Reviewing my 2022 Bold Predictions

I can't give you 2023 until I atone for 2022

I was looking through my Stealing Signals August plans writeup from August 3 just now, trying to make sure I didn’t make any promises for a specific type of content someone might be waiting on that I hadn’t gotten to. I was happy to see I’ve hit all I intended to, and also that this passage proved very accurate:

Who knows what I’ll add, but every year I’ve listed my August plans, I’ve looked at it like it was way too long of a list, and then by Week 1 I’ve written all of it plus like five or so additional pieces that just hit me and I wanted to cover that day.

Regardless of what happens this fantasy football season, it’s been a super fun August talking ball with you guys, and I’m as excited for the season to start as ever. The 2022 season was tough in many ways, and fantasy football in general is a constant lesson about perseverance and appreciating the little things. But as far as I’m concerned, we’re all the way back. I still very much believe in what we do around here, and I think the results in 2020 and 2021 prove it, as well as many of the directionally accurate layers to the 2022 analysis where the results were unfortunate.

One piece of content I’ve heard you guys have wanted brought back is Bold Predictions, which I’ve had a hard time understanding given the 2022 list. But what you guys ask for, you tend to receive, and so that Bold Predictions list for 2023 will come likely tomorrow.

First, I need to review 2022, and I need to learn some lessons to apply them to 2023. I did twenty (20) Bold Predictions last year, many of them very bold, and many of them laughably bad. This will be a humbling review, but I never want to shy away from a learning opportunity. What you won’t see me do is pretend to be a soothsayer or pitch my past content as a snake oil salesman. We all have our misses.

So let’s have some fun going through last year’s Bold Predictions, shall we?

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1. Kyle Pitts goes for 1,300 yards and 8 TD

We’re off and running with a clear hit.

2023 thoughts: Still think it’s in his range of outcomes, but his lack of after-the-target efficiency last year was a new and concerning data point. That said, a lot of it can be chalked up to a poor catchable target rate. Hopefully the QB play is better, and the routes rate improves as well.

2. Saquon Barkley catches 75 balls and finishes as a top-three RB

Saquon caught 57 balls on 76 targets and finished RB5 in PPR leagues, so kinda close on this one.

2023 thoughts: Part of my analysis in this writeup on Saquon last year was Brian Daboll would have the Giants throwing more on early downs, and the Giants were surprisingly run-heavy last year, which held Saquon back from the 75 number. But there are some reasons to believe a little pass rate jump could come in Year 2, meaning this is a fun reminder that Saquon is a great receiving back and still probably has upside in that part of his game.

3. Trey Lance becomes the third QB ever to run for 1,000 yards

Another absolute smash. It’s funny, I wrote, “I have to cop to the 49ers’ preseason concerning me a bit on this one,” and I just wish it concerned me a little bit more, ya know? Still, Jimmy Garoppolo was almost shipped out of town, then restructured his deal last minute, and Brock Purdy wasn’t even on the radar. If Lance doesn’t get hurt, he plays most of last season, even if he was bad. That’s the direction you go when you have a top-five pick like that. Job security aside, I’ve come around to the idea he probably just isn’t very good, and I don’t know that he would have gotten to this number anyway, so I can’t blame injury as the sole issue with this take.

2023 thoughts: Part of my hesitance with Anthony Richardson can probably be traced back to Lance, and especially because Richardson doesn’t have the system Lance did that I thought could elevate the passing side in a massive way with YAC. I do like what the Colts have set up for Richardson system-wise, though, and he can absolutely still hit. Broadly, it’s just a reminder that the Konami Code QBs are different in 2023, where the market bakes in the mobility and understands the upside, and so we have to do a real assessment of their ability to play QB at the NFL level.

