, but Kmet had 60 catches for 612 yards last year, and as bad as the Chicago WR corps is beyond Darnell Mooney, QB Justin Fields is probably going to throw to Kmet often.
FantasyPros Staff Consensus 2022 Redraft Fantasy Football Rankings
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