100 Questions: The Pressing Fantasy Football Issues Entering 2022 — NFC East

(As we head toward training camp and the start of preseason, our own Daniel Kelley is asking — and attempting to answer — the most pressing questions around fantasy football for 2022. This is 100 Questions.)

The last time there was a repeat winner of the NFC East (the Eagles, 2001-2004), only two current NFL players were active — Tom Brady (of course) and Cardinals punter Andy Lee, who was a fresh-faced sixth-round rookie. The Dallas Cowboys are the latest to put that to the test, as the defending NFC East champions have the best odds in the division at +130 on DraftKings Sportsbook to take it down again.

Dallas Cowboys

The 2021 Cowboys led the NFL in points scored (530) and were second in point differential (+172). This offseason saw a lot of change, though, as the offense said goodbye to Amari Cooper and Cedrick Wilson at receiver and Connor Williams and La’el Collins on the line. Can it withstand the departures?

53. Is CeeDee Lamb Set to Join the Elite of the Elite?

2020 first-round draft pick CeeDee Lamb is entering his third season in the league with WR22 and WR19 PPR finishes under his belt. His first two seasons in the league weren’t that different (1,017 scrimmage yards and 6 touchdowns in 2020, 1,178 and 6 in 2021, same number of games). What’s different now is that Cooper is in Cleveland, Wilson is in Miami and Michael Gallup is recovering from a late-season torn ACL.

Best Answer: It’s virtually unanimous that Lamb is going to climb to the next level in 2022, flirting with the very top tier at receiver. He’s WR6 in Jeff Ratcliffe’s fantasy rankings, WR7 by ADP. I’m a little less optimistic. To be sure, he has a higher ceiling now than he did with Cooper around, but even then, the team will spread the ball around to Gallup (when healthy), Jalen Tolbert, Dalton Schultz and the running backs. If you can get Lamb as a super-late WR1 or early WR2, I’m all for it, but at his current price, there’s not much room to outperform his draft cost.

54. Is This Who Dalton Schultz Is Now?

Dalton Schultz was a non-factor in his first two seasons in the league. He was expected to basically be that again in 2020, until Blake Jarwin tore his ACL in Week 1. Schultz took over and had a breakout year, finishing as the TE11. Last year, Jarwin struggled with health again, and Schultz got even better, putting up 808 yards and 8 touchdowns and finishing as the TE3. So is he a strong second-tier tight end now?

Best Answer: Once again, I have to harken back to the first piece in this series, where I noted that the top tier at tight end is better than ever, and the lower tiers are actually doing better than you’d think, but the second tier, guys in the TE4-TE7 range, are where the frustration lies. Schultz might be able to repeat a top-five (ish) season, but given his lack of ceiling beyond that and the relative sameness of guys in that range, I’d rather just wait until the very back of this tier and take someone then rather than banking on Schultz to continue.

55. What’s the Deal with This Backfield?

The next time Ezekiel Elliott’s rushing yards per game increases from one year to the next will be the first time in his career (which started in 2016). He’s 27 now. And after looking like he could be a big-time receiving threat in 2018 (77 receptions on 95 targets), he’s leveled off as a middling pass-catcher (51.0 receptions on 69.0 targets per year the last three). Last year, Tony Pollard had a breakout as his No. 2, putting up 1,056 scrimmage yards. He only scored twice, though, which was why he was RB28 (while Elliott was RB7). Entering 2022, Pollard is among the buzziest backup running backs in the league.

Best Answer: Somehow, both these backs are underrated. You can get Elliott as the RB17 in drafts, which is absurd — he’s probably no longer a contender for the overall RB1, but he’s never finished lower than 12^th, has missed exactly one game to injury in his career, and is still behind a top-three offensive line. Meanwhile, Pollard is RB30, and while he would need an Elliott injury to be a star, his role (and reported increase in passing work this season) should have him as a back-end RB2. I predicted in our Sleepers, Busts and Bets on the Cowboys that both guys finish top 20 in 2022.

New York Giants

The Giants have two Super Bowl wins this century … and exactly zero other playoff wins since the 2000 season. They’ve made the playoffs five other times (most recently in the 2016 season) and been bounced in their first game each time. That’s still better than a lot of teams have managed, but it’s a very strange anomaly that they are so all-or-nothing.

56. Are We Back on the Saquon Barkley Train?

Saquon Barkley finished as the RB1 as a rookie (0.3 points ahead of Christian McCaffrey, but first is first). He was RB10 in 2019, but between injury and ineffectiveness, he hasn’t been better than RB32 since, with only 3.5 yards per carry the last two years (15 games, 181 carries). But the Giants got a new offensive-minded head coach this offseason in Brian Daboll and took strides to at least marginally improve one of the league’s worst offensive lines, which means yet again, we are wondering if Barkley is a good draft-day target.

