💥 The WR1 Available In The 3rd Round

Got the 12 slot in your draft? Have you tried unplugging and restarting the console?

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by the FFPC :

The Carolina Panthers have officially named Baker Mayfield the starting QB for their Week 1 matchup against the...

Ya, you guessed it: the Browns.

Week 1 is shaping up to a banner week for revenge games:

It's not a huge surprise that Mayfield beat out Sam Darnold, though the team insisted it was an open competition throughout the summer.

Offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo seems impressed with where Baker is at:

Love me some fire in the guts.

Despite all the drama that has plagued Mayfield the past year, it was only two years ago that he led the Browns to a 11-5 season while tossing 26 TDs.

There should be lots of optimism for what Mayfield can bring to this offense, especially with the most talented RB in the league in Christian McCaffrey and an ascendant WR in DJ Moore who has been starved of good QB play his entire career.

I don't think you need to go out of your way to draft Mayfield, but it's time to get excited about this offense, specifically Moore. The fact that he has three consecutive seasons with at least 1,100 receiving yards with these quarterbacks throwing to him is extremely bullish:

Don't be surprised when he finishes the season as a WR1. He is currently available in the mid- to late-third round of drafts.

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🤝 The backfield with two 1As? One of these backs is going in the 2nd round, the other is going in the 7th.

😴 A sleeper RB emerges. The Raiders are releasing Kenyan Drake.

🚨 Trade alert. The Vikings make a QB move with the Raiders.

🥭 He's back. First footage of Tom Brady back at practice (in the creamsicles, no less).

💤 The boring RB who is a value. Also, Matthew's new Peacock set is looking pretty fresh, eh?

🚑 Rookie RBs are banged up. Here's the latest on Isaiah Spiller (ankle) and Kenneth Walker (hernia).

🎮 The Kyler jokes are good. Please never stop.

We’ve been talking about Best Ball all summer long, but as September draws near, we need to get prepped for our season-long drafts. Each day this week, Pete will share some tips and tricks on how to swap out your best ball brain with the season-long mindset.

Because we have the luxury of the waiver wire to clean up our draft mistakes, we can be more aggressive chasing upside in our managed league drafts.

A great example of this is at the QB position. In best ball drafts we’re always drafting at least 2 QBs, and sometimes 3, because we need to build out resiliency for bye weeks, injuries, and dud performances.

But in a typical 10- or 12-team managed league, there are ample opportunities to stream an available QB from the waiver wire who can give you usable production.

Knowing that, we can chase upside with our QB picks. I want to heavily target QBs like Jalen Hurts, Trey Lance, and Justin Fields whose rushing ability gives them a massive ceiling, as opposed to the pocket passers like Kirk Cousins and Derek Carr.

Cousins and Carr could certainly have solid seasons, but it’s unlikely that they have a Top 5 season within their range of outcomes like those rushing QBs do. So be bold and know that if your QB busts, you can easily replace them via waivers without having sacrificed much.

I feel similarly at the TE position. There are only a handful of tight ends who can truly separate at the position (Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews, Kyle Pitts, Darren Waller, and George Kittle) so I like to prioritize them in drafts.

You can make a reasonable case that TE is pretty flat from TE6 (Dalton Schultz range) all the way to TE20 (Tyler Higbee range). If you miss on a TE with elite upside, feel free to wait a long time.

TLDR: the waiver wire is your safety net. Chase upside as much as possible–especially at the onesie positions, QB & TE–knowing if you whiff there will be ample, replacement-level production available on the waiver wire.

JJ Zachariason literally wrote the book on the Late Round QB strategy, and now he shares all of his great fantasy work on LateRound.com, including his terrific Late Round Draft Guide. Today he shares with us his favorite high upside WR in 2022 drafts. Take it away, JJ...

Finding a middle-round league-winning wide receiver isn’t easy. Since 2011, zero Round 7 and Round 9 wideouts have produced 18 or more PPR points per game. There’s been a couple from Round 8, but the odds are still really, really low from that area of the draft.

Your average draft position (ADP) source can change some of this, of course, but the point is, getting a top-5 or -6 receiver from the middle parts of your fantasy draft is tough.

But there are some ways to increase your chances of hitting on someone who far exceeds his draft-day expectation.

In The Late-Round Draft Guide, I dig into a few attributes that middle-round wide receiver breakouts seem to share. You want to have a better chance at finding a seventh-round gem, don’t you?

One of those things is that breakout wide receivers tend to come from what I’ve dubbed ambiguous wide receiver corps.

