Fantasy Football: 5 Breakouts and 5 Bust Candidates

Fantasy football season is swiftly approaching. Many leagues are anticipating their drafts while others have already begun or completed their own. Whatever your case may be, there is still plenty of time to get ready for the upcoming campaign via trades or free agency. There are a number of players that you’ll want to avoid or target based on a number of factors like past success, age, personal preference, etc. In this article, I’ll be naming a few players who fall into two categories. Breakouts and Busts.

A Breakout player is someone who outperforms their current expectations and gives you an edge over the competition. James Conner in 2021 is an excellent representation of this as he scored 18 touchdowns last season and finished as a top running back in most formats. Robert Tonyan in 2020 was another great breakout story, catching 88.1% of his targets and scoring 11 times. These are players you definitely want on your fantasy squad.

A Bust player is basically the complete opposite. Someone you had high hopes for but ultimately let you down. Allen Robinson had a lot of positive buzz in 2021 but fantasy managers were disappointed with his 38 catches for just 410 yards and one touchdown. In 2020, Lamar Jackson was the first quarterback selected in the majority of fantasy drafts, but he barely finished the season as a top 10 quarterback. 

Identifying a Breakout or Bust player can be of substantial importance in having a successful fantasy season. Let’s identify some of those players so you can have yourself a very, merry 2022 campaign!

Breakout Candidates

Courtland Sutton – WR, Denver Broncos

Courtland Sutton could be coming into his most productive season yet! The Broncos have been identified as a ‘sneaky playoff team’ for a couple of seasons now. They have a couple of great ball carriers in Melvin Gordon and Javonte Williams and their defense has been solid. The biggest need they have had was at quarterback and they addressed it aggressively this year.

Russell Wilson is a Super Bowl winner as well as a 9-time Pro Bowler in 10 seasons. Wilson has thrown over 30 touchdown passes in four of the last five seasons with 15 game-winning drives in that span. Sutton and Jerry Jeudy figure to be the two main targets in Denver’s passing game and both will have ample opportunity to feast with a great general at the helm.

Sutton’s current ADP (average draft position) is the 26th wide receiver off of the board. There is a very good chance he could put up similar numbers to his 2019 Pro Bowl season when he flourished with 71 receptions for 1,112 yards and could finish as a top 15 receiver or better again.

J.K. Dobbins – RB, Baltimore Ravens

Finishing his 2020 rookie season on a very high note, J.K. Dobbins was making himself known coming into 2021. In his final six games, he scored seven rushing touchdowns and averaged 6.4 YPC. Unfortunately, he suffered a season-ending injury before he could play in a regular-season game in 2021.

With a full year to recover, Dobbins is primed for a big workload of success. As of now, Dobbins is being almost forgotten as the 21st running back selected in fantasy drafts. Gus Edwards is still with Baltimore and he’ll get his share of carries, but Dobbins will get the first look more often than not. He should see well over 200 touches in 2022 and propel himself into the conversation as a top 10 fantasy running back as he is the superior pass-catcher out of the backfield.

Chris Olave – WR, New Orleans Saints

Outside of recent stalwarts like Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase, rookie wideouts don’t usually pop in their first seasons. Chris Olave could be the next one to follow in those footsteps. He has elite agility to react to the pass and his top-end speed is great. For a semi-rebuilding offense, he is the guy any team would want to premise their dominance at the position. Yes, I said dominance.

New Orleans may have moved on from their previous head coach, but they promoted within. Dennis Allen is the new head coach for the Saints and has been with the team since 2015 and has seen the path to success under the previous head coach, Sean Payton. With Michael Thomas as the #1 wide receiver, Olave has a unique opportunity to play alongside the man who holds the NFL record for receptions in a single season (149) while being available to capitalize on any double-coverage that could be coming Thomas’ way.

Jarvis Landry doesn’t feel like a big obstacle as he’s getting up in age and has been dealing with injuries the past few seasons. The Saints’ wide receivers could get extra looks early in 2022 with the impending suspension of Alvin Kamara.

Dallas Goedert – TE, Philadelphia Eagles

With a full season of Jalen Hurts under center, Dallas Goedert crushed his previous season highs in receiving yards (830) and yards per target (10.9) while missing only two games. In 2022, he gets to be the #1 tight end for the Eagles for an entire season. The rapport between Goedert and hurts showed signs of strengthening at the end of 2021 as the tight end averaged 16.1 yards per reception on 21 catches in his final four regular season games before catching another six passes for 92 yards in the Eagles’ sole playoff matchup.

So moving forward, with DeVonta Smith and newly acquired A.J. Brown commanding coverage on the outsides, Goedert remains a reliable target for dump-offs and passes across the middle of the field. His current ADP has him as the eighth tight end off of the board but he could easily crack the top five at the position in 2022, if not higher.

Tua Tagovailoa – QB, Miami Dolphins

You don’t have to be a fan of Tua Tagovailoa to see that he is set up to have a huge breakout season in 2022. The Dolphins doubled down on the former Alabama standout by bringing in a bevy of new and exciting talent to propel their offense to the next level. Tyreek Hill and Cedrick Wilson were brought in to accompany sophomore Jaylen Waddle.

