I take no pleasure in naming winners and losers. It makes for a catchy headline though, and after nearly two weeks of free agency moves both small and tectonic, there are many players whose fantasy prospects look markedly better -- or worse.
Let’s start with the winners, those players who could benefit in large and small ways alike by various free agency signings this month.
Free Agency Winners
David Njoku
Before we get into Njoku, a word about Deshaun Watson‘s trade to the Browns.
Parsing the fantasy implications of the Watson trade seems, at best, amoral. There are nearly two dozen women who’ve brought detailed, horrifying allegations against Watson, who has predictably maintained his innocence amid the avalanche of accusations outlined in myriad legal filings accessible to anyone with an internet connection. That these allegations had zero impact on how NFL teams valued Watson is soul crushing for anyone and everyone who has even a modicum of faith injustice, or something resembling justice.
But we don’t live in a just world. We live in this one, where the supremacy of capital will always overwhelm the public good. In this world, Watson is the Browns quarterback, and probably will be for a long time. The allegations against him will slowly but surely retreat into the background noise of raucous NFL stadiums cheering for Watson -- people delirious about having a real-life elite NFL quarterback under center for their team. Our burning outrage will fizzle, like it always does, and another privileged man will face no repercussions for his (alleged) crimes. We’ll all watch Watson on Sundays, rooting for him or against him, winning and losing fantasy matchups according to his performance. We may not forget -- or forgive -- but we will watch.
It’s my job to analyze the statistical implication of NFL roster moves, so that’s what I’ll do with Watson. Below is a look at how he’ll affect Cleveland’s offense and its key pieces -- fantasy-relevant players who will likely reap tremendous benefits from Watson’s play.
The last time Watson played, in the offensively-explosive COVID season of 2020, he was fantastic in every conceivable way. He should’ve been the league’s MVP on a 4-12 Houston team. Watson had the sixth-highest composite expected points added (EPA) per play and completion rate over expected (CPOE) and fourth-best in CPOE alone. He averaged 8.9 air yards per pass attempt, the third-highest mark in the league. Watson’s adjusted net yards per attempt (8.22) was the 30th highest in NFL history, and his adjusted yards per attempt (9.5) was 17th highest all-time.
Watson’s production continued on the ground. He tacked on nearly four fantasy points per game via the run, totaling 444 yards and three scores on 90 rushing attempts. His yards after contact per rush (3.21) was higher than Cam Newton, Lamar Jackson, Taysom Hill, and Jalen Hurts. Watson was, in short, stellar. It’s why a handful of teams were begging to sell out their futures to merely enter the Watson sweepstakes; a player of Watson’s caliber and age (26) being traded is unprecedented.
The Browns won the Watson sweepstakes, and now have the distinction as the most repugnant, morally compromised organization in American sports. Whatever Cleveland wins with Watson at the helm -- division titles, playoff games, a Super Bowl -- is already tarnished.
Almost any starting-caliber quarterback would be a marked upgrade over Baker Mayfield, whose injury-marred 2021 season was wretched in every possible way. Mayfield’s inconsistency, his inaccuracy, his loss of mobility and arm strength -- it all congealed to create a three-ton anchor around the neck of the Browns offense. The quality of throws Cleveland’s pass catchers will see should improve in 2022 unlike anything we’ve seen in pro football, and Watson remains a shoo-in top-five fantasy option.
Njoku might finally be freed from his frustrating part-time role in the Cleveland offense. Shortly after Njoku re-signed with the Brown, the team released the underperforming salary albatross known as Austin Hooper. That leaves Njoku and Harrison Bryant as the team’s primary tight ends in an offense that has used two tight ends as much as any team in the NFL (with Baker Mayfield under center).
Splitting routes almost evenly with Hooper and Bryant in 2021, the hyper-athletic Njoku proved efficient, finishing 12th among tight ends in fantasy points over expectation on his meager 53 targets. Njoku was ninth in yards per route run among tight ends last year, ahead of guys like T.J. Hockenson, Mike Gesicki, and Hunter Henry. All indications point to Njoku being a difference-making fantasy tight end given a larger role in an offense headed by an elite passer like Watson.