4. Chris Godwin outscores Mike Evans from Week 5 on

Coming off an ACL, Godwin was going much later than Evans last year, and in the first four weeks Evans posted 58.5 PPR points (in three games) to Godwin’s 19 (in two). But from Week 5 on, Godwin posted 205.4 in 13 games to Evans’ 167.9 in 12, catching 33 more balls than Evans to out-pace him despite the much lower aDOT. This was a very specific prediction that the market was overvaluing early-season expectations, and it was very accurate, however because the Buccaneers’ passing game fell off a bit as a whole, the “fade the Round 2/3 tag on Evans” side of it was more actionable than Godwin being a real hit.

2023 thoughts: Central to this point was a fully-healthy Godwin was probably the clear better option at this stage in their careers, and while Evans had a rebound 2022 in some of the per-route stuff, I still very much believe in Godwin for 2023.

5. Tony Pollard out-scores Ezekiel Elliott in all formats

There was an ADP gap here, and Elliott was your classic early-season projection, where all last offseason I tried to argue that they wouldn’t stick with him the same way they had in 2021, because they had an out after 2022 that they didn’t have after 2021, and if Elliott was bad, 2022 could be the transition year. So yeah, another one I feel very good about, as it was right for all the right reasons, and Pollard did smash Elliott in a way that made both sides of this prediction very actionable.

2023 thoughts: Not sure there’s anything really applicable here, other than a broad reminder of how seemingly clear RB situations can play out different from year to year.

6. CeeDee Lamb catches 110 balls

I noted he hadn’t hit 80 in a season yet, and he hit 107, tied for fifth most in the NFL as just three guys did get to the 110 plateau. I specifically emphasized the “Cooper Kupp breakout thesis” — a routes bump plus TPRR bump for an established efficient player — while noting “the size of [Kupp’s 2021 breakout] isn’t a realistic discussion for anyone,” which again was crazy accurate. Maybe I should just stick to Cowboys’ predictions?

2023 thoughts: There isn’t a clean read on a player who we have a lot faith will be efficient and has room to elevate both routes and per-route volume, but probably the closest thing to this profile in 2023 was Jerry Jeudy, before that hamstring complicated the routes side of things.

7. Both Gabe Davis and Stefon Diggs finish as top-10 WRs

Another that was a clear miss, which I was joking with the Pitts and Lance stuff earlier, but yeah some of these are just way off. Diggs did finish in the top 10, but he was going there, and his inclusion in this was merely to say that predicting a breakout season from Davis wasn’t predicting Diggs to suck. The real prediction was the breakout for Davis, which didn’t come close to happening.

2023 thoughts: I’m curious how much of that was his early ankle injury last year that reportedly lingered, and I’m not entirely out on Davis, but it’s also hard to buy into a Year 4 breakout. He doesn’t have the Kupp profile because even despite the injury last year, he did run 583 routes. He just didn’t earn much volume outside of deep stuff, and he now has more competition for the shallower targets in a way that his profile might never round out to where he’s a target-earner at all depths.

8. Albert Okwuegbunam is a top-5 tight end

Look, what had happened was…

2023 thoughts: Similar to my Lance stuff probably impacting my Richardson take, it’s fair to argue my Albert O. exposures in 2022 are impacting my negative read on Chigoziem Okonkwo, who is this year’s Albert O. from the perspective of being a small-sample per-route stud that we would need to see carry that production to a larger routes role. That doesn’t mean Okonkwo will fail, because I obviously thought Albert O. was worth betting on last year. But I also had more faith in Denver’s passing game last year than I do in Tennessee’s this year, which is laughable in hindsight looking back at the Broncos’ past 12 months, but that’s the truth.

9. Diontae Johnson is second in the NFL in targets

All I added for analysis was, “This would be bolder if he didn’t literally do it last year. Draft the man.” It’s fascinating he was going underappreciated last draft season, too; he obviously had terrible efficiency, and never scored a touchdown, but he did still finish as a PPR WR3 thanks to tying for seventh overall in targets.

2023 thoughts: Maybe the volume falls off another step this year with George Pickens and Pat Freiermuth knocking, but Johnson looked spry in the preseason, and the other way to frame this is Kenny Pickett has a shot to play league average QB (or better), which might literally be the best QB Johnson’s had in his career considering he came up as Ben Roethlisberger was already headed down the back side of the age curve. I still like exposure to Johnson’s target-earning.