Raheem Mostert, Chase Edmonds, and Sony Michel all joined the team to compete with Myles Gaskin and Salvon Ahmed for touches resulting in arguably the deepest running back room in the NFL. Let’s not forget Mike Gesicki is still in orange and aqua after getting his franchise tag. There are so many options for Tagovailoa at this point that failure seems impossible. Factor in new head coach Mike McDaniel, previously of the 49ers coaching staff, and a new offensive system could be that extra oomph that the third-year quarterback needs to become a fantasy darling in 2022.

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Bust Candidates

Mike Williams – WR, Los Angeles Chargers

There is one thing that scares me about highly talented players in professional sports: having a huge output in a contract year and getting a big paycheck (see also Kenny Golladay). Make no mistake, Mike Williams is very athletic and has all the physical tools to be a great wide receiver for many years. Through his first four seasons, Williams broke 1,000 receiving yards in one year and scored more than five times in one other year.

In 2021, he managed career highs with 76 receptions and 1,146 receiving yards while scoring nine touchdowns and achieving his highest catch rate (58.9%) since 2018 (65.2%), earning himself a lucrative payday. He is currently being drafted in the fifth round of fantasy drafts as the 19th overall wide receiver. I have concerns that he won’t live up to that draft price and I’ll be avoiding him at all costs come draft time. If I had him on my dynasty squad, I’d be selling to the highest bidder.

Dak Prescott – QB, Dallas Cowboys

I’ve been a huge Dak Prescott supporter for years. In the past, he has shown a great ability to command a dominating offense. In 2019, he threw for 4,902 yards and 30 touchdowns while also adding 277 rushing yards and averaging 5.3 yards per attempt. In 2020, he was on pace for over 5,900 passing yards and 38 rushing and passing touchdowns. That season, however, was cut short due to a serious fluke injury.

The sky was the limit for Prescott in 2021 as many people viewed him as a top-three quarterback or better for fantasy and reality. His rushing numbers were not the same as he averaged just three yards across his 48 attempts. Clearly, the previous year’s injury caused him to hold back when the situation became more physical. His passing numbers also declined as he posted significantly lower scores in passing yards per game (278.1 down from 371.2), yards per completion (10.9 down from 12.3), and quarterback rating (54.6 down from 73.1) compared to his 2021 numbers.

Amari Cooper, Wilson, and Malik Taylor also joined new teams this season while the Cowboys only brought in James Washington and rookie Jalen Tolbert for the passing game. There is a possibility that Prescott lives up to his seventh overall quarterback price, but I worry that the ghosts of past injuries keep him in check and he lets us down in fantasy.

A.J. Brown – WR, Philadelphia Eagles

After making his first Pro Bowl appearance in 2020, Brown took a slight step back in 2021, from a statistical standpoint. He had career lows in receiving yards (869), yards per reception (13.8), yards per target (8.3), and catch rate (60%). Still solid numbers but a downtrend, nonetheless. Brown found himself a new home this offseason as he joined the Eagles.

Ryan Tannehill is a better passer than Jalen Hurts and there was more passing volume with Tennessee than in Philadelphia. Brown was also the clear #1 target in the Titans passing attack. The level of talent in the Philadelphia wide receiver room is better and will get their looks from the smaller pie. I believe, for these reasons, that Brown will struggle to meet the number he posted in 2021. A player with just five scores and less than 900 receiving yards is not worth a third-round fantasy pick, where he is currently being drafted.

Javonte Williams – RB, Denver Broncos

This is simply a case of the commodity not being worth the price. I love Javonte Williams and he’s going to have a great career in the Broncos’ backfield, but folks are spending a first-round pick on a guy who has no history of full-time usage on an NFL field! With Melvin Gordon signing back with Denver, it’s going to be a split job again.

Last year, Williams took 203 carries for 903 yards and another 43 receptions for 316 yards and scored seven times. Gordon’s numbers are eerily similar with 203 carries for 918 yards, 28 receptions for 213 yards, and 10 touchdowns. In my 0.5 points per reception (PPR) home league, these two backs were just 0.3 fantasy points apart at the end of the season. With 477 touches combined and great success by both players, there’s no reason for the coaching staff to make any changes to running their ground attack.

Both Williams and Gordon are going to be valuable for fantasy in 2022, but neither is worth a first-round pick unless one of them suffers a significant injury – not something anyone should hope for. If the ADP of these two corrects itself by late August and Williams falls into the third round, I’d take him for that price. Only time will tell.

Michael Carter – RB, New York Jets

In his rookie campaign, Michael Carter found limited success with a few standout games sprinkled in. His highlights were a 19-touch game for 104 total yards, a 24-touch game for 172 total yards, and another with 18 touches for 124 yards. Any chances of Carter making a splash in 2022 were dashed by the drafting of Breece Hall this offseason. Hall was a second-round pick that will command superior usage than the fourth-round pick, Carter.

The better pass-catcher could be Carter, so he’ll still have some value in those PPR leagues. Draft capital is usually the deciding factor when it comes time to choose a starter in the NFL. Carter is being selected in the early seventh round of drafts in front of the aforementioned Gordon and Devin Singletary – both players who I would easily choose before Carter. I don’t expect Carter to get near the 168 touches he had in 2021, so I won’t be adding him to my squads this year. Definitely hold on to him in dynasty leagues since you never know what’s going to happen down the road.

In closing, I just wanted to add that I get all of my player statistics from pro-football-reference.com where they are gracious enough to provide an amazing amount of information for free to anyone looking for it. Their service really does make this number-crunching a heck-of-a-lot easier! I couldn’t provide this info without them!

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