Fantasy Football – Early 2022 Bounce-Back Candidates

Each season fantasy football managers have players that make them want to quit fantasy. One of your early draft picks gets injured. Or maybe they hurt your team more than they help it. Whatever the reason is, fantasy managers often have trouble putting the past behind them when making roster decisions. These underperformers often turn into roster cloggers at some point during the season. 

Every year there are players that bounce back from the previous season’s poor performances. This article will highlight one player at each position that I think could be in line for a bounce back season.

Jameis Winston, QB, New Orleans Saints

In 2021, Jameis Winston was the 22nd QB drafted according to Fantasy Pros ADP. But in Week 8, Winston suffered a season ending ACL tear. At this point in the preseason he still has a visible limp. But he is just over 7 months out from the injury with a couple of months to recover.

The Saints did bring in Andy Dalton in free agency. I think this is more of an insurance policy in case Winston is not ready for the start of the season. As Winston recovers from the injury he appears to be gaining even more respect from his teammates and is part of the reason people want to play in New Orleans.

In addition to Dalton, the Saints made some additions to the passing game that will help Winston once he is ready. The Saints invested a lot to get Chris Olave in the draft. Investing so much in one of the top pass-catchers in the draft can only be a good thing for Jameis. The Saints also added Jarvis Landry through free agency. Landry has been playing well in camp so far. With time to recover and additional weapons on the offense Jameis should be in a good spot to bounce back from his injury.

Miles Sanders, RB, Philadelphia Eagles

Sanders has been plagued by injuries since being drafted by the Eagles in 2019. Injuries have caused him to miss at least five games in each of the last two seasons. Even with that, Sanders has been able to rush for at least 750 yards in each season. In addition, Sanders has never had less than 150 receiving yards in a year.

In 2021, with over 900 total scrimmage yards Sanders still finished as the RB45 in Half-PPR fantasy football leagues. This was a huge disappointment for fantasy managers who drafted him as the 19th RB off the board at the end of the third round. 

The biggest problem for Sanders was the lack of touchdowns. For the first time in his career Sanders did not score a single touchdown. Sanders had scored 6 touchdowns in each of his first two seasons for the Eagles. If Sanders had scored just 3 touchdowns in the 2021 season (half of his yearly average) he would have moved up to RB34. If he had scored 6 touchdowns he would have jumped up to RB29 on the season. 

Jalen Hurts is still going to be a problem for Sanders total usage. But in general, Sanders was pretty efficient with his touches last season. According to Player Profiler Sanders ranked third in True Yards Per Carry with 5.2 yards per carry. This stat discounts his carries of greater than 10 yards, putting more emphasis on consistency. If he can maintain this level of efficiency but find the endzone then he should easily outproduce his current ADP of RB28 in 0.5PPR leagues.

Courtland Sutton, WR, Denver Broncos

One of the biggest draft day disappointments in 2021 was Courtland Sutton. After investing a 7th round pick on the 32nd WR drafted, you got the 47th best WR on the year. When players have this big of a drop it typically is because an injury caused them to miss part of the season. Not this time. Sutton was on the field for at least 75% of the offensive snaps in all but one game.

Sutton did have a couple good games for fantasy football. Unfortunately they were primarily when Jerry Jeudy was not on the field. In Weeks 2-7, when Jeudy was not on the field, Sutton had three games with double digit targets. Unfortunately, once Jeudy returned Sutton did not reach that mark again.

With Drew Lock at QB for the Broncos we should not have been expecting two fantasy relevant WRs. According to Player Profiler, Sutton ranked fifth in the league with nearly 900 unrealized air yards. With so many unrealized air yards it should not be a surprise that Sutton finished near the top of the league in average depth of target. 

Now, the Broncos have Russell Wilson at quarterback. Last season nearly 20% of Wilson’s pass attempts were considered deep ball attempts; and he completed 36.4% of those attempts. Pairing that success with Sutton’s usage in the deep range we should expect a much better year out of Sutton than 2021.I anticipate Sutton to easily outperform his current fantasy football ADP (WR26) if him and Wilson can build chemistry this offseason. 

Robert Tonyan, TE, Green Bay Packers

During the 2020 season Robert Tonyan broke out for an impressive 586 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns. This performance led to him being drafted as the 8th TE and the 86th overall player in 2021 drafts according to Fantasy Pros ADP.

Unfortunately, Tonyan’s touchdown production was a bit unsustainable. Tonyan only scored twice in the first half of the 2021 season and only had 204 receiving yards. To disappoint fantasy managers even more, Tonyan tore his ACL during the Packers Week 8 matchup against the Cardinals. His poor start and injury led to him finishing the season as the 49th TE in Half-PPR fantasy football leagues. 

Based on what is currently being reported it appears that Tonyan is ahead of schedule and could be back early in the season. 

I am not expecting Tonyan to get back to his 2020 numbers. But he is currently being drafted as the 21st TE in the 15th round of fantasy drafts. With the departure of Davante Adams and Marquez Valdes-Scantling there should be a decent amount of targets available to Tonyan. He should be the clear red zone option when he returns. He is the perfect target for managers who like to wait until the last few rounds of their drafts to get their TEs.