There's a lot of breath wasted and ink spilled every year during Fantasy Football Draft Prep season trying to figure out how to define terms like "breakout." Me, I tend to take a bit of an "I know it when I see it" approach. Does it have to be a young player about to step into stardom? Sure, but it could also be a veteran about to return to Fantasy relevance after some time lost in the words. They're guys I want on my team -- guys who I think are going to help countless Fantasy players win their leagues this year. I don't know how to define them, but I know I want them on my team.
Here are my 10 latest breakout picks for the 2022 Fantasy season:
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2022 Sleepers
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On the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast, we have a segment where we talk about the most noteworthy player of the night, and one of our recurring bits is what we call the "Olive Garden breadstick" player – when there's an obvious player and nobody wants to be the one who selfishly takes them (it's based on my theory that Olive Garden gives you one more free breadstick than there are people at your table so nobody will want to take the last one). Lance is that guy for any breakout discussion this season. Is he guaranteed to be a superstar? No, but he's an elite talent with an extremely Fantasy-friendly skill set, playing in an offense that makes pretty much every QB who plays in it look efficient. Lance should make plenty of plays with his feet, and the 49ers are going to create easy layup passes to Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, and Brandon Aiyuk, who all excel at making plays after the catch. It's about as good a situation as you could want a young quarterback to step into, and if he's even remotely competent, he should be a must-start Fantasy QB. And there's a chance Lance is a Patrick Mahomes-esque impact player from Day One.
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We've seen Winston be a must-start Fantasy player in the past, albeit in very different circumstances with a very aggressive Tampa offense. The Saints haven't been aggressive like that in years, and they were especially passive with Winston last season, who attempted just 25.2 passes per game even before leaving Week 8 early with his knee injury. Winston has been cleared for the start of training camp and shouldn't have any limitations come Week 1, and he's got a wholly rebuilt receiving corps, with Michael Thomas expected to be available along with Chris Olave and Jarvis Landry. Suddenly, this looks like a pretty good place to be throwing passes – don't forget about Alvin Kamara! – and I'm expecting the Saints to open their offense back up. Winston has been an efficient QB in the past, at least when it comes to moving the ball down the field, and if he can rediscover some of that skill set while maintaining the mistake-free play he showed last season, there's top-12 QB upside here.
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I was out on Gibson at this time last year, when it seemed like everyone was assuming he definitely would see a bigger role in the passing game heading into his second season. Now that everyone seems to have decided he definitely won't have that passing game role, I find him a little more appealing. To be clear, I'm not saying he'll definitely take a step forward in the passing game, but when you're talking about ranges of outcomes and upside, Gibson catching 60-plus passes and putting up a 1,600-plus total yard season is definitely within the realm of possibility. The likeliest outcome looks a lot like last season, albeit in what should be a better offense. However, we did see the Commanders increase Gibson's passing game role in five games without J.D. McKissic last season, and if they show that kind of trust in him more regularly, there's still top-12 upside here.
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The best Fantasy running backs have multiple different paths to having a good game in any given week, but that wasn't the case for Damien Harris last season. If he found the end zone, he was good; if he didn't he probably didn't reach double digits in Fantasy points. That's how it goes when you don't catch passes. The hope is that Stevenson might have the potential to marry Harris' running role – which led to 929 yards and 15 touchdowns in 15 games – with a bit more utility in the passing game, unlocking upside Harris just doesn't have. Stevenson was targeted on 22.5% of his routes last season, compared to 18.4% for Harris, and he was asked to pass block less often when he was on the field during passing plays as well. Stevenson has to usurp Harris' spot on the depth chart – early reports out of training camp in that regard are promising, for what it's worth – but if he can, he's the only back in New England with top-12 upside.
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It's not always as simple as looking at what a player did when their teammate wasn't playing, but if you want an idea of what Conner's upside looks like, his performance in the five games Chase Edmonds missed last season is illustrative – he averaged 23.1 PPR points per game with an 85-catch pace. It'll be tough for Conner to sustain anything like that over a full season, especially given his injury history, but he's always been an effective pass-catcher, and the Cardinals just really don't have much competition here – Darrel Williams is competent, at best. Conner could be in line for 65-plus catches in addition to his locked-in role as the go-to rusher near the goal-line alongside Kyler Murray, a role that has generated a ton of Fantasy value over the past few seasons. There's top-10 upside here, maybe more.
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You can look at how Odell Beckham and Baker Mayfield struggled to get on the same page if you want to be skeptical of Moore, but I prefer to be an optimist. Baker Mayfield's yards per attempt in 2021 – a season that convinced the Browns to move on from him – was 7.2. Compare that to the 6.0 Y/A the Panthers quarterbacks averaged collectively last year, and it's clear where my optimism comes from. Moore has three straight 1,100-yard seasons with pretty awful QB play entering his age-25 season; if Mayfield can just be decent, there's no reason Moore can't take a big step forward. Forget top-12 upside, Moore has top-five potential.
