Welcome back!
We’re back at it, folks. The season is creeping ever closer, and I am so excited to be back where I love to be, writing about fantasy football. Life got a bit crazy these last six months, but I am ready to get back to what I love to do, and hopefully, the community is willing to welcome me in!
Let me quickly introduce myself. My name is Steve, and I am a nurse during the day and a fantasy football fanatic during the…well… all the time, honestly. I am lucky enough to have made some friends in this community, and that has led me here to Club Fantasy and given me a chance to interact with more people and hopefully form some sort of bond with anyone reading these articles.
This article isn’t about me, though. It’s about fantasy football. It’s about your strategy, and it’s about getting you WINS! Last season I am sure some of you suffered devastating losses and injuries to key players that absolutely tanked your season. Maybe you drafted a guy who ended up being an absolute bust (hello, Trey Sermon), maybe you got bit by a nasty injury bug (Derrick Henry was a tough loss). Neither of these names will appear on this list, mainly because Henry was a force for most of the year and finished pretty well even with the injury, and Trey Sermon just seems like a lost cause already.
That’s enough of me talking. Let’s get to the reason you clicked on this article in the first place, the rankings! Below I will be giving you three players I fully expect to bounce back and my (way too early) projections for their upcoming season.
Give them another chance!
Christian McCaffery
2021 stats- 99 att, 442 yds, 1 TD, 37 rec, 343 yds, 1 TD
CMC had a down year, mainly because he couldn’t stay on the field. The concerning thing about him is that “if he’d been healthy” is becoming the tagline of his career. However, another offseason to heal, train, and hopefully a better game plan will lead CMC back to the RB1 conversation.
The offseason addition of D’Onta Foreman only improves CMC for me. Without the need to handle every single snap, it will allow him to take the much-needed breaks to stay healthy. That, paired with the rumor of him being used as a slot WR this season more often, could mean a reverse Deebo Samuel kind of role for our guy Christian. Look for him to be the guy you want to take in the early first round again, and a top-5 finish is more than likely for CMC.
2022 Projection- 225 att, 1088 yds, 11 TD, 75 rec, 786 yds, 5 TD
Miles Sanders
2021 stats- 137 att, 754 yds, 0 TD, 26 rec, 158 yds, 0 TD
Miles Sanders might have been the unluckiest player I have ever seen in terms of fantasy scoring. I mean, look at the stats, zero touchdowns. ZERO! I mean, you’d think by some dumb luck, he would have tripped and fallen into the endzone once. Yet, here we are, with a guy with great talent being looked at as a bust because his QB called his own number a bit too much last season.
You hear the term “touchdown regression” a lot. Well, this is coming for Miles Sanders, just in the opposite way. There is no way a starting running back on a run-heavy offense doesn’t score a touchdown again. The knock on him that I will say is real, much like CMC, is health.
Miles Sanders has got to stay healthy. An ankle injury took him out for a lot of the year, and he is really at risk of losing his job because of his inability to stay on the field. However, Sanders has come out and said that he is “taking this year more personally,” so hopefully, we will see the total package that Miles has to offer.
2022 projection- 202 att, 1023 yds, 5 TD, 45 rec, 366 yds, 2 TD
Kareem Hunt
2021 stats- 78 att, 386 yds, 5 TD, 22 rec, 174 yds, 0 TD
Kareem Hunt is maybe the most frustrating backup/1B in the league. A guy who is 100% good enough to be a bell-cow back, yet we have to deal with him and Nick Chubb clogging up a backfield. It’s awful, and I hate it, but that is not the point of this article, so I will move on.
Hunt has already received one of the most significant upgrades of the offseason when Deshaun Watson was traded to Cleveland. Morally, this is a rough backfield, but talent-wise it is one of the best in the NFL. At the end of the day, Watson can put up numbers, and so can Hunt. We don’t get fantasy points for character, so draft Hunt if you can stomach it.
A great receiver with a weak WR group around him right now, Hunt should be in line for an uptick in targets, and the quality of his touches goes way up from when Baker is under center. The big fear for Hunt is both his health and the legal troubles of Watson. Should Watson be suspended for the year or any amount of time, Hunt takes a hit. Don’t burn a 5th rounder on him, but keep an open mind when considering that WR3 vs. Hunt. I don’t expect RB1 numbers out of him, he doesn’t touch the ball enough, but he could be a solid flex play!
2022 projection- 185 att, 888 yds, 5 TD, 40 rec, 368 yds, 4 TD
So that is the list. Writing these up for you folks is nothing but fun, and I truly hope you find these articles to be helpful and, most of all, enjoyable. I cannot predict the future, but I believe in what the numbers and the eye test show me. That is what fantasy football is all about!
This is my first article here at Club Fantasy, and it is already so much fun to be a part of this team! So, for the first time of hopefully many more, have a great day, week, month, or however long it is before we see you on here again! Remember, it’s never goodbye. It’s just ’til next time.