10 Bounce-Back Fantasy Football Players to Target in 2022

Aug 02, 2022

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Taking advantage of your league mates' recency bias is a perennial tradition in the fantasy football world, and one I can always get behind. We’re all guilty of associating one bad season with the next regardless of the cause surrounding a player’s dip in production.

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Players can underperform for a myriad of reasons including injury, a poor system fit, off-field issues, or even an early-season fumble that derails usage. Unless it’s a huge name like Christian McCaffrey, a “bust” player’s draft stock typically takes a hit, allowing us to grab them with some built-in capital. Chasing the upside on these guys with depressed ADPs can have league-winning ramifications, so here’s a look at some of the bounce-back candidates for the 2022 season.

Note: You won’t find McCaffrey, Derrick Henry, or Travis Kelce on here as they’re a given if they can manage to stay on the field in 2022.

Quarterbacks

Russell Wilson, Broncos (Underdog ADP: QB9, 77.8)

Wilson is coming off the second-worst fantasy performance of his career, finishing as the QB13 with just 16.8 fantasy points per contest which was nearly rock bottom, just shy of his 2016 output of 16.7 points per game, also as the QB13. Now free from the shackles of Pete Carroll and the Seattle offense, Wilson gets a fresh start in the Mile High City on a talented team with a young, hungry coaching staff, yet he’s being drafted one positional spot and almost a full round later than he was last season with the Seahawks.

The 33-year-old is set up to finally cook in Denver with a quality receiving corps and a sharp offensive mind in Nathaniel Hackett running the show. Wilson’s efficiency and consistency as a fantasy QB are evident by his eight top-10 fantasy finishes over the past nine seasons, four among the top 3 since 2014. The last few signal callers to change teams later in their NFL careers, Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford, have won Super Bowls in their new homes, so perhaps Wilson is next? The Lombardi Trophy may or may not be in the cards for the 11-year veteran, but performing better than last season is well within his range of outcomes, and for now, Wilson is still going at a very reasonable price.