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Sometimes, narratives can get oversimplified, so I don't want to just do the "WR reunites with his college QB, leading to breakout" thing, but … I can't say that's not at least part of the thought process here. Brown and Kyler Murray have a history together, and hopefully, that makes for a smooth transition with Brown switching teams. It's also fair to hope that Brown can have a bit more success on deep balls than he did with Lamar Jackson, who it just seemed like he could never get on the same page with – Murray has completed a higher percentage of his passes 20-plus yards down the field over the past two seasons than Jackson did, 43.4% to 34.3%. With DeAndre Hopkins suspended for the first six games, Brown has a big opportunity to finally live up to his potential, which is in the top 12 of WR on the high end.
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Smith-Schuster is, somehow, still just 25 years old, despite the fact that it seems like he's had a whole career's worth of ups and downs. He averaged just 6.2 yards per target between 2020 and 2021, and how much you want to blame him for that will likely influence how much you think he can bounce back in Kansas City. For what it's worth, I think a lot of the blame lied with Ben Roethlisberger, whose refusal to stand in the pocket and let plays develop kneecapped the Steelers offense as a whole and left Smith-Schuster overly reliant on short-area targets with the defense crashing down on him. There should be a bit more room to work with Patrick Mahomes as his QB, and Smith-Schuster is potentially the most complete receiver on a team with the more vertically oriented Mecole Hardman and Marquez Valdes-Scantling set for significant roles. Will Smith-Schuster ever get back to being a 111-catch, 1,426-yard receiver? No, I don't expect so. But he could be Mahomes' No. 2 option and a 1,000-plus yard guy in his own right.
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For my Bills preview this season, I picked Davis as both the breakout and bust pick for that offense. He's yet to top 35 receptions or 600 yards in either of his two NFL seasons, so any breakout pick necessarily requires him to do something he's never done before. Of course, Davis has some experience doing the unexpected, as evidenced by that massive 201-yard, four-touchdown game he had against the Chiefs in last year's playoffs. There's clearly talent here. Can he do it consistently while locking in a larger role on a team with Super Bowl aspirations? That's the question, but if you're shooting for upside, it's hard to argue with the kind Davis has shown. That makes him worth drafting, even if he's no sure thing.
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This is probably your last chance to draft Pitts outside of the first round for the next decade. If he was disappointing as a rookie, that's only because expectations were so high and because Matt Ryan's top target never seems to find the end zone much – just ask Julio Jones. Pitts is a historic talent who played the first month of his rookie season as a 20-year-old and still managed to put up 1,000-plus yards. An elite tight end remains the biggest edge you can get on the competition, and Pitts figures to be the class of the position for a long time.
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The floor could fall out types
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As long as Jimmy Garoppolo is still on the 49ers roster, the possibility of Lance losing his job will loom over him. It doesn't actually seem like the 49ers have much interest in keeping Garoppolo around – perhaps for exactly that reason – but if he's still there come Week 1, Lance's downside risk looks more realistic. The 49ers are betting on Lance being the piece who can help the offense level up, and if he does that, he's going to be elite for Fantasy purposes. But he's incredibly unproven, having started just three games since 2019 – when he was at FCS North Dakota State -- not exactly the highest level of competition, so struggles wouldn't be unexpected. If I'm not taking a QB early, Lance is one of the guys I want to pair with someone like Derek Carr, because that's the combination of upside and floor I'll need to feel better about having Lance.
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Running backs
Won't live up to the hype types
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Harris overcame middling (at best, frankly) efficiency as a rookie thanks to massive volume, but can you rely on that happening again? His passing game role seems especially questionable without Ben Roethlisberger, for whom the term "statuesque" would be a compliment in his final two seasons. If it's rookie Kenny Pickett at QB, I expect Harris will still see plenty of targets, but the more mobile Mitchell Trubisky could cut into those targets, and there's still no guarantee this Steelers offense is going to be able to move the ball effectively in either phase of the game. I think it's reasonable to bet on Harris' efficiency improving in Year 2, but if it doesn't, he could certainly disappoint, providing more like RB2 production for a high-end RB1 price.
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The floor could fall out types
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All of a sudden, Henry is a 28-year-old running back coming off a missed half season due to a broken foot who nonetheless has racked up more than 1,000 touches over the past three seasons. The case for Henry has long rested on the idea that he's such an anomaly at the position that the rules don't apply to him, so I'm surprised to see he's still a consensus first-rounder now that we've actually seen him look mortal and because he doesn't catch many passes, Henry relies on outlier volume and efficiency as a rusher to be an elite option, and if either slips, the path to elite production starts to get really, really narrow. Henry is still an RB1 for me, but I also think he has the most blow-up potential of any first-round caliber player.
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Any time you get to the final year of a contract for a running back, you're at the point where the grasp on their job could become tenuous very quickly. And the worst bets at the position tend to be the types of players who projected reasonably well because we think they have a solid role on a team with little competition – think Myles Gaskin or Mike Davis last season as prototypical examples here. Sanders falls into both buckets – the Eagles have no ties to him beyond this season and, while he projects to get a decent amount of work, nobody's really expecting him to have much of a role in the passing game or near the end zone. The hope for Sanders is he's a compiler on a good rushing offense, with the potential for some touchdown upside, but there's not much margin for error. If he starts to cede even some of the early-down work, there's very little buoying Sanders' value at this point.
