It’s fantasy football draft season and as everyone knows: August research leads to December championships and eternal fantasy glory.
We’ve already covered some of the top questions from the DO NOT DRAFT list to the late-round sleepers who will help you win a title, but there’s still plenty of topics to cover before you start compiling your roster.
Who better to get advice from than The Fantasy Footballers podcast crew. Mackenzie Salmon from Sports Seriously connected with Mike, Jason and Andy to get their answers on the buzziest fantasy questions heading into 2022.
Note: The transcript has been edited for clarity
How should the Top 3 picks shake out?
Andy: It’s really all three running backs and I got an idea these guys might disagree, but I think it’s Jonathan Taylor, Christian McCaffrey, and then I’m gonna lock in Derrick Henry. I think Derek Henry is that player that people are worried about. He was on fire last year, had the foot injury, but I think it’s looking like the odds of that re-injury is down in the 5% range and I’ll take a 95% chance of what we got in Derrick Henry.
Jason: I’m gonna disagree. I love all those players. They’re great, but I think Christian McCaffrey should be the 1.01. Every running back deals with injury. And if you take injury out, he is the best fantasy football asset. Jonathan Taylor, last year’s number one would be my number two. And then I’m putting Cooper Kupp as my third player overall.
Mike: I’m going with Christian McCaffrey at the top. So I agree with Jason there and then Jonathan Taylor, but I have Justin Jefferson from the Minnesota Vikings… we already have seen a Hall of Fame type of trajectory for him… And now in a more past friendly offense with Kirk Cousins, I think that Justin Jefferson is going to smash this year for fantasy.
Which deep sleeper can win you a championship?
Mike: I’ll go with Allen Lazard, current Green Bay Packers WR1. Aaron Rodgers has talked about him frequently through the offseason saying we’re very excited to see what Allen can do as the number one guy. And so double digit touchdowns is in the range of outcomes for him. And he’s going in those later rounds and could easily find himself as a top 20 wide receiver at the end of the year.
Jason: The late sleeper that I would go all in on is James Cook, the rookie running back for the Buffalo Bills. This is one of the best offenses in the league. And rookie running backs have a great success rate in fancy football. So I think by the end of this year, we’re all gonna look back and be like, why didn’t we drive James Cook really high?
Andy: I agree with these guys, both of those are good names. I’ll throw Dameon Pierce, rookie running back for the Houston Texans in there as well. You might be able to pick him up late, Dameon Pierce has looked good in preseason and the competition in Houston, there is none. So I think he’s a great sleeper.
Who's the biggest 'Boom or Bust' player this season?
Andy: I think Allen Robinson for the Los Angeles Rams is a name that I’m really paying attention to. He’s with Matthew Stafford, Sean McVay, and a Super Bowl championship team, and yet people are just hurt. They’re emotionally hurt by Allen Robinson last year. He was never on the same page with Justin Fields in Chicago. It was kind of a lost season. And so in fantasy, we’re looking for players that maybe we can pick up when other people are staying away from them due to the burns that they suffered. I think Robinson is a boom player that you can pick up in the middle of the draft.
Jason: I agree with that. There’s another wide receiver who’s a boom player that has burned people in the past: It’s Courtland Sutton. Sutton looked like he was gonna be a thing a couple years ago. He’s a big bodied, talented wide receiver, but he has pretty much stunk for fantasy football in the last couple of years. Well, now you get Russell Wilson and if you’re Russell Wilson’s number one wide receiver you’ve been a top 12 wide receiver, literally every single year of Russell Wilson’s career.
Mike: I would jump in and I wanna say Darnell Mooney, wide receiver for the Chicago Bears… He’s gonna be the go-to guy for Justin Fields, not only because of his talent, but there’s no other proven players on that team. And I think that people have just the stink of the Chicago Bears is preventing people from taking a look at him.
Andy: There’s an odor. There’s an odor and it’s a problem.
Jason: Yeah. The bear’s poop in the woods. Aptly named team.
