Quarterback
I don’t see too many changes amongst the rankings at the top of the list. Josh Allen has a huge amount of rushing upside and if he can be close to as efficient as he was last year, with an upgraded receiving corps, he has the likelihood of repeating.
Patrick Mahomes is on another level, but I do expect the Chiefs to utilize their RBs at some point. While this may seem like slander to not predict Mahomes at 1; he is still my Dynasty Startup 1.01 as I think we can expect top-5 performances into his 30s. That consistency is the value to pay up for early in a startup, but Allen’s rushing upside cannot be overlooked.
Jalen Hurts has the luxury that Lamar Jackson had in his second season. Hurts started enough games to have a taste, but teams haven’t schemed for him yet. He has the potential to put up 1000 yards on the ground and is in an offense that will throw the ball more than Baltimore has, and will likely trail in more games which will necessitate airing it out. I would like to be proved wrong but I think this will be the ceiling season for Hurts and at some point this year we should seek to move your shares or ride him to the ship and move on.
Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, and Justin Herbert will likely feature in or around this list but regression or low volume will likely limit their vault into the top-3.
My sneaky pick to get into this list would be Matthew Stafford, who has endured multiple years with inferior receivers and coaching. Still, he has been on pace for 5000 yards before and the change in scenery for the back end of his career could be what he needs to get over the line.
Running Back
To be honest, at RB you could throw about 12 different players at the wall and see what sticks. However, RBs such as J.K. Dobbins and Derrick Henry will likely not be featured in the passing game, thus, their ceiling is heavily limited.
I think if you look at what a healthy Dak Prescott did for Dallas last year it would not surprise me to see Ezekiel Elliott have a revenge tour, as we have seen in the past after some adversity, and pace the field. He should be running behind a healthier offensive line. With that receiving corps, there could be more space to run, and Zeke’s relationship with Dak goes without saying.
Christian McCaffrey at some point will take a step back but I don’t think it’s this year. I think we have maybe one more year of what we have seen before, however, with the additions to the passing game in Carolina we may see some regression on the 141 targets he saw in 2019.
Wide Receiver
The beauty for the top-2 in these projections is that not much has changed. The same quarterbacks and very little change at the Wide Receiver position occurred around them. Justin Jefferson will continue to ascend into the WR1 role in Minnesota whilst Thielen still remains a high-end WR2. After a slow start to 2020, Jefferson went onto break the rookie receiving record and we could look to see some positive regression in the touchdown department after he caught just 7 TDs on 125 targets. Stefon Diggs left this offense and went to Buffalo and while many questioned the move at the time, I fully expect this season to cement him as a premier receiver in the NFL. Another season as the WR1 is certainly in the cards with Josh Allen now having the security of a freshly-inked 5-year deal.
Calvin Ridley is the next man up. With Julio Jones making the move to Tennessee, Calvin Ridley continues in the dominant role he possessed in 2021. We have seen Ridley dominate without Julio in the lineup before, so we do not have to worry about any regression like we saw when Antonio Brown left Juju Smith-Schuster as the WR1 in Pittsburgh years ago. Ridley saw no less than 9 targets in each of his final 7 games in 2020, putting him on pace for around 180 targets.
Tight End
This group has two players repeating their position from 2020 and boasts one finishing on top for the 3rd straight season. The big mover is Mike Gesicki. In the past 2 years, we have seen Gesicki move from TE13 in 2019 to TE6 in 2020, and with Tua Tagovailoa taking a step forward this year it would not be surprising to see him match the 7 targets per game he averaged over the final 6 weeks of 2020.
George Kittle and Mark Andrews I expect to fight it out to finish around TE4-5. Kittle might be dealing with a QB change mid-season. Additionally, this could be the most competitive offense in terms of targets that he has ever been a part of, with the returning and new RBs, as well as a “healthy” Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk. Andrews will likely be around the same position again as he was in 2020. Unless the offense decides to greatly increase their passing volume, the addition of several receivers into Baltimore prevents Andrews from moving up the rankings too much.
Until next time feel free to reach out on Twitter @markbullishere!
