Fantasy Football: 25 WR Statistics from the 2022 Season

Another fantasy football season is behind us. Now is the time of the year to reflect on the season and dig into last year’s stats and trends. The Ballers are putting out their invaluable TRUTH episodes, and we writers will be pumping out the 25 Statistics series of articles for every fantasy position. As Borg has pointed out in the QB and RB versions, this article series has been around for seven years. This is my fourth consecutive season covering the WRs, which I feel gives me some type of small clout in the subject matter.

In this article, I’ll cover the most impressive, surprising, or just interesting WR stats from the season. From targets to touchdowns to yards per route run and everything in between, here are 25 WR stats that stand out from the 2022 season.

Note: All scoring is ½ PPR scoring per the Ballers Consistency Charts found at JointheFoot.com.

1. As usual, let’s start at the tippy top. Justin Jefferson led all wideouts in multiple WR stats, including targets (184), receptions (128), receiving yards (1,809), yards after catch (624), and most importantly, fantasy points (304.7). However, his 17.9 fantasy points per game were only good enough for second place.

2. It was Cooper Kupp who led all WRs with 18.2 fantasy points per game. Of course, he suffered an ankle injury in Week 10 and the Rams’ abysmal season gave them no reason to put him back on the field in 2022. He still finished as the WR24 overall despite playing in just nine games. Oh, what could have been if he had avoided injury?

3. Back to Jefferson, who has been targeted a record 476 times over his first three NFL seasons, smashing the previous record of 457 held by both AJ Green and Odell Beckham Jr. Jefferson got there in 50 games, while Green played 47 and OBJ just 43.

For everything else target-related, make sure to check out my 2022 Full Season Target Report.

4. Jefferson’s 1,809 receiving yards were the sixth most all-time and just 138 yards fewer than Cooper Kupp had last season. He had three monster games with 180+ receiving yards but was also held under 50 receiving yards seven times. He completely disappeared with 15 or fewer receiving yards twice, including in Week 17.

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5. We’re witnessing a golden age of alpha WRs. Six of the top ten all-time individual reception seasons have come over the past five seasons. Jefferson’s 128 catches put him at number seven on the list.

6. For the fourth straight season, the WR1 topped 300 fantasy points. It’s a benchmark that’s only been topped eight times over the last decade. Five of those occurrences have come over the past four seasons. The other three came from Antonio Brown (twice) and Julio Jones. If we lower the benchmark to 285 fantasy points, only four more players join the list, and two happened in 2022. (Tyreek Hill and Davante Adams)

7. Davante Adams led the league with 14 receiving touchdowns, the second-highest total of his career and the sixth time in the last seven seasons that he’s found the end zone double-digit times. A.J. Brown (11) and Stefon Diggs (11) were the only other wide receivers to log double-digit touchdowns in 2022, though tight ends Travis Kelce (12) and George Kittle (11) also accomplished the feat.

8. Taking his talents to South Beach didn’t slow down Tyreek Hill. He led all receivers with 3.20 yards per route run. For reference, Cooper Kupp averaged 3.12 yards per route run during his insane 2021 season. Prior to Kupp, the last player to top 3.0 yards per route run was Julio Jones, who did it for three consecutive seasons from 2015-2017!

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9. Hill’s teammate Jaylen Waddle led all qualified WRs with 18.1 yards per reception. That’s a massive increase from the 9.8 yards per reception he posted as a rookie last season. He had 29 fewer receptions this season, but he turned them into 341 more receiving yards than he had in 2021.

10. Hill and Waddle were among the best WR teammate combos of all time in 2022. Each racked up 1,300+ receiving yards, 8+ total TDs, and 220+ fantasy points, making them both top-seven fantasy WRs. They fell just 108 yards short of the record 3,174 combined receiving yards in a season set by Herman Moore and Brett Perriman in 1995.  

11. Mike Evans infamously had the best WR single-game fantasy performance of the season when he erupted for 43.7 points in Week 17. It came after he totaled just 41.5 fantasy points in his previous six games combined.

Cooper Neill/Getty Images

12. Evans was the only WR to put up more than 40 fantasy points in a single week. Davante Adams topped 30 fantasy points three times and narrowly missed a fourth when he put up 29.6 points in Week 11. Justin Jefferson was the only other WR to top 30 fantasy points multiple times, while ten others did it once.

