The 2022 fantasy football season is truly underway as drafts fire off across the nation, meaning now is the time to dive into Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson’s ADP to determine whether or not fantasy managers are receiving a value in their fantasy drafts. One of the more consistent fantasy players since joining the league, can Wilson take that same consistency and add legitimate top-tier upside now in his new offense full of playmakers?
Russell Wilson ADP | Is he worth his current price in fantasy drafts?
As we draw closer to prime fantasy draft season, Wilson currently has an ADP of 74, coming off the board as the QB9. In PFN’s 2022 fantasy football redraft rankings, Wilson is currently the QB7 as the 81st player overall, but be sure to check back as rankings will fluctuate between now and the start of the season.
As a whole, I wait on quarterbacks. That’s why you tend to see QB rankings coming in a bit behind ADP. In a typical 10- to 12-person league, you can wait to be one of the last people to select a quarterback and end up with someone like Wilson, making it worth waiting as long as you can stay within a tier that is comfortable for you.
Wilson is going in a part of the draft filled with talent, making it difficult at times to take the leap, but it depends on your roster construction. That’s right where Michael Thomas, Jerry Jeudy, Gabriel Davis, Rashod Bateman, Elijah Moore, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Tony Pollard are being selected.
For me, I have no issue with Wilson as the QB9. While I don’t personally want to take Wilson as early as his ADP indicates, the draft, more times than not, will tell you when you need to make a move.
If your league is waiting on QBs, you can as well. Stack up on talent at other positions, then revisit quarterback and still end up with a top-10 weekly option. But if they get trigger-happy, and you don’t want to end up with Kirk Cousins or worse as your best available option, then selecting Wilson is a solid move.
Russell Wilson’s projected fantasy value in 2022
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more consistent quarterback for fantasy purposes since Wilson joined the NFL out of Wisconsin. After finishing as a top-10 QB every year since 2013 while averaging 23.58 fantasy points, Wilson is the QB19 overall this season and the QB13 in per-game scoring (17.2).
Coming off back-to-back seasons of 4,000+ passing yards, Wilson had just 2,875 yards in 2021. His completion percentage dropped to 65.2% (his lowest since 2017), had 22 touchdowns (a five-year low), and just 178 rushing yards, setting a new career-worst and 335 yards less than the season prior.
Normally, you would be concerned that a player is falling off a cliff. That’s not the case for Wilson. He sustained a “mallet finger” injury in Week 5 and missed the next three weeks. Even he admitted he came back too soon, and it showed in his play.
Wilson failed to throw for over 260 yards from Week 3 through the end of the year. Between Weeks 10 and 18, he averaged just 213 yards and 1.7 TDs a game. The only finger with more scrutiny surrounding it belonged to Urban Meyer for drastically different reasons.
I expect a massive bounceback for Wilson in 2022. For one, he is out of the conservative nature and philosophy of Pete Carroll and now has an offense built around him by Nathaniel Hackett. It’s worth remembering that Wilson had his solid season despite the Seahawks calling a run on 52.5% of snaps the last three seasons, the fourth-highest rate in the league.
Denver boasts a far superior offensive line, the best defense he has had since the Legion of Boom era, and a dynamic one-two punch at running back. While I will not call Courtland Sutton and jerry Jeudy better than DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, the group of pass catchers is vastly deeper, including KJ Hamler, Albert Okwuegbunam, Seth Williams, and Greg Dulcich.
Wilson is a field general and should shock no one if he is in the middle of the MVP race while having a career-best season and tops his 4,212-yard 2020 campaign. Denver was just a QB away from competing last year. You will not be saying the same about your roster if Wilson is on it for fantasy in 2022.