2022 Late Round Wide Receivers

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Draft season is arguably the most important time of the year for fantasy sports. Barring waivers and trades, this is the only chance you get to assemble your team. While the first handful of rounds are the most important, the later rounds are where you can find hidden gems. Hitting on just a couple guys late can be the difference between a championship and being out of the playoffs. Here are a few of my favorite late round receivers to target this year.

Nico Collins – WR – Houston Texans

Collins is coming into his second season and appears to be in a great position to break out in a major way. Collins is a 6-4 body for second-year quarterback David Mills to throw to. Not only is he tall, but he is quite the athlete. He had a 90th percentile speed score, aided by his 4.45 40 yard dash at his pro day. He is in the 97th percentile for arm length with a 95th percentile catch radius, so Mills has a lot of room to work with when targeting Collins. In his rookie campaign, he ranked 45th in ADOT and 35th in yards per reception, which should only increase with Mills becoming more comfortable in his second year (PlayerProfiler.com).

Collins’ situation is about as ideal as one could ask for when looking for a big season. Houston will not be good this year, meaning they will be in negative game scripts more often than not. They should also feel more comfortable letting Mills throw the ball more than in his rookie season. I wouldn’t be surprised if they finish top 10 in the league in pass attempts.

The pass catchers he is competing with are mundane, to say the least. Outside of Brandin Cooks (who I like a good bit), the Texans don’t have proven weapons in the pass game. John Metchie would have competed for the WR2 role, but he will miss the season after being diagnosed with leukemia. That leaves Chris Conley, Chris Moore, and Phillip Dorsett as the competition for the WR2 spot. In other words, Collins has no competition for playing time.

The running back room also doesn’t feature any prominent pass catchers. Rookie phenom Dameon Pierce had a total of 45 receptions in his four year college career. Rex Burkhead and Marlon Mack have career high reception totals of 30 and 21. On top of that, tight end Brevin Jordan is the starter and he had just 20 receptions last season. All this to say, Collins has little standing in his way of being the clear second option on this team.

Just for theoretical fun, let’s say Mills has a nice, round 600 pass attempts. If Collins garners a 20-percent target share, which shouldn’t be all too difficult, that would be 120 targets. Assuming he increases his catch percentage from 55 to even 60-percent, that would amount to 72 receptions. Let’s say his yards per reception rate and touchdown rate (which was quite low) stay in the same range. He would finish somewhere around 970 yards and four touchdowns. With a stat line of 72 receptions, 970 yards, and four touchdowns, Collins would have been the WR29 last season. I’m not projecting him to necessarily be a weekly WR3, but he should easily beat his current WR63 ranking on FantasyPros. He has weekly flex appeal with upside and he is going inside the top 200 picks. He is my favorite of the late round receivers and I will have him in every league I can.

Wan’Dale Robinson – WR – New York Giants

The things that pop out for Wan’Dale are what occurred before he even stepped foot on an NFL field. He garnered a 99th-percentile target share in college and accounted for 43 percent of Kentucky’s total receptions last season. Now, I know what you’re thinking, he didn’t play for a team with other top talents. Don’t worry, I’m getting to that.

I took every receiver that was taken in the first two rounds of this year’s draft (that didn’t have another receiver on his team drafted, for fairness) and compared their reception shares. The list included Jahan Dotson, Treylon Burks, Christian Watson, Tyquan Thornton, Alec Pierce, and Skyy Moore. I omitted Drake London and George Pickens due to injury. Not a single player on that list saw a reception share over 33 percent. That means that Robinson had at least 10 percent more of his team’s receptions than every player on that list.

Kentucky clearly had a plan for him, which was to get the ball and his hands and let him work. In his lone preseason appearance, that appears to be the same strategy the Giants plan to employ. They played their starters for three drives against the Bengals, and Robinson had a reception on all three drives. While his total yardage may not be anything jaw dropping, if he can catch a handful of passes a game, he doesn’t need high yardage to be a weekly flex play. If he averages 4-5 catches and 30-40 yards a week, with 5 touchdowns, that gives him a total that would have been good enough for WR38 last season. His upside is exactly what to look for in late round receivers. He may be a bit of a roller coaster from week to week, but I’m willing to take the shot on him at the very end of my drafts.

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KJ Hamler – WR – Denver Broncos

KJ Hamler’s success this season will be heavily dependent on his health. After tearing his ACL early last season, he has spent the past year getting healthy. After being taken off PUP list on the first of August, Hamler has been working on making his return. Luckily for him, nobody behind him on the depth chart showed a lot of promise in the Broncos’ first two preseason games. The WR3 spot, which was going to belong to Tim Patrick before he went down with a season ending ACL tear of his own, is likely Hamler’s as soon as he is ready to go. What makes him an interesting late round target is how his game could fit with the new sheriff in town.

Russell Wilson has lived on throwing the ball deep. In the past four seasons, he has finished no lower than seventh in average depth of target. More so, he was the leader in that category last season. That bodes very well for Hamler, as his yards per reception last season (granted, on a very small sample size), was very high. Had he gotten enough receptions to qualify last season, he would have ranked 16th in the category. His speed is what really allows him to do well on deep routes. He ran a 99th-percentile 40 yard dash at the combine (4.32 seconds), which earned him a comparison to DeSean Jackson on PlayerProfiler.

As a guy who will certainly see the field in a high-powered offense, Hamler is worth a late round pick in my book. If you don’t think he is worth a draft pick, you will likely be able to get him off of waivers. He is currently going as the WR77 in drafts, outside of the top 200 picks. If one of the receivers above him goes down, Hamler could be a steal and easily one of the best late round receivers.

I am likely going running back heavy in the early portion of my drafts, largely due to the amount of depth there is at the wide receiver position. It makes it that much easier to do so when I know guys like this are basically free in most leagues. I would be lying if I didn’t think one would end up as a WR3 when all is said and done. So load up on running backs early and grab one (or two or three) of these guys late to supplement your wide receiver depth.