As the offseason continues to take shape in the NFL, some players relevant to fantasy football have yet to find a home. One of those players is Will Fuller. After playing his final season with the Houston Texans in 2020, a season in which he only played 11 games before being suspended by the league for violating its performance-enhancing drug policy, Fuller joined the Miami Dolphins as an agent. free. In Miami, Fuller would play just two games before missing the rest of the season with a broken finger.
The #Dolphins placed WR Will Fuller on injured reserve.
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) October 6, 2021
There’s an understandable reason why the 27-year old is still in the free agency bin. If you haven’t guessed the reason by now, I’ll help you out. The guy just can’t stay healthy. But that doesn’t mean he can’t offer upside to a team that could use the kind of speed he brings to an offense. A proper landing spot would also benefit his underwhelming fantasy football value, too. Currently, Fuller is going extremely late in fantasy drafts. According to Underdog’s ADP, he is going off draft boards as the WR80.
If you’re drafting early, you may be making a late-round dart throw to get Fuller on your fantasy football team. Despite his current depressing fantasy value, I believe Fuller still has much to offer – if he can stay on the field.
During the 2020 season, Fuller averaged 15.4 fantasy points per game in PPR formats. He had 708 receiving yards and six touchdowns before being suspended. Fuller still touts incredible speed that can take the top off of opposing defenses as one of the better deep threats in the league. In that same season, Fuller also finished 13th in air yards per game (89.09) and 18.4 AY/R.
Fuller was 5th in yards per reception at 16.58, and even managed to finish first in yards per target with 11.72. As previously stated, it’s not so much whether Will Fuller can produce or not. It’s whether he can remain on the field, and for how long.
While NFL teams may think that they have a handle on their rosters right now, adding a bonafide deep threat like Will Fuller would still be a boost for their respective teams. Here are a few teams I believe if signed, would be beneficial for both the team and the fantasy football manager willing to take the shot on Will Fuller in 2022.
Green Bay Packers
I know some will think that this is a bit on the nose and I can’t really blame you. The Packers have Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb on the roster. They also have a rookie wide receiver; the second-round draft pick from the 2022 NFL Draft Christian Watson (one of my favorite rookie wideouts!).
The team also went out and signed former Ravens wide receiver Sammy Watkins to a one-year deal. Why they did that, I’m not entirely sure. And they still have now second-year wide receiver Amari Rodgers. While adding Fuller to the team may hurt Watson’s development, giving Aaron Rodgers a veteran presence that can actually perform is a leg up in this wide receiver group. It also would provide instant fantasy football value.
Why are Julio Jones and Will Fuller not Green Bay Packers yet?
— David Zäch (@DavidZach16) June 7, 2022
Gone are Packers WRs Davante Adams and Marquez Valdez-Scantling. Both opted to move on from Green Bay during this offseason. With both gone, they leave behind a substantial vacancy in targets. In 2021, both Adams and Valdez-Scantling combined for 224 targets for the Packers. That’s a combined 39.4% target share that’s now available to the remaining Packers wide receivers.
While Allen Lazard has now been labeled as the new WR1 for the Packers, his past work, even as the WR2(ish), has been rather circumstantial at best. Lazard finished with eight touchdowns last season, but he only saw 60 targets totaling 513 yards on 40 receptions.
Sammy Watkins hasn’t been relevant since his season with the Los Angeles Rams where he posted 593 yards and eight touchdowns. Watkins’s numbers have been steadily on the decline over the last few years and he’s had issues staying on the field himself. Amari Rodgers couldn’t even get in the game last season, getting just eight targets in 2021.
Fuller could come into the Packers’ wide receiver room and instantly push for the WR2 spot. He’d be a more consistent option for Aaron Rodgers than most of the people currently rostered outside of Lazard having the inside track.
Dallas Cowboys
I’ve been pounding the table for the Joneses to get off their butts and make a move all offseason. They haven’t moved an inch.
