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Let's be real- if you want to win in fantasy football, it's going to take more than preseason preparation, smart drafting, and constant in-season management. It's going to take some luck.
You want to take calculated risks with late-round fliers but also need to stray from the herd in order to avoid falling into the traps laid out by ADP consensus and herd mentality.
Below are some takes that aren't popular among best-ball drafters at the moment but I'm planting my flag on them here and now. Here are bold predictions for 2022 fantasy football best-ball leagues.
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Both Rashaad Penny and Kenneth Walker III Return Positive EV
Rather than delving into how to calculate expected values and pretending to be a statistician, I'll qualify this prediction by simply saying that both RBs can produce a win rate above average in best ball and they aren't mutually exclusive.
Many look at Seattle's backfield as an either/or proposition. Either Penny retains the starting job, does what he did the last few weeks of 2021, and actually stays healthy for most of the season OR he gets hurt and Walker takes over as the bell cow. So essentially you have to get lucky by picking the right one. But who is it? Do we monitor training camp usage? Flip a coin? Which Seattle running back should you draft?
That's not a popular sentiment. Many fantasy drafters are avoiding this backfield altogether, citing various concerns.
Seattle’s offense in 2022 will feature:
• bad QB play
• bad offensive line
• split backfieldthe answer to the Walker/Penny debate is neither. this is so abundantly clear.
— Trey ? (@TreyonFFB) June 24, 2022
It's possible for two running backs on a mediocre offense to be valuable in best ball, as we saw last year. The Denver Broncos featured unimpressive QB play with Teddy Bridgewater and Drew Lock. Their O-line ranked 19th in PFF's final regular-season rankings, and they had a strict timeshare at RB.
Despite all that, Javonte Williams and Melvin Gordon finished with win rates of 9.9% and 9.6% at ADPs of 55 and 82, respectively. Kenneth Walker III and Rashaad Penny are currently being drafted at 74 and 103, respectively. Williams got a fair amount of hype as the third RB selected in the 2021 NFL Draft. Walker was the second RB selected in the 2022 draft. Melvin Gordon was 28-years-old last year; Penny is 26 and a former first-round pick.
Unless you believe Seattle's offense will be so absolutely putrid with Drew Lock/Baker Mayfield/Geno Smith at QB that it will sabotage whoever carries the ball, it's clear to see that there is a path for both Penny and Walker to be productive picks in best ball without the need for injuries.
Cole Kmet Is This Year's Dalton Schultz
I've already explained why you should wait on a tight end in order to win a huge competition like the FFPC Best Ball Tournament. In order to find a player at the position that could pay off huge, certain factors are at play similar to what made Dalton Schultz the TE with the fourth-highest win rate and second among the top 6% best-ball rosters in FFPC.
Think about it, why did Schultz suddenly become such an important part of the offense in Dallas? Did he just happen to break out in his fourth NFL season? Did it help that WR3 Michael Gallup and fellow TE Blake Jarwin both missed half the season? (Spoiler: yes)
Tight ends often emerge due to the absence of viable pass-catchers in an offense. Mark Andrews led his team in receiving partly because after Marquise Brown, the next leading receiver was a rookie who missed five games (Rashod Bateman - 46 receptions) followed by a 30-year-old running back (Devonta Freeman - 34 receptions), and a lightly-used deep threat (Devin Duvernay - 33 receptions).
This brings us to Cole Kmet in Chicago. Currently, their top receiver is Darnell Mooney with Byron Pringle projected to start opposite him and Equanimeous St. Brown or Velus Jones next in line. Maybe Dante Pettis or Tajae Sharpe will make the roster. You get the picture - not a ton of great options.
Kmet was solid in his second season, going for 60 catches and 612 catching passes from Justin Fields and Andy Dalton. That's eerily similar to the 63-615 line Schultz put up in 2020. Kmet somehow avoided the end zone all season while Jimmy Graham, Jesper Horsted, and Jesse James combined for six touchdowns in Chicago. Graham is gone and Kmet will likely become the top red-zone target this year. He was actually second on the team in end-zone targets with six but didn't connect with any of them. Touchdown regression in the positive sense is definitely coming as is an uptick in targets. Remember, Matt Nagy is gone!
The #Steelers can’t cover Cole Kmet so the #Bears dial up two End Zone shots for Jim Graham. pic.twitter.com/yBlL4hevwF
— Tom Kessenich (@TomKessenich) November 9, 2021
The only difference here is that Schultz was drafted around pick 199 last year and Kmet is higher at 114 (FFPC). The return on investment might not be quite as high for Kmet as it was for Schultz but he still has league-winning upside in TE-premium formats.
Ja'Marr Chase Is a Bust (in Best Ball)
If you made it this far without chucking tomatoes at your laptop, then bear with me. I'm not saying Chase will bust in real-life or fantasy in general. Best ball is a different beast and there are far more considerations than total fantasy points, such as roster construction, value over expectation, etc.
The only way Chase isn't being drafted at his absolute ceiling is if he finishes as the WR1 overall. It seems possible based on last season because he only has Cooper Kupp to beat out. But if he finishes any lower than second overall at WR, he will be a disappointment.
We all have his Week 17 performance forever burned in our memory but remember that there was a seven-week stretch before the fantasy playoffs where he averaged 3.7 receptions and 40.6 yards. Some fantasy managers went so far as to trade him away before his late-season explosion.
In best-ball, you don't need consistency so much as the potential for explosive weeks. We know Chase has that. But we have to entertain the idea that he doesn't explode quite as often or, more likely, experiences touchdown regression.
Running back my annual series on TD expectation and how players performed relative to expectation.
Here's a quick preview
Players with the most TDs over expectation in 2021
QB: Joe Burrow (+13)
RB: Austin Ekeler (+8)
WR: Ja'Marr Chase (+7)
TE: Hunter Henry (+3)— TJ Hernandez (@TJHernandez) June 22, 2022
The Burrow-Chase connection was a thing of beauty, especially if you rostered either one. There is no denying the talent of each player and we've already seen the upside. But what if, bear with me here, he finishes outside the top-five wide receivers? That would make him a bust relative to the draft slot.
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