Measuring Wide Receiver Consistency: Takeaways & Targets (2022 Fantasy Football)

This third article which focuses on wide receivers (WRs) begins the final stretch of FantasyPros’ four-part Measuring Consistency series. This article series leverages 2021 data to highlight startable players that most impacted fantasy managers. In the first two articles of the series, FantasyPros examined the top 18 quarterbacks (QBs) and 24 running backs (RBs) in fantasy from 2021, looking at their average weekly production and volatility. Hopefully, this series will help fantasy managers draft players that align with their strategies: those who are more risk averse may prefer players that score less on average but are relatively consistent, while others may prefer the high-ceiling-low-floor players.

Through this series, FantasyPros analyzes every startable player’s weekly performances to understand their average production, before clustering and indexing them against their respective positional groups. After reviewing each position group’s top players in a standard 1QB, 2RB, 3WR, 1TE league (i.e., top 18 QBs, top 24 RBs, top 36 WRs and top 18 TEs), certain players stand out as potential targets or ones to avoid in 2022 when incorporating their current average draft positions (ADPs) and pre-draft rankings. Additionally, considering none of these players were particularly awful (after all, they were startable players at their positions), it is beneficial to highlight stellar and middling performances based on each player’s average production and volatility, as measured by their coefficient of variation (CV).

• Measuring Quarterback Consistency: Takeaways & Targets
• Measuring Running Back Consistency: Takeaways & Targets

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Analysis and Recommendations

The wide receiver positional group seemingly gets deeper each year in fantasy football as more NFL teams utilize 11 personnel (i.e., one RB, one TE and three WRs on the field) and adopt pass-heavy strategies. Cooper Kupp was arguably the fantasy football MVP in 2021 after his incredible record-breaking campaign; however, many are preferring young phenom Justin Jefferson as the top WR in 2022. These two WRs are in a league of their own to begin the 2022 fantasy season, but managers should not overlook the likes of Ja’Marr Chase, Stefon Diggs and Davante Adams, as each possesses the ability to finish as the fantasy football WR1 this year. Although Kupp and Jefferson will most likely be selected within the first five picks of each draft, these other WRs can be drafted in the late first or early second while still presenting immense upside.

However, there were some performances in 2021 that many managers would like to forget. Specifically, Amari Cooper and D.J. Moore disappointed many managers who drafted them as WR1s or high WR2s last season. These WRs underwhelmed for many reasons, including considerable volatility and simply low upside performances despite being on a great offense (i.e., in Cooper’s case) or disastrous QB play despite tons of targets (i.e., in Moore’s case).

Stellar Performers:

• Cooper Kupp (top scorer; 21.8 PPG; 0.31 CV)
• Deebo Samuel (second-highest scorer; 18.7 PPG; 0.38 CV)

Middling Performers:

• D.J. Moore (19^th-highest scorer; 11.1 PPG; 0.53 CV)
• Amari Cooper (27^th-highest scorer; 11.2 PPG; 0.73 CV)

Similar to what the RB data visualization showed in the previous article of this series, the below graph suggests that most WRs possess incredible weekly volatility. Using FantasyPros’ consensus WR draft rankings, players to target in 2022 are Mike Evans (currently ranked as the WR8), Keenan Allen (WR11) and Amon-Ra St. Brown (WR31). Although Evans and Allen are highly ranked, they offer incredible stability (season-long, at least) with immense upside for your team. Similarly, St. Brown’s high usage rate should return great value for managers that can draft him around his current ranking. Alternatively, players to avoid include Deebo Samuel (WR7), Jaylen Waddle (WR16) and Courtland Sutton (WR18) since they are relatively highly-ranked players that possess significant hindrances to meet their current pre-draft rankings (i.e., Samuel requiring potentially outlying high efficiency to repeat last year’s performance, Waddle’s low efficiency especially with the Dolphins trading for Tyreek Hill to be their alpha WR and Sutton’s underwhelming performance in 2021).

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Jared Lese is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Jared, check out his archive and follow him @JaredL_FF.