Fantasy Football’s Biggest Risers of 2022: Wide Receiver

Drafting a bunch of players who return draft-day value is a great way to have a decent fantasy football season. Win a few games, maybe squeak into the playoffs, not hate your season.

Of course, we want more than that. Your job as a drafter is to find players who will exceed value, not just return it. So today, we’re looking for players who will exceed draft day value in 2022. Maybe that means a player drafted as a starter who could end up leading his position; maybe it’s a player taken late in drafts who can return starter value. Regardless, these are the players on the rise in fantasy football in 2022.

Last weekend, we covered quarterbacks and running backs in this series. Today, wide receivers. As one of the deepest positions in fantasy football, wide receiver is also one of the hardest to predict year over year. Over the past 10 years we have seen 48 different players finish as a WR1 — 29 of these repeated this success at least one more time. We have only seen a few players produce a WR1 five or more times, showing the constant turnover at the position.

Below is a list of players who could find themselves added to this list in 2022. 

Potential WR1 Overall

Ja’Marr Chase, Cincinnati Bengals 

Last season, Ja’Marr Chase’s connection with Joe Burrow became evident early on — 111 of his 128 targets were first read targets. This allowed him to finish the season with 1,455 yards on 81 receptions, scoring 13 touchdowns. This was good enough for 300 total PPR points and a WR5 finish. One thing that was also on full display was his ability to create with the ball in his hands, as Chase managed 676 yards after the catch. In order to make the leap from WR5 to WR1, he will need to improve in the drop category, especially after being credited with 14 drops in 2021 according to the FTN Fantasy advanced receiving stats. Pulling more of these targets in would have allowed him to possibly finish as the WR1 last season as a rookie. As the clear No. 1 option on a team that is fine throwing the ball 59% of the time, there is upside built into the offensive scheme — especially as they did not shy away from throwing the ball in the red zone either, throwing the ball 55% of the time last season. With the improved offensive line in 2022, Burrow should have more time to stretch the field, unlocking one of Chase’s best strengths as an electric deep threat. With all of these factors he will improve on his 2021 totals, allowing him to make a leap into the WR1 position in 2022. 

Potential Top 5 Finisher 

CeeDee Lamb, Dallas Cowboys 

In 2022, the Cowboys are turning over the reins of the passing game to third-year star receiver CeeDee Lamb after trading Amari Cooper to the Browns. Vacated targets are always hard to predict, but it seems safe to assume a healthy chunk of Cooper’s 108 targets will venture over to Lamb in 2022. Last season, he finished as the WR19 with 232.8 PPR points on 120 targets. He caught 79 of them, while producing 1,102 yards and six touchdowns. With an uptick in targets, we can expect him to see close to 150, leading to an increase in his reception total in 2022. This increased role will easily allow him to produce the 4 PPR points per game he would have needed to finish in the top five in 2021. Nineteen of Cooper’s targets were in the red zone, producing five touchdowns. Now with Cooper out of the picture, we can expect the Cowboys to look toward Lamb in these important situations. Producing more touchdowns is one of the easiest ways to increase your fantasy production, and he will have plenty of opportunity to do this in 2022. On top of all this, Michael Gallup is expected to start the season on the PUP list as he recovers from an end-of-season ACL injury. This will open up even more opportunities for Lamb early in the season. With his increased role and his game-breaking talent, we will see an increase of production from him in 2022, leading to a top finish. 

Top 12 Finishers

Michael Pittman, Indianapolis Colts 

Last season, we saw Michael Pittman take a huge leap forward in the passing game, doubling many of the receiving statistics from his rookie year, finishing the season with over 1000 yards receiving on 129 targets and finding the end zone six times. That led him to a WR17 finish in PPR with 238.6 points. He showed off his ability to stretch the field while also displaying his ability to win at every level of the field, establishing himself as a true primary target. As we head into 2022, the Colts have added a new quarterback in veteran Matt Ryan, who is already getting high praise from Pittman. With the team doing little to address the secondary options in the passing game aside from drafting Alec Pierce, we can expect an increased role for Pittman in 2022. Especially with T.Y. Hilton, Zach Pascal and Jack Doyle all moving on in 2022 (assuming Hilton doesn’t re-sign; he’s still a free agent). We should see improved accuracy with Ryan at the helm in 2022, which means Pittman should improve his 68% catch percentage from last season. With an increased catch rate paired with an expected target increase, he should have no trouble climbing the wide receiver ranks in 2022. On top of that, the Colts should be a more effective offense in 2022, allowing him to improve on his six touchdowns from last season. 

Courtland Sutton, Denver Broncos 

After two impressive seasons to start his career, Courtland Sutton was a popular pick for a third-year breakout in 2020, but he had a lost season after a Week 1 torn ACL. Last season in his first year back, we saw Sutton start the season with three weeks of 20-plus PPR points in the first six weeks. After that, he failed to produce even a single double-digit week in PPR. Over this span he only averaged four targets, two receptions and 23.7 yards per game. Those are obviously poor numbers, but we can blame some of it on the poor quarterback play — the team failed to produce a 200-yard passer in a whopping half of the final 10 games. With a huge upgrade at the quarterback position in 2022, we can expect Sutton to be the beneficiary. New Bronco quarterback Russell Wilson has produced two top-10 producers in the past, most recently 2020. Last season he helped produce two top-24 fantasy scorers, despite missing missed multiple games due to injury. With this improvement, along with a new head coach and offensive scheme the Broncos offense will be much improved in 2022. This will allow Sutton to reach career highs in every important receiving category, leading to huge fantasy success. Finishing as a WR1 would not be a surprise if this offense reaches its potential in 2022. 

Top 24 Finisher 

Rashod Bateman, Baltimore Ravens 

As a rookie, Rashod Bateman only appeared in 12 games due to a preseason injury. In those games, he produced 515 receptions on 46 receptions but scored only once. These numbers are not overly impressive, but some rookie bumps aren’t a huge shock. We saw a similar season from Michael Pittman in 2020, and he exploded in 2021 once given a larger role. For the bright spots for Bateman: He reached double-digit PPR points in six of his 12 games. That’s a promising sign looking forward to 2022. And this offseason, the Ravens dealt away No. 1 receiver Marquise Brown, leaving Bateman as the team’s primary receiver on the perimeter, a role he excelled with in college. He’ll see a large increase in target share this season — last season, Brown saw 146 targets as the primary target and finished as the WR22. With a supposedly healthy Lamar Jackson and J.K. Dobbins, the Baltimore offense will be much more efficient in 2022. However, his ceiling is capped due to the fact that the Ravens tend to lean on the run game a majority of the time. Even with this factored in, Bateman will be able to become a weekly starter for his fantasy managers.