Each week in Cutting Through the Noise, we will take an objective look at one of the most polarizing players in Dynasty Fantasy Football as decided by the Footballguys Dynasty Discord. We will use the Footballguys consensus rankings to gauge where the player is currently valued.
| Overall | Player | PosRank | Team | Overall | Player | PosRank | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | Deebo Samuel | WR15 | SF | 31 | Garrett Wilson | WR16 | NYJ |
| 27 | Travis Kelce | TE2 | KC | 32 | Dalvin Cook | RB10 | Min |
| 28 | Nick Chubb | RB8 | Cle | 33 | Michael Pittman | WR17 | Ind |
| 29 | Josh Jacobs | RB9 | LV | 34 | Rhamondre Stevenson | RB11 | NE |
| 30 | Drake London | WR15 | Atl |
Garrett Wilson
WR16 and Overall No. 31
Garrett Wilson started the year as the top rookie wide receiver. He’s now the third of the group. Did he deserve to fall off?
In 2019 Wilson kicked off his college career with the Ohio State Buckeyes. He joined fellow 2022 Offensive Rookie of the Year candidate Chris Olave, who was in his second year. They both benefited from excellent quarterback play from Justin Fields in the 2019 and 2020 seasons. Wilson got off to a promising start as a true freshman catching 30 passes for 432 yards and five touchdowns.
In year two, he took over as one of Fields’ top receivers. In just eight games, he caught 43 passes for 723 yards and 6 touchdowns. Year three is when he took his most significant career leap as a junior Wilson put together one of the best seasons in Buckeyes history. He caught 70 passes for 1,054 yards and 12 touchdowns. His incredible season landed him first-team All-American honors alongside Olave. The two became the first pair of Ohio State receivers to receive such nominations in the same season.
Entering the 2022 draft, Wilson was just one of many promising wide receiver prospects. There were six drafted in the top 32 picks alone. Wilson was selected 10th overall, sandwiched between Drake London and his former running mate Olave. In dynasty, there were upward of eight wide receivers being selected in the first round, but Wilson was typically the first off the board.
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The Good
By Week 17, Wilson has already hit every mark we could ask for. He’s on pace for over 1,000 yards. He’s been targeted over 100 times. He scored four touchdowns. There aren’t many holes to poke in his box score production.
On the season he ranks 16th in team target market share. He ranks 14th in total air yards. We can truly go on and on about Wilson’s impressive start to his career. What we miss here is the context of his season.
Zach Wilson started the season on the PUP list due to a preseason injury. In his first three games with Joe Flacco, Wilson was among the top five wide receivers in target market share. In the next seven games with Zach Wilson, he averaged less than half the targets he had seen with Flacco. Zach Wilson was eventually benched in favor of Mike White.
With White at the helm, Wilson’s targets immediately returned to their early season glory. He was targeted 30 times in White’s three starts. White suffered a significant rib injury, and back came Zach Wilson. He must have gotten the memo because he targeted Garrett Wilson nine times in each of his last two starts, but the two only connected eight total times.
It appears we’ve got a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation when Zach Wilson is under center versus anyone else. Garrett Wilson has overcome the hardship experienced with the Jets quarterbacks, but now comes the bad part.
The Bad
There aren’t many negatives to tag Wilson with. His catch rate seems disappointing, but only 77 of his 119 targets have been catchable. The real negative revolves around the future of the quarterback position for the Jets. We’ve already established that Wilson is phenomenal when playing with any quarterback other than Zach Wilson. Unfortunately, Zach Wilson was just selected second overall last season.
We’ve seen teams move on from first-round quarterbacks quickly, but they aren’t typically top-three picks. Robert Saleh already went away from Zach Wilson and was forced to bring him back once White was injured. He played miserably and was eventually benched for Chris Streveler. White is back in the fold, and we’re left wondering if the Zach Wilson saga is finally over.
If we believe it is, we need to be trading for Garrett Wilson. If it isn’t, we’re in for more growing pains.
Conclusion
We’re in truly uncharted territory with Zach Wilson. The last second-overall pick removed from the starting lineup during their rookie contract was Mitchell Trubisky, but he had far more success in his early career. We saw the Cardinals pull the trigger on Kyler Murray while moving on from Josh Rosen after one season, but that was a new coaching staff, and it was not as high of a pick.
The fact that so much of Garrett Wilson’s profile is predicated around the status of Zach Wilson is equal parts promising and troubling. The answer is simple, but the question is not so easy to wrap our heads around. After all, we’ve seen plenty of elite receivers produce below-average quarterback play. In this situation, we aren’t so much questioning Garrett Wilson’s ability to produce with Zach Wilson as much as we question his ability to receive catchable targets.
In the end, Garrett Wilson’s rookie season points to elite production going forward. He’s shown everything we want to see from a perennial top-12 receiver. In short, “he is who we thought he was.” The only thing capping his ceiling is Zach Wilson’s inability to figure things out. Given his frustrating Week 16 performance which resulted in his second benching of the season, Saleh may have no choice but to jump ship on his 2021 second-overall pick. We’ve got similar questions for both London and Olave, yet they’re both more difficult to trade for at present. Wilson started the year as my top rookie receiver, and he’s finishing the year as my favorite trade target.