It’s that time of year once again! Football Absurdity will bring you a breakdown of every notable fantasy football-relevant player throughout June, July, and August. We continue with the wide receivers. Today, we take a look at a wide receiver that everyone wishcasted into being a top-ten wide receiver literally for years, though it never manifested. Now, he’s in football Siberia (or whatever the opposite of football Siberia is, football The Literal Sun?) in Cleveland trying to find out if he will have Deshaun Watson, Jacoby Brissett (or Jimmy Garoppolo) as his quarterback in 2022. What should we be doing with Amari Cooper in our 2022 fantasy football leagues? Let’s take a look!
Amari Cooper ADP and AAV:
Average Draft Position: WR23, 60 overall
Average Auction Value: $8.6
Amari Cooper Statistics:
| Year | G | GS | Tgt | Rec | Yards | TD | Tgt/G | Rec/G | Rec% | Yds/Tgt | Yds/Rec |
| 2021 | 15 | 14 | 104 | 68 | 865 | 8 | 7.43 | 4.53 | 65.4% | 8.32 | 12.72 |
| 2020 | 16 | 15 | 130 | 92 | 1114 | 5 | 8.67 | 5.75 | 70.8% | 8.57 | 12.11 |
| 2019 | 16 | 16 | 119 | 79 | 1189 | 8 | 7.44 | 4.94 | 66.4% | 9.99 | 15.05 |
| Year | Std Pts | HPPR Pts | PPR Pts | Pts/G | HPPR Pts/G | PPR Pts/G | Pts/Tgt | HPPR Pts/Tgt | PPR Pts/Tgt |
| 2021 | 134.5 | 168.5 | 202.5 | 9.0 | 11.2 | 13.5 | 1.29 | 1.62 | 1.95 |
| 2020 | 144.8 | 190.8 | 236.8 | 9.1 | 11.9 | 14.8 | 1.11 | 1.47 | 1.82 |
| 2019 | 167.5 | 207.0 | 246.5 | 10.5 | 12.9 | 15.4 | 1.41 | 1.74 | 2.07 |
| Year | Air Yards | aDOT | YAC | YAC/Tgt | YAC/Rec | AYMS | Tgt MS |
| 2021 | 1145 | 11.1 | 235 | 2.28 | 3.46 | 26% | 18% |
| 2020 | 1137 | 8.8 | 421 | 3.24 | 4.58 | 26% | 21% |
| 2019 | 1485 | 12.5 | 278 | 2.34 | 3.52 | 26% | 20% |
2022 Amari Cooper Fantasy Football Overview:
Close your eyes and guess how many times Amari Cooper has been a top-fifteen wide receiver in his career. After all, he’s always ranked inside the top-fifteen at the position, year after year. The answer? Once. Back in 2019. Since then, on a per-game basis, he’s been WR20. He’s still a fine player, and not anybody you should look down your nose at from a talent standpoint. But to be honest, what has he done from a production standpoint? He’s a boom-bust receiver who has enough massive games to get us all hot-and-bothered to make us forget his bust games.
But, his boom games are getting fewer and further between. Since 2019, he has ten games as a top-12 WR, and just five as a top-five receiver. In that same timeframe, he had 10 games as a WR2, and 9 games as a WR3, and eighteen games outside the top-36 at the position. In 2021, he had four games in the top-24, and eight outside the top-36. So, he was a wide receiver you wanted to play half as many times as one where you actively did not want to put him in your lineups.
Yet, we give him a pass for that. Because, after all, [insert whatever excuse is made for Amari Cooper this time]. Now, he’s off in Cleveland, where he will have arguably, at best, a lateral move at quarterback, if Deshaun Watson doesn’t miss any time (he will). Cooper also carries the risk of being the WR1 for Jacoby Brissett, who threw to Zach Pascal 72 times for 41 catches and 607 yards the last time he had the reins of a football team. I don’t want that kind of upside on my roster, not from Amari Cooper, whose fantasy value is increasingly predicated on boom games, which will be harder to find if and when Brissett is the starting quarterback.
2022 Amari Cooper Fantasy Football Draft Strategy:
Amari Cooper Salary Cap Value: $8
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet!
Amari Cooper is wildly overdrafted right now, as he is currently the WR23 by ADP (pick 60 overall) for a team that doesn’t know who their quarterback will be in an offense that wants to run the football as much as humanly possible. His draft price doesn’t make any more sense in salary cap drafts, where he’s going for $8.6, ahead of Courtland Sutton ($6.6) and Mike Williams ($5.7). There’s not really any reason for this to be happening. I don’t know what else to say except: don’t do it.
Best Case Scenario:
Deshaun Watson plays a full seventeen games and Amari Cooper is WR20.
Worst Case Scenario:
Deshaun Watson misses the entire year and Amari Cooper is WR20 in the AFC North.
Check out all our 2022 player profiles, here.
If you would like our $7 Draft Kit, then follow this link!
Want more 2022 fantasy football draft discussion? Check out these links!
Discord!
Podcast!
Patreon!
Twitch!
[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com, airyards.com, and ftnfantasy.com]