When looking at 12-team league WRs drafted in Rounds 6 through 9 since 2011, the vast majority who “broke out” – who exceeded average draft position expectation by 3 or more PPR points per game – didn’t have wide receiver teammates who were selected early by ADP.

To put that another way: middle-round WR breakouts usually didn’t have a stud WR on their team.

When a middle-round WR had a WR teammate selected in the first three rounds of fantasy drafts, that middle-round wideout exceeded ADP expectation by three or more points at a 16.7% rate. When the first teammate WR was chosen after Round 3, that rate rose to 27.2%.

We want any edge we can find in fantasy football. Drafting WRs from more ambiguous situations is advantageous.

And while fantasy managers don’t often care about age in redraft leagues, it’s still really important. Most will talk up third-year breakouts for WRs, but third-year middle-round wideouts have broken out at one of the lowest rates of any subset since 2011.

It’s the second-year guys that you want to target.

Since 2011, almost 41% of second-year middle-round WRs have exceeded ADP expectations by 3 or more points. That’s significantly higher than any other relevant group.

When those players were the top WR selected from their NFL team, the hit rate increased even more.

That’s another thing you should look for: team WR1s. And I’m not saying team WR1s based on some depth chart that an intern threw together. I’m saying team WR1s by ADP. Hunter Renfrow, for example, isn’t a team WR1 because Davante Adams, his teammate, gets drafted well before him.

So, with all this being said, who fits the mold of a breakout pretty flawlessly this year?

A few guys, honestly. We’re blessed with a handful of awesome second-year wide receivers who are going in the middle rounds, like Rashod Bateman, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Kadarius Toney.

But the one I’m most interested in is Elijah Moore.

Yes, the situation in New York could be a little dicey. And, yes, the Jets drafted Garrett Wilson this offseason, leading to more competition for Moore.

But the man balled out his rookie season. During his final seven games before getting injured last year, Moore averaged 17.7 PPR points per game. He’s one of just a handful of rookie WRs with a 1.7 yards per route run rate to go along with a 20% target share per game, and the other wide receivers on that list are pretty freaking spectacular.

I’ve got a prospect model that loved Elijah Moore when he entered the league, and I’ve also got a Year 2 Model (very creatively named, I know) that helps project how a player will perform during Year 2 and Year 3 of his NFL career. Moore’s rating in that model sits in the 97th percentile, a mark that only the best of the best have hit historically.

It’s fine to go after any of the other second-year wide receivers this year. Moore just deserves a callout because he may be a special player being pushed down draft boards by a below-average situation.

Drafting safe ain't it. We need to be taking big swings to win our leagues. Today, Jonathan shares two players he thinks are primed for breakouts...

🚀 Kadarius Toney (WR42)

There are few receivers who were more impressive than Kadarius Toney on a per route basis last season. The problem is he wasn’t available to run that many routes. Toney played in just 10 games in 2021, running 196 routes. On those plays he was remarkably efficient:

• 0.27 targets per route run

• 2.14 yards per route run (11th among WRs)

• 6.0 YAC per reception (9th among WRs)

These numbers back up what we saw on film, Kadarius Toney is #goodatfootball. Coming into this season, the priority for Toney is simply staying on the field. While that has had mixed results so far in training camp, I believe the availability discount is baked into his ADP as a player you can get in the 9th round or later in most formats.

With new HC Brian Daboll bringing a refreshing level of competence to the Giants, I expect the offense to be more efficient and feature its best players more consistently. I can’t make any promises about how many games Toney will play this season but I am very confident that when he does play, he will be valuable for fantasy. You should not hesitate to select Toney in drafts because he has the week winning upside that we want from our bench players.

🚀 Trey Lance (QB11)

Trey Lance is one of the most popular 2022 breakout candidates for good reason. He has a high floor thanks to his rushing ability, he plays in an efficient passing scheme, and has elite weapons around him. There are some concerns about the 49ers passing volume but Lance should create enough big plays through the air to offset that.

The thing that I think is being underrated is how the offense will adjust to Lance’s unique abilities. Kyle Shanahan has had a full offseason to adjust his system to emphasize what Lance does well. I expect to see plays and concepts that were never possible with Jimmy Garoppolo, Nick Mullens, or C.J. Beathard under center.

The potential has always been there, but it is finally wheels up on Lance SZN after the team committed to him as the starter this offseason. Some people may get too caught up on his shortcomings as a signal caller but the reality for fantasy is that Lance is a stat compiler who is playing under one of the league’s top offensive minds. He is currently being drafted near his floor at QB11 (per Fantasy Life ADP tool) and he absolutely has overall QB1 upside. Anyone who is out on Lance is likely overthinking it.