Watson has generated production from far lesser tight ends: In 2020, Jordan Akins had 200 receiving yards on 14 receptions in the season’s first four weeks, before an injury that cost him the every-down pass-catching role. If Njoku’s route participation jumps from 50 percent to 70-75 percent, he’ll have every chance to be an every-week fantasy starter in 2022.
Amari Cooper
Things were bleaker than bleak for Cooper’s 2022 fantasy outlook until the Browns sent their next three hundred draft picks to Houston in exchange for Watson. Now Cooper has real top-12 receiver upside as the no-brainer No. 1 wideout in Cleveland.
Brandin Cooks, Watson’s top option for the Texans in 2020, finished as WR17 in both PPR points per game and total fantasy points. Cooks, of course, is a different kind of receiver than Cooper, who’s mostly a possession guy at this point in his career. For a slightly closer comp, look no further than DeAndre Hopkins posting top-5 fantasy numbers in 2019 as Watson’s go-to receiver. Hopkins averaged ten targets per game, more than all but four wideouts in 2019. You get the idea: Watson’s WR1 has been productive with voluminous opportunity.
CeeDee Lamb
Maybe, just maybe, Lamb will be treated like a true alpha receiver with Cooper in Cleveland. Lamb’s usage in Dallas has been on-and-off maddening for two years. Clearly the team’s most potent playmaker, Cowboys coaches sometimes treat Lamb like a secondary receiver or, worse, a gadget player.
His peripheral numbers point to a receiver ready to blow up. Lamb posted last year’s tenth highest yards per route run but saw a target on 24 percent of his routes -- not a terrible rate, but not nearly elite. His best case scenario would be a 27-29 percent target per route run rate in a Dallas offense more committed to moving the ball and scoring points, not establishing the run with their washed lead back.
Lamb only needs a small volume boost to bump into elite fantasy territory. Hopefully the loss of Cooper’s 19 percent target share will do the trick.
Devin Singletary
Singletary somehow dodged the J.D. McKissic signing, which would have torpedoed his pass-catching work in the Buffalo offense. He still has a shot to resume his valuable every-down role in Josh Allen’s backfield, depending on what the team does in the NFL Draft.
There’s reason to believe Singletary -- who had the fourth-most yards after contact in the regular season’s final month -- is a good back who deserves a solidified role with the Bills, who gave Singletary a whopping 87 percent of the team’s high-value backfield touches (touches inside the ten-yard line plus receptions) from Week 14-18. Only Najee Harris had a higher rate of his team’s high-value touches over that span.
JuJu Smith-Schuster
Smith-Schuster finally leaving the fantasy-unfriendly confines of the Steelers offense for one of the league’s elite units was a clear bump for his fantasy football prospects. With Tyreek Hill’s stunning trade to Miami, JuJu could be Patrick Mahomes’ No. 2 target in 2022 -- not bad work if you can get it.
We saw a Kansas City offense in 2021 that was in many ways the polar opposite of the dominant air raid unit we came to know in Patrick Mahomes’ early years as the Chiefs starter. Opposing defenses parked two safeties 30 or 40 yards off the line of scrimmage last season and told Mahomes in no uncertain terms that he would have to beat them in a decidedly boring way: With intermediate passes and the running game. Over the season’s final eight weeks, Mahomes posted the NFL’s lowest air yards per attempt -- a sentence that would have been unimaginable to write one short year ago.
KC’s commitment to the dink and dunk could be supercharged in 2022 without Hill, the fastest, most terrifying receiver in the game. Andy Reid and Mahomes could respond to the loss of Hill with an offense predicated on feeding Travis Kelce and Smith-Schuster in the intermediate areas of the field. That would work fine with JuJu, whose yards per target has plunged from 11.6 in 2017 to 7.9 in 2019 to a lowly 4.6 in five 2021 games. JuJu, a jovial, likable guy, is also a slow possession receiver who can beat precisely no one downfield. That’ll work in a KC offense missing Byron Pringle, who played that role for much of 2021. Smith-Schuster could get all the looks he can handle in the newly Hill-less Chiefs system.
