Fantasy Football Team Previews: Bills and Jets
The Bills are a well-oiled machine while the Jets are one of the biggest unknowns ahead of the 2022 season.
With fantasy football draft season right around the corner, we are previewing every team and fantasy-relevant player. The players are broken up into three categories: love, hate, and lukewarm. Today’s teams: New York Jets and Buffalo Bills.
Here’s who we’ve previewed so far:
Average draft position (ADP) is evolving daily. The ADP listed for each player is as of the day of publication for each newsletter. All ADP is courtesy of FantasyPros.
Note: All win total lines are courtesy of FanDuel.
Buffalo Bills, O/U 11.5 wins
Key returners
Josh Allen, ADP 22 (QB1)
Stefon Diggs, ADP 12 (WR5)
Devin Singletary, ADP 74 (RB29)
Dawson Knox, ADP 91 (TE9)
Gabriel Davis, ADP 77 (WR30)
Zack Moss, ADP 342 (RB95)
Additions
James Cook, ADP 110 (RB42)
Jamison Crowder, ADP 208 (WR71)
Duke Johnson, ADP 323 (RB89)
Khalil Shakir, N/A
Departures
Cole Beasley
Emmanuel Sanders
Matt Breida
Love
Josh Allen is one of the three best quarterbacks in the NFL. He also runs the ball a lot and can pile up rushing touchdowns, making him a home run for fantasy football. He’s the first guy to be the overall QB1 in back-to-back seasons since Daunte Culpepper did it in 2003-04, per Pro Football Focus.
The scary thing is Allen can still get better by being more consistent. He had two duds against the Jaguars and Falcons of all teams last season.
With that said, I don’t like taking Allen (or any quarterback) in the first two rounds.
For as much as I love Allen, I love his top weapon, Stefon Diggs, even more. Diggs had a “down” season last year and was the WR7 on the season. As long as he’s healthy, that feels pretty close to his floor in this offense, while his ceiling remains WR1. He came close in 2020 as the WR3 while leading the league in receptions and receiving yards.
Diggs is the best route runner in the sport and as safe as it gets for fantasy. The explosion games weren’t there as often in 2021 as 2020, but Diggs failed to reach 50 yards just three times and racked up seven or more receptions eight times last season.
Dawson Knox proved he could be a full-time player in 2022. Although he cooled off down the stretch, he still finished last season as the TE7. Nine touchdowns on 49 receptions probably isn’t sustainable, but that’s also not an impossible thing to repeat in this offense.
I’m betting on an uptick in volume for the fourth-year pro. People are quick to hand Gabriel Davis almost all the vacated targets in this offense. And while he will get his fair share, Diggs may see even more targets and Knox should be in line for more work.
Lukewarm
Let’s just get this out of the way. I would be shocked if Gabriel Davis’ ADP stays at WR30 by draft time. And if it does, he will officially be the most hyped and talked about WR30 I can ever remember.
I do wonder what his ADP would be if he wasn’t playing against Daniel Sorenson and Mike Hughes in the playoffs last season. I think Davis is a good player, but I also think there are more talented players going behind him in drafts.
But none of those guys (except JuJu Smith-Schuster) are playing in an offense as high-powered as this one.
There is still a lot of unknown with Davis. He’s never received 65 targets in a season and has never had more than five receptions in a regular season game. But this is also a guy who put up 200 yards in a playoff game, just turned 23 and scored 18 touchdowns on just over 120 targets in two regular seasons.
Davis has one of the widest variances of any player this year. Perhaps he’s a touchdown machine, and being elevated to a starter in two-receiver sets will mean high volume AND a lot of touchdowns. That’s a recipe for a top 15 type of season.
He could also struggle and not be thought of much differently than Jamison Crowder when managers are making lineup decisions in November.
The fact that both Crowder and Isaiah McKenzie are on this team is surely hurting both of their stocks. I prefer Crowder if I have to pick one of the two. If he were to win the slot receiver role (as opposed to a split), he could be a massive value in drafts.
I’m fascinated to see how the Bills use James Cook. From their pursuit of J.D. McKissic and ultimate drafting of Cook, it’s clear they wanted to add a pass-catching back to their already prolific offense. Cook will earn some carries in this backfield and his explosion in the passing game adds a new dimension to this offense.