That being said, adding Will Fuller would be a positive move for the Dallas Cowboys. Especially after they cowardly moved on from Amari Cooper this offseason.
I can’t be completely sore that the ‘Boys haven’t done more. They have made some strides (and I use some rather loosely here) to improve the wide receiver corp after sending Amari Cooper to the Cleveland Browns for a corner store hoagie and a bag of sour cream and onion chips.
They added former Pittsburgh Steeler James Washington and drafted rookie wide receiver Jalen Tolbert, who has been turning some heads during the offseason program. The issue comes in at the rest of the depth behind the new WR1 CeeDee Lamb.
Michael Gallup, who signed a brand new contract extension in the neighborhood of $27 million guaranteed (5 yr/$62.5 million), may not be available for the start of the season after going down with a torn ACL late last year.
Adding Will Fuller to the mix would not only give you a solid veteran presence behind Lamb, but would also add depth to the team. You wouldn’t have to force Jalen Tolbert into the mix if he’s not ready just yet. But if you did want to add Tolbert, you would give opposing defenses another legit weapon to be concerned about opposite CeeDee Lamb. With the kind of speed Fuller possesses, defenses would think twice about trying to double Lamb all game.
This should be a move that the front office should be in on. It is in Stephen Jones’s wheelhouse, right? He’s the bargain-hunting king when it comes to signing cheap, one-year options in free agency. With Fuller coming off of a season where he played just two games, he shouldn’t command a whole lot at this point as we inch closer and closer to training camp.
Stephen Jones said back in April the Cowboys would be spending cash the rest of free agency … they haven’t signed anyone since his comments from April.
Why? We discussed that on @SportsRush1440 and the depth of WR. #NFL #NFLTwitter #DallasCowboys
— Sunday Sports Rush (@SportsRush1440) June 22, 2022
Baltimore Ravens
The Baltimore Ravens are another team that’s a bit short in the wide receiver department. The Ravens could use a secondary option in Will Fuller to help the passing attack take the next step. The stigma surrounding Lamar Jackson is that he isn’t an accurate quarterback. But the thing is, he really was taking the next step during the 2021 season.
Will Fuller would make an interesting Hollywood Brown replacement for the Ravens.
For 3 games.
Devin Duvernay may be the name to watch here though.
— Jeff Bell (@4WhomJBellTolls) April 29, 2022
Last season before getting injured against the Cleveland Browns, Lamar Jackson was averaging 34 pass attempts per game. That’s a significant increase from the 25 pass attempts per game in 2020. Jackson was on pace to crack 580 attempts on the season, a career-high that would have put him inside the top-10 in that category. He was also on pace to throw for over 4,000 yards as well. If his passing totals are even similar to that this year, it would allow a secondary option like Will Fuller to step in and soak up additional targets; as well as provide another deep threat option in the Ravens’ offense.
Marquise Brown is gone, traded to the Arizona Cardinals during the 2022 NFL Draft. With that, it frees up 145 targets that he saw during the 2021 season. Sammy Watkins is also gone, freeing up another 49 targets. Rashod Bateman will slide in as the new WR1 for the Ravens this season and could tap into that 24.7% target share that Marquise Brown saw last year.
Despite that, if you combine the target share of what Bateman and Watkins saw during the 2021 season, that’s a 19.8% potential target share for the WR2. Enter Will Fuller.
Fuller could step in and soak up the remaining share if the Ravens decide to make that addition. There’s still time as the offseason rolls on as teams prepare to get ready for training camp.
Conclusion
Whatever the case may be with Will Fuller, he can still provide enough for teams that need wide receivers. He is still productive when he’s on the field. His “Achilles heel” always seems to be how long he’ll be available.
Fuller may still get picked up by a team heading into training camp. His landing spot will dictate what his fantasy football value will be for managers as we get closer to draft season. We just have to wait and see if and when a team decides to pull the trigger, and who it will be.