Hill’s departure from KC leaves a gaping hole in the team’s red-zone offense: Hill led all Chiefs with 23 targets inside the 20 last year, along with nine targets inside the ten. Those vacated high-value looks could mean big things for JuJu’s touchdown-scoring prospects in 2022.
Evan Engram
Don’t ask a Giants fan about Engram. Their face will get red as they relive an Engram dropped pass in the fourth quarter of a 17-point loss to the Eagles, or a first-quarter drop against Washington in some forgotten early-season divisional loss.
Sure, Engram had drop issues in 2020 as Jason Garrett used the uber-athletic tight end the way an offensive coordinator might use Owen Daniel if he came out of retirement. In 2021, Engram’s 8 percent drop rate ranked 13th among tight ends -- not quite catastrophic.
I’m old enough to remember Engram’s superb rookie season in which he caught 64 of 115 targets and six touchdowns. Engram followed that up with what would have been an excellent 2017 before a season-ending injury. He’s good -- that’s what I’m saying.
Perhaps Dan Arnold becomes an issue if Engram struggles early on, but Engram should get the first crack at being Trevor Lawrence’s top pass-catching tight end. Lawrence, by the bye, targeted tight ends on about 20 percent of his passes in 2021. And Doug Pederson’s tight end usage -- think back to Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert making things tough on opposing defenses -- could turn Engram into the seam splitter he was in his early Giants seasons. The success of tight ends in Pederson’s system is what drew Engram to Jacksonville in the first place.
Leonard Fournette
Lombardi Lenny found his way back to Tom Brady. He’ll resume his incredibly valuable role as Brady’s every-down back in 2022, giving him easy top-5 fantasy upside. Fournette is hardly a great runner; thankfully, that doesn’t matter.
He’ll get all the goal-line work and the ultra-valuable targets out of the backfield in the pass-heavy Bucs offense. Last year, only Austin Ekeler and Najee Harris had more expected fantasy points receiving among running backs.
Ricky Seals-Jones
Everyone’s favorite 2021 tight end waiver wire pickup is now the Giants’ presumed No. 1 tight end. Evan Engram is gone. Kyle Rudolph is gone. It’s RSJ’s gig to lose.
Seals-Jones in 2021 was reasonably productive as Washington’s pass-catching tight end after Logan Thomas’ months-long hamstring injury. He put up high-end TE2 numbers during his run as Washington’s starter, offering some hope he could be usable if he is indeed the Giants’ preferred pass-catching tight end.
Russell Gage
As if the Falcons weren’t down bad enough, their best receiver signs with dominant division rival Tampa. Gage, who has played (and had success) in the slot and on the outside, could easily be a top-30 fantasy option if Chris Godwin misses the early part of the season recovering from a late-season ACL tear.
With the league’s second-highest pass rate over expected and the highest raw pass rate in 2021, the Bucs should have plenty of targets available for Gage if Godwin is sidelined for a game or four. Even when Godwin returns, Gage should maintain a usable fantasy floor in Tom Brady’s offense. We’ve seen this Tampa offense support three fantasy-relevant wideouts.
Free Agency Losers
Marcus Mariota and Kyle Pitts
As Atlanta’s Week 1 starter -- barring a first-round QB selection by the Falcons -- Mariota’s main appeal lies in his rushing potential. From 2016 to 2018 as Tennessee’s quarterback, Mariota averaged a healthy 4.28 rushing attempts per game, scoring ten touchdowns over those three seasons. A little inventive play calling from Arthur Smith -- who utilized Ryan Tannehill’s athleticism in Tennessee -- could make Mariota interesting as a streaming option in soft matchups this year.
