Sleepers, Busts and Bets: The 2022 New York Giants

Tyler Loechner and Josh Larky continue with the 2022 Sleepers, Busts, and Bets series to preview all 32 NFL teams for the upcoming year. Next up: The New York Giants.

Tyler and Josh will list their picks with confidence in “The Answers,” then expand upon their picks with more detailed reasoning in “The Explanation.”

The Answers

Favorite Sleeper

Larky: Daniel Jones
Loechner: Saquon Barkley

Biggest Bust

Larky: None (explained down below)
Loechner: Kenny Golladay

Boldest Bet

Larky: Saquon Barkley Top-5 Fantasy RB
Loechner: Kadarius Toney Top-20 Fantasy WR

The Explanation

Sleepers

Larky: Daniel Jones

Only 2 QBs last year had a game with 400 or more passing yards and another game with 75 or more rushing yards: Lamar Jackson and my New York Giants sleeper, Daniel Jones.

Jones is not a good real-life QB, but he has shown an elite fantasy ceiling during his career, even though he’s dealt with injuries, brutal offensive lines, and a mixed bag of supporting cast members. For 2022, he’ll be playing behind the best offensive line of his career, along with the best supporting cast of his career.

Jones was the QB6 per game heading into Week 5, where he was concussed part way through that game. Both Saquon Barkley and Kenny Golladay were injured during Week 5, so when Jones returned in Week 6, his supporting cast was far different.

As a late-round flier, Jones is the perfect Konami QB with upside, as he’s mobile, with a decent enough offensive line and a surprisingly deep group of skill players surrounding him.

Loechner: Saquon Barkley

Saquon Barkley is currently coming off draft boards as the RB14 in the early third round of fantasy drafts. But there’s a very realistic path to him finishing as a top-five player at the position worthy of a high-end first-round pick. Larky shares more Barkley love in his boldest bet section below, but here’s my take.

People are afraid of Barkley for two reasons: First, The Giants offense stinks, and second, Barkley has been injured the last two seasons and hasn’t been a truly elite fantasy player since 2018.

We will briefly break down those two points. First, yes, the Giants offense has been brutal. Daniel Jones does not appear to have “it” — despite Larky’s propaganda above. A bad QB sinks the whole boat. However, the offense is actually fairly loaded with talent at the skill positions and the team spent a top-10 pick in this year’s draft to help the offensive line. And as Larky proves above, there are still Jones believers out there. If he can take even a marginal step forward — which may well be possible with the help of new head coach Brian Daboll — then Barkley becomes twice as valuable overnight.

As for Barkley’s recent production, 2020 and 2021 can just be chalked up to back luck on the health front. But he was capital-E Elite as a rookie in 2018 and was a fantasy RB1 again in 2019. If you think Barkley can maintain health (he’s only 25), there’s little chance he doesn’t beat out his ADP, and he comes with massive ceiling potential to boot.

Busts 

Larky: None

I am proudly above consensus in my best ball rankings on all New York Giants players. The riskiest Giants player, to me, is Kadarius Toney. I’m always wary of drafting players when I know the team was at one point actively trying to trade them.

However, Toney was one of the 10 most efficient WRs in targets per route run last season, which is one of the most predictive metrics we have when analyzing young WRs. He has a very high ceiling if he can stay healthy in 2022.

The other WR worth mentioning in this section is Kenny Golladay, another player I’m above consensus on at ADP, though I have some worries. With Golladay, we haven’t seen consistent production since 2019, and I think Golladay most likely does not work out in fantasy football in 2022. However, after round 8 or 9, I’m not aiming to draft guys that are “sure bets.” Rather, I’m looking for a player with some upside, and a healthy Golladay has shown he can command 20% of a team’s targets with a high depth of target, as well.

Loechner: Kenny Golladay

None of the Giants players is overly expensive, so bust potential is hard to find here, but I’ll give Golladay the label because he’s the Giants offensive player I’m least excited about for 2022.

And I hate to say this because I may have been the biggest Golladay fan in the world at one point:

Last year was a faith-breaker. It appears Golladay may be too QB-dependent for my liking, and Jones is not the QB I’m betting on despite reasonable levels of optimism from others. Golladay played 14 games and saw 76 targets, 37 receptions, 521 yards and 0 TDs in an offense that had a revolving door at WR due to health, which created a huge opportunity for a player like Golladay, who was relatively healthy/available compared to his teammates. 

Golladay went the Allen Robinson route in 2021. Is he talented enough to turn it around? The stan in me thinks so. But this offense has a lot of mouths to feed, and he was just so brutal with Jones last year, that it’s not an exciting situation.

Bets

Larky: Saquon Barkley is a top-five fantasy RB

It’s hard to believe that betting on quite possibly the greatest RB prospect of all time to be a top-five fantasy producer in his age 25 season is a hot take. Saquon has the size (233 pounds), speed (4.40 40-time), draft capital (Pick 3 overall in 2018), and has finished top seven in fantasy points per game in both his healthy seasons.

With Saquon, all we really need is health. Last season, he was recovering from the ACL tear and just beginning to find his stride (94 yards in Week 3, 126 yards in Week 4) until he rolled his ankle in Week 5 and missed the next month. Now, he is fully healthy and one of the only workhorse RBs left in the NFL. The only RBs likely to have better per game usage than Barkley are Jonathan Taylor, Christian McCaffrey, Najee Harris and Derrick Henry. Matt Breida is the current back in New York and poses no threat to any of the high-value touches in this backfield.

Healthy Saquon Barkley is getting 15 carries and 5 targets per game, and breaking off explosive chunk plays to help you win your weekly fantasy matchups. The offensive line is improved, the receivers are better than 2021, and I’d be surprised if Mike Glennon and Jake Fromm are once again making starts for the Giants in 2022. It’s all-systems-go for one of the most talented RBs in the NFL.

Loechner: Kadarius Toney is a top-20 fantasy WR

I’ve written up Toney a few times so far this offseason (5 players to trade for in dynasty), and it’s because I think we saw enough of a flash from him last year to know what he’s capable of. 

Toney’s rookie season was mostly lost due to injury. But when he was on the field, he was either a target monster, highly productive, or both. He got things started with a 9-6-78-0 line in Week 4 before a 13-10-189-0 eruption in Week 5. That was one of the best, early-career rookie performances we’ve seen in a while.

In Week 6, he had three targets on the first drive of the game, then an injury knocked him out and effectively ended his season. (He returned for a game in November and December and saw 21 combined targets, but nothing of note came from them.)

It’s a small sample size, but the playmaking ability was on full display, as was the ability to be a target dominator. If he’s New York’s No. 1 WR in 2022, he has a legit chance to be a top-20 fantasy WR.

The odds of this happening may be pretty Long, but it’s the boldest bet about this team that I have reasonable conviction on.