10. A.J. Brown and D.J. Moore both score 280 PPR points

I noted in my writeup that for context, only seven WRs hit 280 points in 2021. In 2022, it was only six, and Brown was one of them with over 300. Moore wasn’t close, finishing just shy of 200.

2023 thoughts: The Brown explosion has priced him up, while the Moore non-explosion hasn’t deterred drafters from treating him like he did just have a 280-point season.

11. Rachaad White has three 20-point games

This was specific to my “RB Frankenstein” thoughts last year, where White was a handcuff type that I thought could splice in some real ceiling into your RB build. He had games of 19.9 and 18.9 PPR points, but didn’t hit 20.

2023 thoughts: One of the real bummers of the 2023 season was White getting the opportunity in an HVT-rich environment as Leonard Fournette struggled, and not being able to make the most of it. It’s a big reason I find it hard to bet on him in 2023, as he was an older prospect who should have been an immediate hit in that environment if his ultimate story at the NFL level is that he is going to be high-upside player. Doesn’t mean he’s done or anything, but note that he’s already 24, and not even a young 24 as he turns 25 on January 12.

12. Jerick McKinnon and Ronald Jones combine for four 20-point weeks

This was a very aggressive bet against Clyde Edwards-Helaire and to a lesser extent Isiah Pacheco, where I liked to play Kansas City through the two cheaper backs. Jones obviously did nothing, but McKinnon hit three 20-point weeks on his own, all from Week 14 to Week 17, right when it mattered most. CEH had two early-season 20-point weeks, but Pacheco’s season high was 16.2, which was part of the concern with him (that even if the upside playing time outcome hit, he likely wouldn’t get the passing-down work as a late-round rookie and the upside was potentially limited).

2023 thoughts: Clearly the Chiefs’ backfield has value, and it’s been whittled down to just three guys heading into the year, with Pacheco not 100% and McKinnon another year older at 31. I haven’t been playing McKinnon at a higher price than last year after his spike weeks were mostly TD driven, but I get it. My preference is probably to get exposure through CEH, as bad as he’s been, because the Chiefs don’t believe they need a dynamic RB, just one that won’t mess up.

13. DeAndre Carter has six 12-point games

This was, as I called it, “an absurd one.” The idea was as a last-round best ball pick, and it was to emphasize there were guys who were going undrafted who I felt you could project for routes in good offenses, so you didn’t have to take confirmed bad WRs just chasing routes late. Turns out Carter isn’t great either, as he wound up getting some routes and yet his top games were: 20.3, 16.4, 15.4, and 10.3. So we got three 12-point games from a free player.

2023 thoughts: There should be no lessons to draw from a DeAndre Carter Bold Prediction, but I guess I can say I still think it’s a pretty huge leak in the growing best ball space that people just throw on correlated WRs late who don’t have any real shot to be good. That’s not to say you can’t just play for boring, usable weeks on certain routes thresholds. Like, Mack Hollins never got drafted much anywhere, but he was a super easy and cheap way to get probably 450+ routes all offseason, as he seems like the very likely WR2 for Atlanta. Instead, there were guys with real ADPs that became popular picks all offseason because they answered a question about who we could stack with certain QBs, despite those receiving groups looking very likely to be rotational and not really have a strong answer to that question. And again, with the research showing you want to avoid dead roster spots in best ball for how pure you have to run, I think that is a real industry leak. (If I could define it better, it’s a spot where the focus is on the potential size of the hit and an idea of “He could be the guy you need” and how that can really apply to anybody, so you can justify a lot of picks — and that’s normally exactly where you want the focus to be — but all the players at the end of drafts are probably pretty bad, and in best ball specifically there’s real value in floor hunting because you can’t replace duds, so I think way late in drafts people need to look to the other side of the EV equation and actually try to predict the probability of occurrence and in how many outcomes you actually have the guy out there running routes.)

