QB Zach Wilson
(2021 QB Rank – No.30, 15.0 FPts/G)
2021 No.2 overall draft pick Zach Wilson had a rough start to
his NFL career, leading the Jets to the fifth-lowest total points
scored and just four wins while personally reaching 250 passing
yards just twice all season. In fact, Wilson failed to reach even
200 yards through the air in over 50 percent of his games. Certainly,
the team came in with low expectations, but it’s hard to
make the case that Wilson showed us much to be excited about regarding
this franchise. Worse yet, despite a lack of yardage through the
air and only throwing nine touchdowns, Wilson also threw 11 interceptions.
Needless to say, Wilson was the worst of both worlds: no real
high ceiling games and some truly horrendous floor games.
While his 11 interceptions were not a good number, a true red
flag for Wilson is that he was actually lucky to only have thrown
that many. There were countless other times when Wilson threw
the ball into coverage and the defender just failed to come up
with the ball.
The Jets did add a veteran tight end in C.J. Uzomah and wide
receiver Garrett Wilson in the first round of the NFL Draft, while
only losing Jamison Crowder in free agency. Overall, this is probably
a weapon upgrade for Wilson at least in the long run, but it’s
still a group of relatively unproven players with a quarterback
that looked downright awful at times as a rookie.
Wilson did show off some decent mobility late in the season,
but he’s unlikely to contribute a ton of fantasy points
in that category. His four rushing touchdowns were a number that
helped boost him up a bit in the overall fantasy rankings, although
he didn’t show any breakaway speed or particularly impressive
elusiveness as a runner.
This all sounds very negative, but if you’re looking for
some positivity it probably comes in the form of relative job
security. With only Joe Flacco on the roster and no real prospect
of being a playoff contender in 2022, it’s hard to believe
that the Jets will move on from Wilson even if he has another
terrible season. Wilson should remain the starter for the Jets
at least through 2022 as long as he remains healthy. Unfortunately
for fantasy managers, the upside just isn’t here and he
really shouldn’t be owned in anything other than deep leagues
where you’re starting more than one quarterback per week.
The top player in most rookie fantasy drafts, running back Breece
Hall is probably the only player in this Jets offense who we should
have any real excitement about going into the 2022 season. Hall
was a mega-producer during his three years at Iowa State, accumulating
nearly 4,000 rushing yards and scoring 56 total touchdowns before
declaring early for the draft. Hall will have to compete with
Michael Carter who was not particularly special in his rookie
season of 2021, but does have a leg up in terms of experience
and he’s still young in his own right.
What’s likely to happen in 2022 is that Hall and Carter
begin the season by splitting the backfield in a relatively equal
timeshare. In an offense that’s not expected to be very
good, that type of situation can lead to some real frustration
for fantasy managers. If you’re drafting Hall, understand
that you might not get what you’re hoping for him until
at least a few weeks into the season, if not something like halfway
through the year. We’ve seen this type of situation play
out so many times in recent years, even with players like Derrick
Henry, Nick Chubb and Jonathan Taylor who are among the best pure
runners in the league. Most NFL coaching staffs just do not allow
their rookie backs to see a full workload right out of the gate
and it often times leads to those players not reaching their full
season potential as rookies.
If you do end up drafting Hall, you’re going to want to
stay the course with him. He’s a player you do not want
to trade given the upside that he does have if he does end up
becoming the team’s bell cow back. You can’t panic
if he starts off slow. If you don’t land him in the draft,
however, you’ll want to pay close attention to his usage
patterns throughout the season. If you start to see his snap counts
going up while he hasn’t yet broken out in fantasy points,
that’s the time when you want to strike with a trade on
your unsuspecting and frustrated leaguemate.
The Jets offense isn’t one that we should be expecting
an elite fantasy running back to come out of this season, although
all that it takes is the trust of the coaching staff for a stud
talent like Hall to start delivering weekly RB2 fantasy numbers
with some RB1 weeks mixed in when he gets into the end zone.
Dynasty managers who roster Michael Carter were dealt a devastating
blow this offseason when the Jets drafted Breece Hall with the
36th pick in the NFL Draft. The team’s decision to draft
Hall is, unfortunately, a strong indication that they don’t
see Carter being their long-term solution at running back. There
have been times in the past, such as Seattle’s backfield
of Rashaad Penny and Chris Carson, where we’ve seen teams
invest early round picks in running backs only to have a player
already on the roster hold them off for years, but those situations
are few and far between. Typically, when a team drafts a running
back with a premium pick, that back is eventually going to be
given every opportunity to show his worth.
For Carter, preseason usage is going to tell us a ton about how
the team currently views him. If he’s on the field for the
majority of the first team reps with Zach Wilson at QB, then fantasy
managers can feel confident that he’ll at least start the
season in a timeshare with Hall, or potentially even as the team’s
top back. In that scenario, Carter could have some early season
value and wise managers could reap those benefits before trading
him away to some naive manager who doesn’t see the writing
on the wall. While offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur hasn’t
really been a coach who’s given any one back a true “workhorse”
role in the past, it’s also worth considering that he’s
never really been tied to a back who has the physical tools and
upside of Breece Hall. There’s a reasonable chance that
Carter is phased out of the offense or becomes just a complementary
back by the midway point during the season and there’s almost
no chance that he develops into a truly valuable fantasy piece
without an injury to Hall in conjunction with a general improvement
in his own performance.
