Our Detroit Lions 2022 Fantasy Preview gives you the run down on the teams outlook going into the season. The team weren’t good last year, but they weren’t an absolute dumpster fire. Infact, they could have picked up six games if they’d scored an extra TD in those games.
The team have chosen to bring back the head coach Dan Campbell for another season, with good reason, but Anthony Lynn has been replaced by Ben Johnson who was the TE coach for the team.
Notable Offseason Moves
Additions
- D.J. Chark (WR)
Departures
Positional Previews
Notable Players- Jared Goff
Goff might not be the solution. Ok he isn’t the solution, but he isn’t a huge part of the problem. Goff has shown his ability to lead an offense and support it’s pieces for fantasy relevancy. The thing with Goff is that he is going to be a starter for the full season, so he is worth considering later in 2QB leagues, but not much outside that.
Isn’t even likely to be worth streaming, outside the most desperate of circumstances.
Notable Players- D’Andre Swift, Jamaal Williams & Craig Reynolds
This backfield is nicely structured, at least for fantasy football. You have the guy that is getting the majority of the touches out of the backfield who is dynamic and young. Then you have a veteran pass-catcher, then a young upstart.
Swift is set to get the majority of the touches out of the backfield for good reason. The Lions offense should be able to take a step forward with the receiving talent that the team has added, which will free the field for Swift. His involvement in the passing game means his ceiling is at the top of RB1 scoring. If the offense has more scoring opportunities, he could do even better.
Williams is likely to continue his role as the rotational back used by the team. Unless you are in a deep PPR league, he doesn’t have much value, but if Swift were to miss time as he has previously, then Williams becomes a big asset. Worth a late-round selection if you are in need of RB depth.
Reynolds on the other hand is not really worth picking up, unless Swift were forced to miss time and Williams was banged up a bit. Otherwise there isn’t enough of a workload here.
Notable Players- Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, D.J. Chark & Josh Reynolds
I’m going to say it. St. Brown is going to be overdrafted. The normal tell-tale signs are there. Good end to the season, helped people with a playoff push, and was probably picked up from waivers, or a late-round selection.
But let’s look at the facts, the Detroit offense isn’t great, which means limited scoring opportunities. The team added Chark in the offseason, who is likely targets and defensive co-ordinators are going to be trying to limit his effectiveness with added tape to study. As a result, I don’t feel like he is likely to overachieve his ADP, and he doesn’t have the ceiling I’d want to deal with that risk.
Jameson Williams comes into the NFL with a good pedigree during the draft. He isn’t worth considering in drafts just yet though, as he is likely to miss some time at the start of the season as he recovers from injury. When he does become available, he should pick up the deep-threat role in the offense. The question will be what that will mean for fantasy. Some boom games yes, but will the team look to use him in different ways (which would help deal with his floor).
Chark will be the lead receiver on the outside for the offense, at least until Jameson Williams becomes available. After suffering an injury last season. On the face of it, Chark’s downfield ability doesn’t seem to be an exact match for Goff’s playstyle, but he managed last season in a similar situation. Hard to consider him as more than a WR5/ 6.
Josh Reynolds is an interesting prospect too, after reuniting with Goff in Detroit. Reynolds has the ability to make plays, and was called upon at the end of the season, with a streak of performances. But throughout his career, he has only managed to be a backup. With the talent on the roster, it’s the same here.
Notable Players- T.J. Hockenson
Hockenson enters his fourth season in the league, with a role that has become firmly cemented. The good thing for fantasy owners is that Hockenson is so important to the team that he is on field. The bad news is that he can block, so doesn’t have that high target count that you could like.
Even Rob Gronkowski had more targets (89) than Hockenson (84) in the same number of games. For me, Hockenson falls in the meh group of TEs that you can draft and feel ok about it. But, in this offense you don’t really have alot of ceiling with the selection.
Strength of Schedule
Check out the rest of the draft kit. And, as always, if you want something more specific to your league- reach out! You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Image Credit: Raj Mehta – USA TODAY Sports