Mariota probably won’t be worse for Kyle Pitts than Matt Ryan was in 2021. So Pitts has that going for him, which is nice.
Never good as a passer during his cringe-filled tenure as the Titans’ starter, Mariota’s presumed main target (Pitts) will hopefully see his usage changed in 2022. The so-called unicorn tight end saw a grand total of seven targets inside the ten-yard line as a rookie -- as many as Van Jefferson, and fewer than Cameron Brate and Zach Pascal. Pitts managed just four red zone receptions all season; Hayden Hurst and Juwan Johnson had more. Truly depressing stuff, I know.
Mariota’s rushing ability could affect Pitts’ touchdown potential if Mariota -- unlike the statuesque Ryan -- takes off near the goal line now and again. Overall, Mariota doesn’t represent a downgrade for his unicorn pass catcher. The team’s talent-starved offense, however, could make it impossible for Mariota and Pitts to thrive in 2022.
Jameis Winston
The Saints were crystal clear about Winston’s role in their offense in 2021. He was there as a caretaker, not a gunslinger. That role -- and the subsequent run-heavy ways of the Saints -- make Winston a supremely boring fantasy option as the Saints’ quarterback.
There are some questions as to whether Winston really improved in 2021 after his hair-on-fire days as Tampa’s QB. He ranked 29th in completion rate over expected before his season-ending knee injury, trailing guys like Baker Mayfield and Jacoby Brissett. Look for New Orleans to run a conservative, run-first offense when they can in 2022. The days of Fun Jameis are over.
Rashaad Penny
Apparently there was no market for the NFL’s most dominant running back over the 2021 season’s final month and a half. Penny ran roughshod over all comers and had to settle for a one-year, $5.75 million deal with the Seahawks, who could have the worst offense in the league after trading away Russell Wilson.
Head coach Pete Carroll and Seattle beat writers seem to think Chris Carson will be the incumbent starter in 2022 should he return from a serious neck injury that sidelined him for most of 2021. The organization loves Carson, as does Carroll, as do Seahawks fans. It makes sense that he would get the first crack as the team’s starter.
Any modicum of success for Carson in the early going could relegate Penny to limited usage unless or until Carson goes down with another injury. Of course, being the primary back in a horrible, slow-paced offense is less than ideal. Bad teams aren’t often in position to establish the run in the second half, and sometimes not at all. Last year, the Seahawks had the 12th lowest pass rate (57 percent) in the NFL. When trailing, Seattle threw the ball at a 64 percent clip, the 11th lowest.
Penny’s 2022 upside was effectively squashed when he returned to Seattle, barring some sort of offensive transformation for the Hawks.
Gerald Everett
Folks who walk around muttering “tight end is deep this year” during the NFL offseason are going to love Everett signing with the Bolts. You’re gonna mutter a little louder.
As LA’s primary pass-catching tight end in 2021, Jared Cook ran a route on 64 percent of Justin Herbert’s drop backs, good for the 11th most pass routes among tight ends. Cook saw 75 targets over 15 games, good for a 13 percent target share. Chargers tight ends combined for a 22 percent target share thanks to injury issues for Cook and a growing role for fantasy football folk hero Donald Parham.
Could Parham’s maturation turn the team’s tight end situation into an endlessly frustrating timeshare? Yes, it could. But Everett should have every chance to be the team’s No. 1 tight end. He was somewhat efficient with Seattle in 2021, notching the 18th highest yards per route run among tight ends along with a reasonably decent 20 percent target per route run rate. Parham also saw a target on 20 percent of his routes in 2021.
D.J. Chark
This stinks. Maybe it makes sense from a real football perspective: Chark can run wind sprints down the sideline and help clear out space for dinks and dunks to D’Andre Swift and Amon-Ra St. Brown. That’s fine. But fantasy wise, it probably makes Chark fantasy irrelevant.
Jared Goff threw deep on 9 percent of his attempts in 2021, the sixth-lowest rate in the league. That’s tough action for a wideout whose career yards per target sits at 14.