Devin Singletary quietly had his best season as a pro last year, setting career highs in rushing yards (870), receptions (40) and total touchdowns (8). The problem is there’s no reason to believe he’ll do any better this season. His career-best season was good for an RB24 finish, which was largely possible because Singletary was one of only three guys ranked RB20-RB40 to play in 16 games in the first 17 weeks.
Singletary is capable of some spike weeks, but the Bills have also shown a propensity to completely abandon the run in certain games. He profiles as a between-the-20s rusher who won’t be the lead pass catcher out of the backfield and maybe not even the rushing touchdown leader on his team. It's fine value and Singletary will be a useful fantasy asset. He’s just not an upside play.
Hate
None. Grab a piece of this offense at cost if you can.
New York Jets, O/U 5.5 wins
Key returners
Elijah Moore, ADP 81 (WR33)
Corey Davis, ADP 199 (WR68)
Michael Carter, ADP 97 (RB37)
Zach Wilson, ADP 184 (QB25)
Additions
Breece Hall, ADP 47 (RB22)
C.J. Uzomah, ADP 264 (TE30)
Garrett Wilson, ADP 122 (WR50)
Departures
Ryan Griffin
Jamison Crowder
Love
After the season this team had last year and bringing in a pair of talented rookies that take volume away from a pair of young players who actually found success in 2021, it’s pretty difficult to love anybody in this offense. The Jets may be one of the biggest unknowns heading into the 2022 season. And thus, no love.
Lukewarm
It may seem odd to start with Zach Wilson because he’s probably the fifth or sixth-ranked player on this team in terms of fantasy value. But the value of every skill position player hinges on whether Wilson can go from one of the worst quarterbacks I’ve ever seen play in the NFL as a rookie to somewhere around average in his second season.
There’s no reason consider drafting Wilson, but monitor his development as it relates to his skill weapons and MAYBE as a streamer at some point during the season. Wilson, who was outplayed by Mike White and Joe Flacco in 2021, was under consistent pressure all season. An improved offensive line would certainly help, but he also had the worst passer rating when he wasn’t pressured. He has the tools and can make plays out of the pocket, but Wilson showed no ability to diagnose defenses and make the correct decisions. Improved decision making would go a long way, but I’m skeptical he will even be average this year.
And that makes it incredibly hard to value the rest of the guys, despite how much I like their talent. So I’ll go with the cheapest good player on this offense in Michael Carter as the best value. Carter proved to be a good player last year, and I think his current price is pretty close to his floor. Of course, a lot can change depending on what we hear out of training camp.
But I think Carter is good enough to still earn some carries, and he will likely play a lot of third downs as to not overtax Breece Hall.
There’s little doubt in my mind that Hall has the physical tools to be a three-down running back in the NFL. He’s flashed great breakaway speed and tackle-breaking ability in college.
But I would bet on Carter being involved enough to keep Hall from that sort of upside this year. And if the Jets aren’t very good, negative game script favors Carter if he does earn the third-down duties over Hall. I like Hall fine at this spot, but I’ll get nervous if he starts creeping up draft boards next month.
Elijah Moore makes me nervous because his value is a lot more tied to Wilson. But if you told me Wilson was average, Moore would be in the love category. I love his talent, and he hit his stride after an injury-filled first half of the season. From Week 8 on, Moore’s 17-game pace was 1,300 yards and 14 touchdowns. And yes, that was aided by Wilson missing four of those games. I still think he’s the number one target in this offense, at least for this year.
Even though I think Moore is the favorite to be the top guy in this offense, Garrett Wilson absolutely has the goods to be that guy, too. Wilson is one of the most elusive receivers in his draft class, meaning the Jets should look to scheme the ball to him to take the pressure off Zach Wilson and let Garrett Wilson go find yards.
Garrett Wilson has the raw tools to be a number one receiver someday. He’s amazingly versatile, too. In 2020, he played 73% of the snaps in the slot at Ohio State before playing 83% of his snaps out wide in 2021. This is the kind of late-round shot I like taking.
Hate
I can’t see myself taking the late-round shot on Corey Davis. He produced decent results when healthy last season, but he had good volume while doing so. In the eight full games he played, Davis had seven or more targets six times. His volume will likely decrease, and I think there’s a good chance Garrett Wilson takes the primary outside receiver role in this offense. I don’t have much interest in a low-volume player catching passes from Zach Wilson.