14. Joe Burrow throws for 5,000 yards and 40 TDs

I wrote, “I’m really buying into the Bengals throwing more than people expect this year,” and we saw that with a climb to the second-highest PROE. Only Patrick Mahomes hit either of these lofty thresholds as elite passing seasons were down, but Burrow went for 4,475 yards and 35, making him a clear hit.

2023 thoughts: Burrow is again a guy who can flirt with a Mahomes-ian passing ceiling, while Justin Herbert is the best bet to be this year’s Burrow in terms of buying into an offense elevating.

15. Skyy Moore leads the Chiefs WRs in PPR points

It’s so funny on all of these how I went for the buzzier player and missed every time. I went Lance but did really like Jalen Hurts, I went Skyy but I loved Garrett Wilson and was taking him everywhere. I guess the Pitts and Albert O. takes were just shit and there wasn’t really a TE I could point to and say, “I did get that right!” other than I guess Travis Kelce hitting on that type of unique elite TE scoring separation I wrote about. Anyway, this pick sucked.

2023 thoughts: I’m very cautious with Skyy, and when his price has risen, I’ve not taken a ton. He could hit in a big way this year, and it sounds like the routes are going to be there, but they kept a ton of WRs so that could actually pretty quickly devolve into a rotation, and he wasn’t exactly lighting up preseason (though camp reviews were very positive). Still, Skyy does have a strong production profile and the issue with last year was largely that he didn’t play enough, not necessarily that he was really bad. His TPRR of 19.2% was solid for a rookie, though not ideal given his 8.8-yard aDOT. His 7.8 YPT wasn’t strong but wasn’t bad for a low-aDOT guy. His 167-route peripherals don’t show as much failure as his fantasy production did.

16. A rookie WR has a top-10 WR season

I guess I did try to capture Wilson here, but even he was only WR21 in the end, while Chris Olave was WR24 in only 15 games (slightly higher than Wilson in points per game) and Drake London was WR28. So we got some strong performances, but nothing that really exploded.

2023 thoughts: I love this Bold Prediction and might make it again. Part of my analysis was Justin Jefferson had been WR7 as a rookie in 2020, and Ja’Marr Chase had been WR5 as a rookie in 2021. A.J. Brown was only WR21 as the top-scoring rookie in 2019 but was WR6 from Week 9 on, after he became a full-time player, and was WR2 overall from Week 12 through Week 17 that year. Also, Amon-Ra St. Brown had been WR2 overall behind only Kupp over the final six weeks of 2021. I closed with, “How many examples of rookie WRs showing legitimately elite upside do we need to buy into the uncertainty?” which is a question I asked again in my post yesterday, as I tried to continue to drive home that this isn’t theoretical, and whether it’s full-season or just after these guys ascend to full roles within their rookie years (we do know sometimes it takes time for them to get there, playing-time-wise), the size of the hits on these players — from nonelite ADPs — can be elite. This is why you draft a guy with Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s profile and trust the process.

17. Eno Benjamin has three 20-point weeks

It’s kind of funny that Benjamin got out there and actually did hit this once, with 21.3 points in Week 7, before getting cut apparently due to conflicts with coaches and his general personality, which is so weird after he stuck around as a presumably solid locker room presence for multiple years after being a seventh-round draft pick. His whole story doesn’t make much sense, but I do want to note that for all the RBs I used this 20-point upside weeks benchmark for, they all did show at least a little ceiling, and RB builds that included them in their Frankenstein RB builds did get some of that benefit (none were smashes, of course).

2023 thoughts: I’ll do a couple of these in this year’s Bold Predictions, because it’s important, but for me it’s guys like Ty Chandler (one of my latest-ranked “Targets” in the tiered rankings) that really fit.

18. Jonnu Smith has 60 touches

My fascination with the Patriots using Smith differently with a new offensive coordinator was dumb.

2023 thoughts: 20 Bold Predictions is too many.

