Sleepers, Busts and Bets: The 2022 Jacksonville Jaguars

Welcome to Sleepers, Busts and Bets for the 2022 fantasy football season, where Tyler Loechner and Josh Larky will preview all 32 NFL teams for the upcoming year. First up: The Jacksonville Jaguars.

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

(Follow along with the whole Sleepers, Busts and Bets series here.)

The Answers

Favorite Sleeper

Larky: Christian Kirk
Loechner: Travis Etienne

Biggest Bust

Larky: James Robinson
Loechner: Laviska Shenault

Boldest Bet

Larky: Travis Etienne Top-10 PPR back
Loechner: Evan Engram Top-15 PPR tight end

The Explanations

Sleepers

Larky: Christian Kirk

Christian Kirk has a clear path to difference-making target volume for fantasy football. New head coach Doug Pederson operated pass-heavy offenses with the Eagles and he’s a former quarterback himself. I expect the Jaguars to pass often, and Kirk was just the beneficiary of a massive 4-year, $72 million contract.

Kirk had a 24% target share in 2019 before it dipped in 2020 and 2021 due to DeAndre Hopkins’ arrival in Arizona. When Hopkins was out of the lineup last year due to injury, Kirk’s target share once again bumped up near that number. He’ll be 25 years old during the 2022 season, so there’s potential for him to return to a 22-24% target share in a pass-heavy offense. Marvin Jones is 32 years old, Zay Jones is a career journeyman, Evan Engram’s career is on the decline, and Laviska Shenault will cede slot snaps to Kirk and Evan Engram.

Loechner: Travis Etienne

Travis Etienne was Jacksonville’s first-round pick in 2021, but an injury kept him off the field all year. Though the regime that drafted him didn’t even make it through the 2021 season, his high draft capital shouldn’t be overlooked: Etienne has the tools to be a fantasy stud.

Specifically, Etienne should be a PPR monster. Right after being drafted, there was talk of using Etienne as a WR. That’s exactly what you want in fantasy. (Think D’Andre Swift breaking out last year — Larky has more on that below.) The Jaguars figure to be bottom-feeders in the standings once again, so passing work should be there every week for Etienne.

He will likely also open the season as Jacksonville’s primary rusher, as James Robinson recovers from an Achilles injury. (The only other RBs on the roster are Ryquell Armstead and Snoop Conner.) 

Busts 

Larky: James Robinson

The ruptured Achilles was long thought to be the nail in the coffin for a running back’s career until Cam Akers’ historic return to play last season. Because of Akers’ recovery, there is optimism surrounding James Robinson and his own Achilles recovery. Unlike Akers, Robinson never had well above average athleticism across the board, so any loss of explosiveness during recovery will be more pronounced for Robinson.

In early best ball drafts, Robinson goes ahead of many high-upside backup RBs on much better offenses than the Jaguars. Even if Robinson were to return partway through the 2022 season (reports indicate Robinson will not be ready for Week 1), he’d lose receiving work and at least some goal line work to Travis Etienne. With Robinson, you’re drafting — at best — a 2022 lesser-end-of-the-committee back who won’t be healthy for Week 1, and he’s often going at RB45 off the board in early drafts.

If I’m taking a backup RB in his range of the draft, I’m prioritizing the ones on better offenses who are not also rehabbing a ruptured Achilles.

Loechner: Laviska Shenault

It’s not easy to quit your favorite fantasy player. Laviska Shenault is everyone’s favorite player. Well, was, at least. His lack of progression in Year 2 — just 63-619-0 despite being on an offense desperate for WR help — was a rose-glasses-shatterer.

The Jaguars invested heavily in pass-catching help in free agency. Despite losing D.J. Chark, they added Christian Kirk and Zay Jones. They also added Evan Engram at TE and get both Etienne and Jamal Agnew (who was playing ahead of Shenault when healthy) returning from injury.

That’s at least three, and probably four or even five, players ahead of Shenault in the pecking order. The Jaguars are desperately trying to tell everyone they don’t have much faith in Shenault. It means you shouldn’t either.

Bets

Larky: Travis Etienne is a top-10 PPR back

Travis Etienne is the exact type of player I like to bet on in fantasy football because his fantasy profile is eerily similar to D’Andre Swift, who just finished top-eight in fantasy points per game among 2021 RBs. 

We have yet to see Etienne in NFL game action due to the foot injury suffered last preseason, so we need to analyze his college profile and draft capital to determine his potential. Fortunately for Etienne, he checks every box you want to see from your RBs in fantasy football.

He can handle volume, amassing over 200 touches each of his final three seasons at Clemson. He can produce with volume, averaging 8 yards per carry and totaling nearly 3,300 rushing yards during his sophomore and junior seasons alone. In the passing game, where fantasy points are scored far more efficiently than on the ground, Etienne is a lethal weapon, totaling over 1,000 receiving yards across his final two college seasons. He weighed roughly 215 pounds at his Pro Day, then ran a 4.45 40-time, demonstrating well-above-average athleticism. 

To this point, Etienne compares closely to D’Andre Swift, another talented pass-catching back with size/athleticism, who also can handle rushing volume between the tackles. Unlike Swift, Etienne was drafted in Round 1 last year, so he has truly elite draft capital and job security for an NFL RB. As if this wasn’t enough going in his favor, Etienne’s receiving production in college was courtesy of Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence, who is the Jaguars’ current QB.

All the factors that helped Swift become an absolute force in PPR/half-PPR leagues in 2021 are in place for Etienne in 2022. The pass-catching back who can handle 10-15 carries per game on a team projected to be trailing early/often is exactly the archetype to target in fantasy football, and a top-10 finish in points per game is well within Etienne’s range of outcomes.

Loechner: Evan Engram is a top-15 PPR tight end

Engram is the athletic-tight-end-who-never-was with the New York Giants. A former first-round pick, Engram rarely flashed and ultimately bottomed out in 2021, failing to top 61 yards in any game and checking in at under 30 yards in 9 contests.

The bottom line is that Engram is clearly not the player at the NFL level we thought he could be. But new life in Jacksonville may see him become fantasy relevant once again. Trevor Lawrence was ineffective as a rookie, but Dan Arnold was actually fantasy relevant for a short stretch after joining the team, producing three fantasy TE1 results in his first six games on the Jaguars. James O’Shaughnessy was a fantasy TE1 or TE2 in over 75% of his healthy games

Arnold is still on the team, so we can’t exactly project Engram for all of the TE work in good faith, but he should be the team’s No. 1 TE. Jacksonville’s leading TEs averaged 6-8 targets per game last year. That’s more than enough floor to produce weekly streaming value. As the TE25 coming off early draft boards, Engram is a clear value.