Each year, heading into draft season, we start to settle upon players we love and players we hate, relative to ADP. This article will dive into the former portion, my fantasy football quarterback targets. Every year there are players that outperform their ADP. Identifying these players can greatly help you win your leagues. Here are three quarterbacks to target in fantasy football for 2022.
Fantasy Football Quarterback Targets for 2022
Before we get into these fantasy football targets, I want to preface this by saying that all of these are relative to ADP. These are three guys that go later in drafts than they should and represent excellent values in fantasy football drafts right now. These are all based on Fantasypros PPR ADP data as of this writing.
1. Kyler Murray, Arizona Cardinals
Call of Duty jokes aside, Kyler Murray has been one of the best quarterbacks in fantasy football pretty much since he entered the league in 2019. His worst finish is QB12 and that was his rookie season in which he had terrible touchdown luck. However, in the last two seasons, Murray has finished QB4 in points per game in both years. This is in spite of getting banged up with lower body injuries each season. Extrapolating Murray’s per-game numbers over the course of his career over a 17-game season would give him 4,242 passing yards, 26 passing touchdowns, 660 rushing yards, and seven rushing touchdowns. There was only one quarterback to hit both those passing and rushing thresholds last season and that was Josh Allen, who has been the QB1 each of the past two seasons and is the consensus top quarterback off the board this year. The scary part is that those are Murray’s averages, including his rookie season. A QB1 finish is very possible in 2022.
Just sitting here thinking about how baffling I find Kyler Murray's ADP. He's currently the QB5 & extremely close to being QB6 despite:
-QB4 PPG 2021
-QB4 PPG 2020
-Added Hollywood Brown
-3rd ALL-TIME among QBs in Rush YPG
-Maybe only QB w/4500+/800+ upside🚩My QB2🚩
— ✴️Rob Norton✴️ (@norton0723) August 16, 2022
Heading into this season should be even more reason for optimism for Murray. He’s now heading into his fourth season as a pro, all of them under the same coach and scheme. This year the Arizona Cardinals also added another weapon to the arsenal in former college teammate, Marquise Brown. As previously mentioned, Murray has finished as the QB4 in points per game for two straight seasons but for some reason, he is currently going as the 6th quarterback off the board and his current ADP is 60th overall. This is way too low as he’s currently my QB2 for 2022. He’s currently going behind quarterbacks like Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes, and Justin Herbert who don’t give near as much with their legs as Murray. He’s also going behind skill players like Antonio Gibson, Josh Jacobs, Elijah Mitchell, and Chris Godwin, all of whom should be going after him.
2. Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles
2021 was an interesting year for Jalen Hurts. On one hand, he was the QB7 in fantasy football in points per game and had more top-12 finishes than any quarterback in football. On the other hand, he did only complete 61.3% of his passes and only throw 16 touchdown passes. Rushing for 784 yards and 10 touchdowns can mask a lot of passing deficiencies. People are still very concerned about his viability as a starting quarterback in the NFL long-term. Luckily for us, that doesn’t really matter for his fantasy outlook in 2022 specifically. People tend to have a very tough time separating the real-life value of a player from their fantasy football value and Hurts is a prime example. This divide usually creates a buying opportunity and that’s what we have with Hurts for 2022. There is no reason to fade Jalen Hurts in fantasy football in 2022 unless you truly believe he will lose his starting job this season.
Heading into 2022, Hurts is set up beautifully to succeed. The Philadelphia Eagles have the top-rated offensive line in the league which should help give him more time. They also went out and traded for A.J. Brown, one of the best young wide receivers in the league. 2021 first-round pick DeVonta Smith showed last year that he is a playmaker and is now entering his second season as a pro. They also have one of the most talented tight ends in Dallas Goedert. All in all, Hurts really has one of the best set-ups of any quarterback in the NFL. Currently going as the seventh quarterback off the board (65th overall), Hurts is being drafted much closer to his floor at this point. Considering what he did last year and his much-improved situation this year, a top-five season wouldn’t be surprising in the least and a QB1 finish is very much in the range of outcomes. I’d much rather take Hurts over guys like Joe Burrow, Amari Cooper, Chris Godwin, or Antonio Gibson making him one of the best fantasy football quarterback targets this year.
3. Trey Lance, San Francisco 49ers
Draft the cheapest running quarterback has been a profitable strategy for years now. That shouldn’t change in 2022. As previously mentioned with Hurts, people let their real-life views cloud their judgment for the game of fantasy football. The rushing aspect of a quarterback is so incredibly valuable that it can more than make up for a bad day passing. Sure, there are questions about how effective Trey Lance will be as a passer in his first year as a starter, but that will be mitigated by how dynamic he is on the ground. In 2019 as a Sophomore at North Dakota State, Lance rushed for 1,100 yards and 14 touchdowns. Last year as a rookie, in his only two starts, he rushed for 120 yards on 24 carries. It’s a small sample but that extrapolates to over 1,000 rushing yards in a 17-game season, something that has only been done a few times in the history of the NFL. The most encouraging aspect is the 12 carries per game. This shows that Kyle Shanahan is designing the offense around Lance’s strengths as a runner which we should expect to continue in 2022.
2022 Trey Lance could be 2021 Jalen Hurts except with:
• Stronger arm
• Better weapons
• Better playcallerIf he's going around the same ADP as 2021 Jalen Hurts, I'm gonna have a ton of Lance in 2022
— ✴️Rob Norton✴️ (@norton0723) February 8, 2022
The San Francisco 49ers named Lance the starter heading into 2022. Kyle Shanahan is one of the best offensive minds in the NFL. The 49ers also have an incredible set of weapons around Lance that should be able to insulate some of his passing inefficiencies. Since they throw the ball at or behind the line of scrimmage more often than any team in the NFL, it can hide some of those weaknesses by getting the ball into the hands of Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, Brandon Aiyuk, and company as quick as possible. Lance is currently going off the board as the 13th quarterback and 101st player overall. With his ability as a rusher, the weapons he has, and the scheme he plays in, it seems like he’s being drafted at his absolute floor. Like Hurts, Lance has the upside to finish as a top-five fantasy quarterback and even a QB1 finish wouldn’t be a total shock. I’d much rather draft Lance over guys like Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford, Devin Singletary, or Dawson Knox.
