2022 Fantasy Wide Receiver Sleeper Part 2
Written by: Jon Gerstenberger
I understand why Marvin Jones is being faded – everyone on the planet is trying to black out the atrocity of a season that 2021 was for the Jacksonville Jaguars. But I ask you, despite the pain and discomfort you may experience, please take this walk into the past with me.
Despite everything happening with the “head coach”, the rookie quarterback, and the general chaos around the team, Marvin Jones finished as the WR34 in PPR in 2021. On 120 targets, that sounds bad, and I’d agree – but that is, quite literally, the worst it could have been.
But the Jaguars added Christian Kirk and Zay Jones, plus retained Laviska Shenault and Laquon Treadwell. How does it improve for Marvin Jones?
The playing time and target cuts won’t be happening to Marvin Jones, but to the other two receiver holdovers from 2021. Shenault has already been seen doing punt and kick returns, and it is almost a guarantee he will not be getting 100+ targets again in 2022, and Laquon Treadwell doesn’t demand targets in a way that would affect the teams WR2 in Jones. In seasons where Treadwell has played more than 12 games, he averaged 39 targets.
For arguments sake, let’s say Christian Kirk comes into Jacksonville and is their true WR1, and gets 135 targets, 150% of what he averaged in Arizona. Let’s also say Zay Jones gets the average targets he’s seen in his career, 52 - 84% of those new targets would already be covered just based on what was vacated from 2021.
Basically, there’s a chance absolutely nothing changes about Marvin Jones target share, but he will be seeing lighter coverage with the improved pass attack, and if you believe in Trevor Lawrence at all, he will throw more than 12 touchdowns in 2022, so Marvin Jones could see a big bump to his four touchdowns from 2021.
And we didn’t even mention all the changes – new head coach, offensive coordinator, quarterback coach, running back (Etienne returning from injury), tight end, the two receivers we just mentioned, center and tackle.
That’s a lot of positive change, given what happened last year, but Trevor Lawrence is going to be looking for a familiar face around Duval, and that familiar face is Marvin Jones.
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