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Cardinals’ WR Outlook: DeAndre Hopkins, Marquise Brown, Rondale Moore (2022 Fantasy Football)

Cardinals’ WR Outlook: DeAndre Hopkins, Marquise Brown, Rondale Moore (2022 Fantasy Football)

In our “Closer Look” series, we’re examining ambiguous, hard-to-read position groups and offering advice on how to handle them in 2022 fantasy football drafts. In this installment, Bo McBrayer takes a closer look at the WR position for the Arizona Cardinals.

Fantasy Football Redraft Draft Kit

Primary Contributors

DeAndre Hopkins (WR – ARI)

Nuk is still one of the best wide receivers in the entire NFL. Prior to his ankle injury last season, he was firmly in the WR1 conversation with nearly 17 PPR points per game through seven games. He will miss the first six games of 2022 serving a suspension for PEDs.

Marquise Brown (WR – ARI)

Even before news broke of the Hopkins suspension, Arizona had a glaring need on the outside with the lucrative departure of Christian Kirk. Hollywood has obvious chemistry with Kyler Murray from their Boomer Sooner days and will need to be the alpha for a while at least.

Other Potential Contributors

A.J. Green (WR – ARI)

Fantasy managers love to reminisce about the glory days when Green and Julio Jones were the gold standard for elite wide receivers. Green had a renaissance of sorts in 2021, but his career trajectory is clearly on a descending plane.

Rondale Moore (WR – ARI)

The diminutive spark plug from Purdue was used more as a gimmick than as a wide receiver in his rookie season. There are already rumors circulating that head coach Kliff Kingsbury will entrust Moore with a more prominent role in the offense, but that remains to be seen since Kingsbury’s modus operandi is of pure blandness and predictability.

Antoine Wesley (WR – ARI)

Wesley was a fantasy league winner in 2021. You read that correctly. His performances in Weeks 16 and 17 vaulted the waiver wire prayer into a miracle story. The 24-year-old is a big outside target at 6-foot-4, and he carries some touchdown upside while the Cards wait for their X receiver to return from suspension.

Analysis

Despite the trappings of being classified as an “Air Raid” offense, the Arizona Cardinals will need to attack defenses with some creativity in 2022 to keep pace in the brutal NFC West.

Their Week 7 date with the New Orleans Saints marks the return of Nuk Hopkins to the fray. He will have three favorable matchups with the Saints, Vikings, and Seahawks before the Cardinals dip into a pre-bye gauntlet of the Rams, 49ers, and Chargers. Hopkins is now 30 years old, but he figures to still have the chops to resume the dominance that saw him finish as a top-five WR for five of six seasons from 2015-2020.

Hollywood Brown’s penchant for big plays will need to come to fruition. He is an underrated technician as a route runner and his speed lends to plenty of opportunities after the catch. Kyler Murray and the Cards must get outstanding production from their newly-acquired weapon in the first six weeks.

If A.J. Green can turn back the clock, it would alleviate a lot of the pressure on this receiving corps to anchor this potentially-explosive offense. At the very least, his large frame can be a viable red-zone threat. He only scored three touchdowns in 2021, despite garnering 92 targets and racking up 848 receiving yards. At 33 years of age, there can’t be much juice left to squeeze out.

Rondale Moore has to be the most intriguing of the bunch. He is a ridiculous athlete, regardless of stature. Putting the ball into Moore’s hands should be a glaring priority after the flashes we saw in his rookie campaign. One easy way to increase his standing in the game plan is to incorporate his skill set into the same packages on passing downs given to Chase Edmonds the last few years. It would be a shame for an electrifying player to be limited solely by headstrong coaching.

Wesley will be of great importance to the success of this Cardinals offense yet again this season. He filled in admirably for Hopkins in 2021, even scoring three touchdowns in the final two games of the fantasy season. It will be interesting to see who wins out in snap share in the first six games of the season between Wesley and talented rookie tight end, Trey McBride.

How to Value These Players

Hopkins is the tricky one to rank out of the bunch. He figures to be a lock for a superb PPG average upon his return, but fantasy managers must carefully weigh just how early in drafts they should take him. I currently rank him as WR31, slightly ahead of his WR35 ADP here on FantasyPros, but that remains fluid. I might move him up because of the feeling that his scoring down the stretch will be comparable to WRs taken much earlier in drafts.

Marquise Brown is a screaming value at his ADP at the moment. He is currently being drafted as WR23, but there is plenty of evidence to support him as a higher-end WR2 with weekly WR1 upside. I have him ranked as WR16 in Half-PPR, sharing the top of my third tier with other predicted breakouts (Elijah and D.J. Moore).

A.J. Green figures into my rankings as a temporary contributor who will suffer from the return of Hopkins. Although it is very likely he can be a WR3 over the first six weeks, I have him ranked as WR57 overall. This is miles higher than the ADP on FantasyPros, where Green is inexplicably being drafted as WR106. He is going behind the likes of Josh Gordon, Jaelon Darden, N’Keal Harry, and Jody Fortson. That, my friends, is a free square in the late rounds of your draft.

The issue with Rondale Moore is the distrust many fantasy managers have with Kliff Kingsbury. His ADP is WR60, and I have him similarly ranked as WR62. I see Moore as more of a best ball type of pick, where you can cash in on his random peak production weeks and not lament him being cemented to the bottom of your bench every week.

Wesley is another receiver who can be had on waivers after the draft culminates, especially if you have made a selection that will likely be IR-eligible to start the season (think Michael Gallup or Jameson Williams). Scoop up Wesley once you free up that roster spot and plug him in as a second or third flex until Hopkins returns.

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