13. Ja’Marr Chase has finished as a WR1 in each of his first two seasons. He barely made it in 2022, finishing as the WR12 on the season just ahead of Tyler Lockett. Chase, however, did it in just 12 games. He would have finished significantly higher if he hadn’t missed four games in the middle of the season with a hairline fracture in his hip.

14. Chris Godwin was the WR screen king. He led the position with 34 receptions on 36 screen targets for 227 yards, 22% of his total receiving yards. He set career-highs with 142 targets and 104 receptions, but his 1,023 receiving yards were just the third-highest of his career. He had an aDOT of 9.8 yards, the lowest of his career by 1.5 yards.

15. Deebo Samuel once again led all WRs in rushing yards. He rushed for 232 yards on the season, just 45 more than Curtis Samuel. Velus Jones Jr. was the only other WR to top 100 rushing yards in 2022.

16. Deebo also led all WRs in YAC per reception for the third consecutive season. His 8.8 YAC per reception is significantly lower than his 12.1 in 2020, but it was still well ahead of Rondale Moore’s 6.9, the next highest by a WR in 2022.  

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17. Speaking of Arizona slot wideouts, according to NextGen Stats, Greg Dortch led all WRs with an average of 4.2 yards of separation. Teammate Rondale Moore was second, with an average separation of 3.8 yards. They also ranked 100th and 102nd of 102 qualified WRs in aDOT, with Moore at 5.2 yards and Dortch at 4.6 yards.

18. Tutu Atwell led the league in aDOT at 17.9 yards. If we raise the threshold to 50+ targets, the aDOT leader was Gabriel Davis at 16.8 yards. DeVante Parker also had a 16.8 aDOT, though on just 47 targets.

19. Davis also had the longest catch of the season, his 98-yard bomb score early in Week 5. It helped propel him to the WR1 of the week.

GABE DAVIS 98 YARD TD 🤯🤯
pic.twitter.com/eBjxSU02yY

— PFF (@PFF) October 9, 2022

20. Tyreek Hill and Davante Adams tied for the lead in 20+ yard targets (38). Hill hauled in 19 of them, while Adams only brought in 15. However, Adams turned them into nine touchdowns, while Hill only had five.

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21. Rookie Rashid Shaheed led the NFL with a ridiculous 14.3 yards per target, though that came on just 34 targets. If we again raise the threshold to 50 targets, Jaylen Waddle takes the lead at 11.6 yards per target. Again, an impressive turnaround compared to the 7.3 yards per target he averaged as a rookie last season.

22. Diontae Johnson had a historic season, but not in a good way. He caught 86 of 147 targets for 882 yards and ZERO touchdowns. He was the eighth most targeted player in the league but only finished as the WR41 on the season. He blew away the record for most targets without a touchdown, 38 more than Chicago wideout Michael Timpson in 1996. He also set the record for most scoreless receptions, one more than James Wilder, who caught 85 balls as a running back for the Buccaneers in 1984. Two WRs saw more scoreless receiving yards in a season, Al Toon in 1991 (963) and Hakeem Nicks in 2013 (896).

23. Parris Campbell, aka “The Awful Tower,” led the league with 521 snaps from the slot. They led to a career year for Campbell, as he finished as a WR1 in three different weeks. Unfortunately, he had 11 finishes outside the top 40 and finished as the WR48 on the season, despite playing in all 17 games for the first time in his four-year career.

24. CeeDee Lamb was the most productive WR from the slot, racking up a league-high 867 of his 1,359 receiving yards from that alignment. He set new career highs in nearly every statistical category on his way to finishing as the WR6 on the season.

25. Justin Jefferson was the most efficient from the slot, averaging a league-high 16.1 yards per reception when aligned there. Yet another feather in the cap of his WR1 season in 2022.

Bonus #FootClan WR Stats

• For the first time since I’ve been writing this article, no WR had exactly 55(!) receptions
• Equanimeous St. Brown and Van Jefferson each had a 55(!)% catch rate.
• Amari Cooper, Mike Williams, Darius Slayton, KJ Hamler, and Sammy Watkins all had a 55(!) yard catch in 2022.