RADIO
While touchdowns are the most coveted play outcome for wide receivers in fantasy football, total receiving yards must be taken into serious consideration when deciding who to draft for the position. It is true that receivers have to work harder to rack up yards, and that they don't have an overly great value at only one point per 10 receiving yards, but the volume of yards per game WRs gain is much higher than the number of touchdowns they score and much more reliable.
That's why we're always on the look for highly-targeted receivers awarded the most possible chances to catch passes and put up as many yards as possible.
Here, I'm taking a look at some of the best wide receivers from the 2021 season due to regress in 2022 in terms of their receiving yards. Don't be fooled by the high numbers they put up last year because a few slumps could be coming!
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Wide Receivers To Accumulate Less Yardage?
Diontae Johnson, Pittsburgh Steelers
This feels a bit like a party-pooper take, but it's as real as it gets. See, Diontae has been on the Steelers roster for three seasons, has not even played at age 26 yet, and he has not stopped improving since he hit the league as a rookie back in 2019. Johnson has gone from WR39 to WR21 and lastly WR8 last season, which is an extraordinary development curve. Oh, by the way, there is a little thing hitting a wall and/or reaching one's ceiling. And that's where I'm at with Johnson's upside going forward.
Johnson's improvement has as much to do with talent as it has to do with opportunity. He got 680 yards on 92 targets as a rookie, followed that with 923 on 144, and last season he broke the 1,000-yard barrier with 1,161... on 169 (!!!) targets. I'm not saying I would do that thing on that volume, but I'd say 50 other wideouts would do so easily. Chase Claypool should rebound a bit and Pittsburgh also brought Miles Boykin and rookie George Pickens to Pitt, not to mention there will be a new quarterback (whether that is Mitchell Trubisky or Kenny Pickett doesn't really matter) throwing the rock and picking his preferred targets next season. Not liking this outlook.
Jakobi Meyers, New England Patriots
Meyers was entering his third season as a pro last summer without having scored a single touchdown for the Patriots, not having more than 81 targets and 59 receptions ever before, and not even reaching 730 receiving yards on. Of course, things had to go right once for all this past season for Jakobi. Meyers played to Mac Jones' strengths and posted career highs all across the board. He got 126 targets (55% increase compared to his prior best), 83 receptions (40% increase), and 866 yards (19% increase) while scoring his first two career touchdowns. Not bad, all things considered.
For better or worse, the Patriots' offense is pretty much loaded with more than a few options available for Mac Jones to target. The higher the target share, the fewer the opportunities for each member of the receiving corps, and the fewer the opportunities the fewer the counting statistics up for grabs. There is a very real chance Meyers losses targets – and thus, yardage – to the likes of TEs Jonnu Smith/Hunter Henry and the recently-acquired WR DeVante Parker. And it's not that Meyers' 2021 campaign showed a lot of promise for him going forward: he went from a 72.8 Catch% in 2020 to a measly 65.9% last season and Meyers' 10.4 YPR was the fourth-lowest mark among WRs with 83+ receptions in 2021... Maybe Meyers, you know, just doesn't have it and even last year's breakout was an outlier for him.
Deebo Samuel, San Francisco 49ers
There is a very simple case to make against Deebo Samuel having another 2021-like season next year, and even Samuel just accepts that'd be the case. To wit: Samuel without rushing stats scored 253 PPR points, and Samuel with rushing stats scored 339 PPR points. I mean, that's all you need to know about the regression that is coming. Why? Well, as reported by Tom Pelissero of NFL Media, "Samuel's preference is to dump his running back role so he can focus on just being a receiver." Uh, oh, bring in the bump down!
Samuel was a constant threat with the 49ers last season mostly because of his do-it-all role. He even inspired the talk about this new trend/position/whatever in American football named "rushing receiver" or "wide back" or something. The truth is that removing his 8 rushing TDs from his statline along with his 365 rushing yards leaves you with a good-not-great receiver that would have ranked WR12 instead of WR3. That's the massive regression Deebo is facing, and that's assuming he stays in his current team and role with the Niners as opposed to chasing a seemingly inevitable trade out of San Fran before filling his bag elsewhere.
Christian Kirk, Jacksonville Jaguars
Salute Chris K! Kirk just flipped the wide receiver market over its freaking head this past offseason signing a ridiculous deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jags handed Kirk a $72-million, four-year deal with more than half of that money guaranteed upon signing. That's absolutely bonkers, and that's probably one of the reasons the likes of A.J. Brown, D.K. Metcalf and Deebo Samuel were already moved or are seeking trades. And that is also because Kirk is a middling, mediocre, average WR at best: never has he finished a season as a low-end WR2 ranking no better than WR26 in his four-year career.
Kirk had a relatively good season in 2021, but even then he was kind of meh and odds are he regresses going forward. Seriously. Kirk had a 2019 campaign in which he got 108 targets for 68 receptions and 709 yards. Last season, Kirk finished with 103 targets for 77 receptions and 982 yards. If you ask me, there is a possibility Kirk gets some 115 targets in 2022 of which he catches 85 and gets around 850 yards. That's already 130 yards down from his 2021 mark, and that's also what I call being optimistic. Kirk might have filled his bag, yes, but he's showed us nothing to prove he was worth that massive contract.
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