19. Two of Pat Freiermuth, Cole Kmet, and Brevin Jordan will be top-8 TEs

Freiermuth was TE7 and Kmet was TE8 (while Jordan did nothing) so this was technically accurate.

2023 thoughts: There are some rookie TEs who profile well as productive players from college, which is what this note was trying to hit last year. But also, Freiermuth and Kmet remain cheap after small steps forward that weren’t huge smashes. On Freiermuth, you’re talking about a TE7 season in 15 games where his TDs cratered and the passing offense really struggled, but has room to take a big step forward this year. I moved him behind my Big Tier Break because it was aggressive to put him with Dallas Goedert, but I still very much believe in ‘Muth in 2023.

20. Javonte Williams will be a top-three RB from Week 5 on

The thing holding Javonte down last year was talk that Melvin Gordon had been Actually Good in 2021, which I never denied, but I tried real hard all offseason to argue that it didn’t matter, because the Broncos were content letting Gordon walk and only brought him back the week of the draft on a cheap one-year deal when Gordon couldn’t find other suitors and was likely about to lose the Denver offer to a cheaper rookie Day 3 draft pick, and also because 2021 wasn’t 2022 and just because Gordon was Actually Good in 2021 didn’t mean he wouldn’t just hit the age cliff the next year, because you can never go broke betting on the younger guys ascending over the older guys who are just hoping to hold on. I’m carrying on about this because it was freaking exactly correct, and then Javonte got hurt after the pass had already happened, and then Gordon later got cut anyway as he had fallen off so hard that he couldn’t even be the guy once Javonte was out of the picture, which is a useful note for those who like to do the “reverse contingent value” thing with the older backs, where contingent value isn’t just about getting more opportunity, it’s about being able to take advantage of it with actually high-level play.

2023 thoughts: That was a fun paragraph to write, and it honestly could have been a whole column. My Jerick McKinnon concern falls into this category, where yeah he was great in 2022, but he’s another year older and was never a super reliable player. There’s still obvious upside in his role and in managed leagues you can cut him if he gets hurt, so it’s not a huge deal. Kendre Miller over Jamaal Williams for that No. 2 job fits here. Tyler Allgeier over Cordarrelle Patterson as the No. 2 probably does, too, as much as I hate to admit it (I did back off my early-offseason Patterson take quite a bit here in August, because it’s just so hard to see how that really hits in a big way through the end of the season at his age, even if I do still expect him to get some fun usage). Ezekiel Elliott and Dalvin Cook are examples of that reverse contingent point where I’m not convinced they’ll be good enough to maximize the opportunity even if the young stud in front of them misses time. Cook is the better bet, clearly. But Rhamondre Stevenson and Breece Hall are the closest things to the Javonte Williams of this 2022 Bold Prediction here in 2023. Continuing to move to secondary examples of this point, though, I’ve called De’Von Achane antifragile about 12 times this offseason, and even as I don’t really love his profile, he undeniably fits this conversation with Raheem Mostert ahead of him. The logic of Evan Hull as the Colts’ RB with the most upside fits this, although the two ahead of him aren’t old, so it’s more just about Hull potentially showing out, and it gets back to yesterday’s “above average information isn’t better than no information” thing when we think about Deon Jackson for example looking solid but not great last year. Justice Hill as the bet to beat Gus Edwards for that No. 2 job. It may feel like I’m just naming every RB situation in the league, but I’m not; I’ve skipped several. What I am doing is going through my rankings and trying to highlight these spots where youth and efficiency uncertainty and potential player talent could all win out. And it’s not just a young vs. old thing — Mostert for example is a talented old guy, and that’s why he’s a Target in my rankings, but the point still stands on him because he’s old. At any rate, you wouldn’t be necessarily wrong for whittling the point down to this old vs. young thing.

Alright, that’s all for today. Thought this would be a fun thing to fire off, and then tomorrow I’ll follow up with some Bold Predictions for 2023, which will hopefully miss a lot of these Pitts/Lance/Skyy/Albert O. ones I had last year!