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All that stuff about Sanders? It applies doubly to Jacobs, whose team actually turned down his fifth-year option – actual evidence that they don't view him as a long-term piece. Now, they may be content to ride Jacobs into free agency to get the most they can out of him, and he showed enough as a pass-catcher last season that I have him ranked ahead of Sanders. But there's no guarantee he replicates that role if Kenyan Drake is healthy. I'm snagging rookie Zamir White with one of my last picks in as many drafts as I can just on the off chance the Raiders simply opt to move on from Jacobs.
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Wide receivers
Won't live up to the hype types
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With Amari Cooper out of the picture, the expectation is that Lamb will emerge as the kind of elite, go-to wide receiver Fantasy players have been expecting him to be. And I think that's a decent bet; Lamb is incredibly talented and the Cowboys also lost Cedrick Wilson and could be without Michael Gallup to start the season. But the Cowboys have never really been a team that funnels a massive target share to one single wide receiver – Cooper had a 23.8% target share in nine games in 2018, but in Kellen Moore's time as offensive coordinator, no receiver has had a target share higher than 21.1% while playing more than nine games. Lamb could change that, but it's fair to point out that a lot of Fantasy players have already overshot his expected role in two seasons so far. Will Year 3 be different? I'm cautiously optimistic, but not enough that I'm going to be the one who drafts him in most of my leagues, I would expect.
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Individually, Hill and Jaylen Waddle are both terrific talents, and they combine to give Miami maybe the fastest wide receiver tandem in the league. How they'll fare playing alongside one another with Tua Tagovailoa is the question. Tagovailoa relied on quick-hitting RPO concepts more than just about any QB in the league last season, and a significant amount of Waddle's production came from those plays. Can he incorporate Hill while keeping Waddle fed well enough for both to live up to top-15 WR draft costs? A lot of that will depend on Tagovailoa's development, but it's also fair to wonder if Mike McDaniel's San Fran-inspired offense will have room enough for both – there haven't been many times when the 49ers have had multiple must-start Fantasy receivers in their run-heavy offense over the years.
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The floor could fall out types
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The average return-to-play time for wide receivers coming back from ACL surgery is between 10 and 11 months, and since Godwin didn't have surgery until early January, that would put him on pace for a mid-October return, more or less. Maybe earlier, sure, in which case it's possible he's ready to be an impact player from Week 1. However, it's just as likely he needs a little more time to be healthy enough to play, and he might need even more time to look and feel like himself. Remember, Odell Beckham had his surgery two months before Godwin did in the NFL calendar the previous year and didn't play until Week 3 – and wasn't really himself for a while after that. Godwin has top-12 upside, and if he's there in the Fantasy playoffs, you might be able to live with a slow start. But there's a chance he just isn't right for long enough that it doesn't matter.
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Earning targets is a skill, and Allen remains one of the best in the league at that skill, but I can't help but feel like there's just a bit of risk here. He hasn't been particularly efficient with his targets over the past two seasons (6.7 and 7.2 yards per target), and I do wonder if at some point the Chargers might not start to distribute those elsewhere if that continues. We actually started to see that toward the end of last season, as he had double-digit targets in just one of his final five games, putting up an 85-catch, 826-yard pace – albeit with four touchdowns, so the Fantasy production was still pretty solid. The point is, Allen probably can't afford much of a dip in his target share if he's going to remain a high-end Fantasy WR, and at 30, his best days are probably behind him.
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Tight ends
Won't live up to the hype types
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Andrews was actually significantly better in the games Lamar Jackson missed last season, averaging 21.96 points on 11.4 targets per game in five without Jackson compared to 16.3 on 8.5 targets with him. But that was mostly because the Ravens were forced to throw more and Tyler Huntley just zeroed in on Andrews to an absurd degree, with a 28.2% target share. Jackson loves Andrews too, but he won't need to be quite as desperate to lean on him (23.6% target share), and I'm assuming the Ravens won't be quite as pass-heavy as they were when they relied on the likes of Devonta Freeman, Ty'Son Williams, and Le'Veon Bell a year ago. It all points to Andrews still being one of the best tight ends in Fantasy, but probably not the kind of difference maker he was a year ago.
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The floor could fall out types
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I feel like I just need to write "*points to Robert Tonyan*" and that gets the point across about as well as anything else I could write. Tonyan was a more extreme example of what Knox did last season, with 11 touchdowns on just 59 targets, but the idea is the same – unsustainable touchdown luck that would require an unlikely increase in targets to justify being much more than a fringe starter. Knox had his 11 touchdowns across eight games, but reached double digits in PPR scoring just once in the other nine, so he was pretty touchdown-or-bust-y. If the touchdowns aren't there, he's going to be pretty bust-y.
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