Best Answer: Two, three months ago, Barkley was maybe one of the top bargains in the early parts of drafts. He was hovering in the 30-40 range overall in drafts, mid- to late-teens at running back. But between the Daboll hiring and general hype, Barkley has steadily climbed, to the point where he’s now going in the 20 range, as a low-end RB1. There is still some ceiling beyond that (we’ve seen that RB1 finish), but the opportunity to be wrong on Barkley has only grown. After all, the offensive line is better, but still below average, and it’s fair to wonder how much of Daboll’s success was because of him vs. because of Josh Allen. If the hype in your draft has Barkley going that high, you’d be wise to let someone else absorb that risk.

57. So Do We Trust Brian Daboll to Fix Daniel Jones?

Daniel Jones’ upside is obvious. He’s sixth in rushing yards among quarterbacks since entering the league. If all his weapons reach their peak, he’s got one of the top handful of arsenals in the league. And Daboll took the raw lump of clay that was early-career Josh Allen and helped mold him into one of the game’s best quarterbacks. If he can work that magic with Jones, the ceiling is sky-high.

Best Answer: Obviously, you don’t want to count on lightning to strike twice. But just as obviously, Jones has been at least fantasy relevant even without Daboll’s help with two top-20 fantasy seasons by points per game. Jones is QB27 by ADP right now, but our rankers have him at QB20. If you want to take a shot on a low-end QB2 with nice weekly upside, Jones is a value.

58. Are We Buying a Kadarius Toney Breakout?

Kadarius Toney has already had a whirlwind career. From surprise first-rounder to guy who had to practice barefoot to barely used rookie to electric receiver to hurt to maybe going to be traded to, now, the top-drafted receiver on the Giants and bona fide buzzy breakout guy. What’s real?

Best Answer: We know Toney is electric with the ball in his hands — per the FTN Fantasy advanced receiving stats, more than 60% of his receiving yards last year came after the catch, fifth highest among receivers with at least 50 targets, and per our elusive rating tool, he forced 20 tackles on 42 touches, a rate of 0.476 that was comfortably the best among receivers with at least 30 touches — only Deebo Samuel (0.407) was higher than 0.375. If he can stay healthy, there’s sky-high potential for Toney, and at WR46 in current ADP (WR37 in consensus rankings), he’s just about the most interesting target out there.

Philadelphia Eagles

The 2021 Philadelphia Eagles started 2-5, running the ball 39.0% of the time. From that point until Week 17 (ignoring a meaningless Week 18), they went 7-2 and ran the ball 60.4% of the time. It really was remarkable how clean the change was. 

59. Is Jalen Hurts a Fantasy Star … or a Fantasy Superstar?

A funny thing about the aforementioned run/pass split over the course of last season—When the Eagles were pass-heavy early in the season, Hurts was the QB2, never worse than 10^th in a week. The rest of the way, he was QB10 in points per game (accounting for his injury), finishing outside the top 10 five times in eight weeks. He went from averaging 245.1 passing yards per game to 178.5. We know rushing ability boosts quarterbacks’ fantasy value, but there’s a point of diminishing returns — a quarterback can’t just not throw.

Best Answer: The Eagles don’t care about your fantasy team. If they could carry a .778 winning percentage over the next forever with a quarterback who could be top-five in fantasy but is more like top-12, they’d be just fine with that. Of course, they also went out and added A.J. Brown this offseason, which says they’ll be passing at least a bit in 2022. Hurts is available at QB8 right now in drafts, and there’s a path to him finishing three or four spots (or more!) better than that … and if he’s healthy, not much below.

60. What Does the A.J. Brown Trade Mean for Him and DeVonta Smith?

Just take a second and look at the seasons we just got out of A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith:

Of course, they got to those two very similar stat lines in two very different ways. Brown had an average depth of target of 11.6 yards compared to 14.1 for Smith. Brown missed four games to injury, but Smith played all 17. A.J. Brown ran a 4.49-second 40 before he entered the league; Smith didn’t run at the combine but probably would have clocked something in the 4.30s. They had the same results, but they don’t have the same skills.

Best Answer: Between the big-name new addition and the scheme questions, there’s no passing game we can be less sure of entering 2022 than the Eagles’. If I’m picking a receiver to lead this team in fantasy points, it’s obviously Brown, but considering he’s available at WR9 in drafts while Smith is all the way down at WR36, for return on investment, Smith is the play here.