Carter’s price isn’t significant as he’s being
selected in the double-digit rounds of most drafts and he’s
really a player who fantasy managers should be drafting if he
looks like he’ll be the top back in the offense to start
the season. Even then, though, you should be looking to offload
him early in the year before you’re left holding the bag.
Rookie wide receiver Elijah Moore was dropped into a terrible
situation in 2021 as he joined a bad Jets team with a new coaching
staff and a seemingly in-over-his-head quarterback behind center.
As should be expected, Moore started the season off slow, catching
just nine passes through his first five professional games. From
that point on, however, Moore really showed the type of explosive
playmaking ability that should have fantasy managers intrigued
heading into 2022.
Moore went on to catch 34 passes for 453 yards and five touchdowns
over his final six games before he suffered an unfortunate quad
injury that would end his rookie season. We certainly can’t
take that six-game sample size and simply extrapolate it out,
but a would-be 900-yard, nearly double-digit-touchdown season
has fantasy managers excited about the second-year receiver heading
into their drafts.
Moore is currently being selected around the likes of DeVonta
Smith, Hunter Renfrow and Amon-Ra St. Brown who are all also relatively
young players who significantly outperformed Moore in the 2021
season. Like Moore, they all also saw their teams add at least
one significant wide receiver to their roster, whether it was
through the draft or free agency. The difference between Moore
and these players, however, is that Moore provides explosive upside
that the others have not yet shown throughout their careers. Certainly,
the other players could be argued as more reliable and less risky,
but if any of them is going to break into the top 10 of fantasy
receivers here in 2022, the chances are pretty strong that it’d
be Moore.
After multiple horrible seasons in Tennessee, Corey Davis finally
broke out with the Titans, catching 984 yards and five touchdowns
in an injury-shortened season. This performance came at the right
time for Davis who then signed a three-year, $37.5 million contract
with the Jets that contained huge guarantees. He then proceeded
to step on the field for his new team and look a lot more like
the Corey Davis of old than the one we saw in 2020. Davis played
in just nine games, but caught just 34 passes for 492 yards and
four touchdowns in his first season for New York.
At 27 years old, Davis is just now approaching his physical prime,
but he’s still only produced one season with over 900 yards
and he’s never exceeded five receiving touchdowns. Now competing
with 2021 second round draft pick Elijah Moore and 2022 top-10
pick Garrett Wilson for targets, things are not looking particularly
great for Davis’ prospects of ever reaching that elusive
1,000-yard mark. Without an increase in targets, which he’s
unlikely to see as the offense continues to add more talent, Davis
will likely spend most of this upcoming season floating around
the bottom of fantasy rosters and on the waiver wire, waiting
to be picked up as a bye week replacement for managers in need.
He’s the kind of player who can produce some decent fantasy
games from time to time, but he’ll also drop total duds
on a fairly regular basis and that makes him very difficult to
start in traditional leagues.
The Jets invested heavily in revamping their offensive weaponry
in 2021 when they brought in Corey Davis and then drafted Elijah
Moore with an early second-round pick, but they weren’t
done yet. This offseason saw New York use a top-10 pick on Ohio
State wide receiver Garrett Wilson who went for over 1,000 yards
and 12 touchdowns as a junior for the Buckeyes before declaring
for the Draft.
Wilson brings an interesting skill set that should allow him
to get on the field right away. Unlike most collegiate receivers,
Wilson was moved all around the field, spending time both outside
and in the slot throughout his three years in one of college football’s
most productive offenses. His versatility is certainly one of
his strongest assets and the NFL is trending toward prioritizing
those types of wide receivers. Wilson is a big play threat with
strong hands and while he lacks top-level route running, he has
the ability to turn short passes into big gains which is exactly
what the Jets offense needs given Zach Wilson’s questionable
accuracy.
He’s more of a dynasty asset than someone who fantasy owners
should be excited about for 2022, but an injury to Moore or Davis
- both of whom missed significant time in 2021 - could mean every
down work for Wilson, which would certainly boost his fantasy
value. This isn’t expected to be a high-volume passing attack,
though, so don’t invest a top-100 pick on him in seasonal
leagues.
Longtime Bengals tight end C.J. Uzomah had the most productive
season of his career in 2021 when he connected with Joe Burrow
for 49 receptions, 493 yards and five scores, all of which were
career highs. The Bengals opted to not re-sign Uzomah, however,
and the tight end now finds himself in New York with the Jets,
helping to bring some veteran experience to an otherwise extremely
young and inexperienced group of offensive playmakers.
Uzomah was not the only tight end that the Jets brought in, however,
as they also signed former Vikings tight end Tyler Conklin to
a deal. Conklin signed a three-year, $20.25 million contract with
$10 million guaranteed, which is a little less than what Uzomah
got at three years, $24 million with $15 million in guarantees.
This discrepancy isn’t significant in the grand scheme of
things so we shouldn’t be completely certain that Uzomah
is going to be the top tight end on the roster, but teams typically
give us some pretty good insights into their thinking when they
make financial decisions like these.
Realistically, this is probably going to be a committee approach
at the tight end position which isn’t going to give us much
fantasy value. Sure, Uzomah might see more targets this year,
but what’s that going to give us? 40 catches? This is a
situation to avoid in a bad offense with better, younger pass
catching weapons out wide.
