Shawn Siegele looks at the sterling Week 1 from first-round wide receivers and breaks down his rest-of-season rankings for the top 25.
In the context of Cooper Kupp’s epic 2021 season, it may be surprising that the two receivers with the highest target averages over the last two years were Davante Adams and Diontae Johnson. All three hit for at least 12 targets in Week 1, but Adams again led the way. Far from falling out of favor after his move to Las Vegas, Adams almost matched his recent high.
The fast start from the WR1 tier brings to mind recent fireworks at the position. We have eight WR seasons this century with at least 24 PPG. Two from Antonio Brown, two from Randy Moss, and one each from Marvin Harrison, Odell Beckham, Kupp, and Adams.
Can Kupp or Adams join the repeater club? Will Justin Jefferson or Ja’Marr Chase crash the party as young superstars? We’ve had three WRs average 20 PPG in each of the last two years and six did it in 2018. Right now there are seven obvious candidates to reach that level in 2022, including four who have done it before. And that’s not even counting dark-horse candidate Deebo Samuel, who did it just last year.
I talked about the value of reacting in my look at the ROS rankings at running back. Don’t underreact to Week 1. To that end, today’s article will look at the new rankings for the top-25 receivers the rest of the way. I also do a separate exercise at the end placing each of the top-50 WRs from preseason ADP into one of five categories: buy high, sell high, buy low, sell low, wait-and-see.