61. Is Miles Sanders Worth a Shot as a Fantasy Starter?

Miles Sanders has a peak of 867 rushing yards in a season, a low of 754. Strictly as a runner, he’s actually gotten better, going from 4.6 yards per carry as a rookie up to 5.5 last year. Sure, he didn’t score any touchdowns last year, but touchdowns are weird anyway. On the other hand, he had 50 receptions for 509 yards and 3 score as a rookie, and has 54 for 355 and 0 combined the last two years. You can get him at RB31 in drafts. Is that too high, too low or just right?

Best Answer: I wrote this in our Sleepers, Busts and Bets series entry on the Eagles, but I’m out on Sanders, and the reason for that is that the Eagles themselves don’t appear to believe in him as someone who can carry us in fantasy. In 40 career games, he’s reached 20 carries in a game three times. And if the team is determined not to use him much as a receiver either, there’s no real path other than extreme red-zone productivity (that he won’t get with Hurts as his quarterback) to returning much value on his investment.

Washington Commanders

Normally, a one-off division title is enough to make a run of bad finishes feel a little better. But the division title Washington managed in 2020 — its lone finish better than third place since 2015 — came in a 7-9 season when the NFC East was one of the worst divisions on record, so it’s not like the team can cling to fond memories of a deep run that year. Things have gone poorly in Washington for a while.

62. Have the Antonio Gibson Concerns Gone Too Far?

Antonio Gibson has been in the league two years. He’s topped 1,000 yards from scrimmage and 10 touchdowns each year. He’s been the PPR RB13 and RB10. Now, his team re-signs a running back who has been there the whole time and drops a third-rounder on a rookie back, and Gibson’s available as the RB20?

Best Answer: I phrased the above as pro-Gibson as I could, but the truth is that yeah, the worries are well-placed. Had J.D. McKissic followed through on his near-signing with Buffalo, the receiving side of things might have opened up for Gibson. Had the Commanders passed on Brian Robinson and rolled with Jaret Patterson as the backup ball-carrier, we could have trusted Gibson to rack up the carries. Instead, McKissic is back and will fight for the RB league lead in targets, and Robinson is already getting talked as the goal-line/short-yardage option. That doesn’t leave enough for Gibson to repeat his success of the last two years.

63. Career Year Coming for Terry McLaurin?

Terry McLaurin has been a really good football player basically since setting foot on an NFL field. He’s averaged just over 1,000 yards a year for three years (never worse than 919) and has 16 career touchdowns. It hasn’t translated into fantasy dominance, though — he’s been WR29, WR20 and WR25 in his three years. Carson Wentz is clearly not a star quarterback at this point in his career, but then it wouldn’t take much to be the best quarterback McLaurin’s ever had—the headline among Washington quarterbacks since McLaurin entered the league is … Case Keenum? Six pass attempts from Ryan Fitzpatrick? Whatever was left of Alex Smith’s leg? If McLaurin can even see competent quarterback play, what’s his ceiling?

Best Answer: It’s hard not to be a big fan of McLaurin. But it’s also hard to buy too far in on him in fantasy. We just saw Wentz turn Michael Pittman into the WR17 in Indianapolis, but then list of receiving options after Pittman was very short and unimpressive. McLaurin doesn’t have a murderer’s row behind him, but Jahan Dotson, Curtis Samuel and Logan Thomas is (probably) better than anything the Colts had to offer, and J.D. McKissic is arguably more of a receiving threat than Nyheim Hines. It’s hard to picture McLaurin rising much higher than the WR17 he’s going at in drafts, and even that might be a stretch.

64. Is Logan Thomas a Sneaky Play in His Return?

I was low on Logan Thomas a year ago under the argument that he was unlikely to repeat his 110 targets from 2020 and he was inefficient enough that fewer targets would really kill his value. And I was right, because Thomas only finished as the TE44 last year … except he got hurt. He put up 10.7 PPR points per game in the five games he saw at least 1 target, 10^th among tight ends. And now he has Wentz at quarterback, who famously used the heck out of his tight ends in Philadelphia.

Best Answer: The first problem here is that there appears to be real concern Thomas isn’t ready to go for Week 1. His ACL tear came in Week 13, making Week 1 a quick turnaround. Starting on IR would cost Thomas the first month of the season. And then there are the same concerns about inefficiency if the Commanders don’t give him as many targets as they did in 2020. That’s a long way to say that no, you shouldn’t be drafting Thomas for 2022 … but whenever we get word that he might be ready to return, if you’re struggling at TE, a waiver flyer on a returning Carson Wentz tight end might not be a terrible idea.