Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
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 Chicago Bears.
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: Cole Kmet
Loechner: Justin Fields
Biggest Bust
Larky: Velus Jones
Loechner: Byron Pringle
Boldest Bet
Larky: Darnell Mooney outscores Amari Cooper
Loechner: Justin Fields finishes as a top-10 fantasy QB
The Explanation
Sleepers
Larky: Cole Kmet
Cole Kmet has massive target opportunity staring him in the face for the 2022 NFL season. The pecking order in Chicago is Darnell Mooney, and then most likely Kmet. Byron Pringle is a late 20s undrafted free agent who has never hit a 10% target share in the NFL. David Montgomery has had a 12% target share each of the past two seasons. Velus Jones will be discussed at length below.
At a basic level, Kmet can step right into a lot of targets simply by being a living and breathing body on the Bears. Fortunately for fantasy managers who draft Kmet, his overall profile leads me to believe he is good at football. Kmet ran a 4.70-second 40, well above average and the same as T.J. Hockenson. He is 6-foot-4 and 262 pounds, so he has very good size for an NFL tight end. Regarding his production, he just posted the 11th-highest target share among tight ends in 2021, and he was top-10 in targets per route run — this demonstrates that when out on the field, Kmet was heavily targeted. If we look at last year, his snap share was often below 80% in games, due to Jimmy Graham’s presence on the roster. Graham is no longer on the roster, so it’s fair to assume a talented Year 3 player like Kmet will be closer to a 90-95% snap and routes share in 2022.
Kmet just had 60 receptions for over 600 yards in 2021, but fantasy gamers were annoyed because he scored zero touchdowns. The most shocking part of this: his target share in the red zone was higher than his target share between the 20s. Kmet was just incredibly unlucky. Because he’s the clear No. 2 option in the Bears passing game, if Justin Fields takes a step forward in 2022, Kmet should directly benefit. A difference-making season of 12-13 fantasy points per game in PPR leagues based on volume is well within Kmet’s reach.
Loechner: Justin Fields
I’ve already labeled what the Bears did to surround Fields with talents as one of the worst moves this offseason, but I still love him as a sleeper pick for fantasy. If anything, Chicago’s lackadaisical approach to having a good offense may keep Fields hype at an all-time low.
I’ve written about Fields several times this offseason already, including highlighting him as one of the 5 players to trade for in dynasty right now. And his passing weapons be damned — the real reason we like Fields is because of his rushing potential.
Over his final four games as a starter last year, Fields averaged 8.5 rush attempts and 64 rushing yards per game, and he scored 1 rushing TD. That is elite rushing usage. It was enough to prop him up as a fantasy QB1 in all four of those final games, and he scored over 20 fantasy points in all four games as well.
Busts
Larky: Velus Jones
There are people out there scanning the Bears depth chart and realizing that third-round rookie Velus Jones should walk into heavy target volume. On top of that, he ran a 4.31-second 40 at 6-foot-0, 204 pounds. How could I possibly fade one of the NFL’s fastest players, a rookie with good draft capital on an offense desperately needing warm bodies to get in-game reps?
Jones is currently 25 years old and played in parts of six college seasons. When Jones was a senior at USC, Michael Pittman and Amon-Ra St. Brown both had over 1,000 receiving yards. Freshman Drake London had 567 yards in only eight games played. Jones, as a senior, finished ninth on that team in receiving, with 6 catches for 35 receiving yards over 11 games played. He transferred to Tennessee after that and posted under 300 yards as a super senior. Finally, in Year 6, he had 807 yards receiving at Tennessee, when he was 3-4 years older than the players trying to cover him.
Experience-adjusted college production is the most predictive metric for NFL success after draft capital. There has never been a WR taken Round 3 with as bad a production profile as Jones. There has never been a fantasy-relevant WR to have as bad a production profile as Jones. No matter how you slice it, his lack of college production until he was a 24-year-old sixth-year player is alarming, if I’m putting it mildly.
He is not a sleeper and should never be your late-round pick in redraft. There have been 100s of WRs who look like Velus Jones in college, and we have yet to see any of them be fantasy relevant.
Loechner: Byron Pringle
The Bears don’t have a ton of bust candidates only because none of them are expensive in fantasy. Fields is the QB18 in drafts, David Montgomery the RB19, Darnell Mooney the WR31, Cole Kmet the TE17. Those are all floor ADPs, and it will be hard for any of those leading names to truly bust at that cost.
I’m tempted to say no Bears player will bust for this reason, but I’ll hang my hat on Byron Pringle as the most likely candidate. Yes, he’s basically free in drafts (WR95), but I expect that to rise as it becomes more apparent he’s Chicago’s No. 2 WR. He’s only barely ahead of Velus Jones (WR97) at the moment.
Pringle caught heat with Patrick Mahomes toward the end of last year and in the playoffs, scoring 3 TDs in the playoffs and emerging as a red zone threat. That will almost certainly be enough to get more people to take a shot on him than they should. In truth, this WR room is Darnell Mooney and then a bunch of rotating faces. Pringle may be the “lead” face, but target share will most likely be inconsistent, and Mahomes is no longer his QB. There is no appealing upside here.
Bets
Larky: Darnell Mooney outscores Amari Cooper
Mooney and Cooper are the perfect dichotomy for this exercise. Both are the clear top 1 option in their team’s passing games, Mooney in Chicago and Cooper in Cleveland. Consensus ranks have Cooper well ahead of Mooney in rankings because the Cleveland offense projects to be better than the Bears offense anytime Deshaun Watson is in at quarterback. I see a lot of lazy analysis like this, where the No. 1 pass game options of two offenses are compared, when we should really be comparing projected pass attempts and each receiver’s likely target share.
Cooper has a career-high target share of 22%, back in 2016. Last year he was around 19%. Darnell Mooney had nearly a 27% target share last season and was toward the top of the league in overall targets and air yards, as well. Mooney’s ability to command targets at a significantly higher rate than Cooper is important, since Cooper’s path to outscoring Mooney would come via efficiency and touchdowns.
The Browns have had a low-volume pass offense for several years, and likely begin the 2022 season with Jacoby Brissett at quarterback, under the assumption Watson is suspended for some chunk of the season. You’re threading the needle to ask Cooper to be laser efficient, when underlying metrics like yards per route run — not just target share! — give the edge to Mooney. Mooney has a high floor due to his stellar target share and targets per route run metrics from 2021, and Fields has a fairly wide range of outcomes as a passer thanks to his elite prospect profile and him entering his second NFL season. Bet on the young, explosive (4.38 40-time) receiver in Mooney to impress fantasy gamers in 2022.
Loechner: Justin Fields is a top-10 fantasy QB
I really don’t know how to top Larky’s obscenely bold take above. So I’ll just take up more space here talking about how much I still love Fields.
If I miss out on the top tier of fantasy QBs this year, you’ll never catch me drafting in the Russell Wilson, Matthew Stafford, Aaron Rodgers tier. I would much rather wait a few extra rounds and snag Fields, who has all the tools required to be a top-three fantasy QB but none of the supporting cast. The tools alone should be enough to net him a top-12 (fantasy QB1) finish, but I’ll go slightly bolder and say he finishes top-10 at the position.
Fields, to me, is like what Jalen Hurts was at this point last year — but he’s significantly cheaper than Hurts was last summer. And Hurts was the top overall fantasy QB in Weeks 1-11 last year. I already wrote above how Fields scored over 20 fantasy points in his final four games as a starter on the back of elite rushing usage. That’s not going to change in 2022.
