After an injury-plagued and embarrassing season on the putrid Bears offense, fantasy managers across the country have and will write off Allen Robinson for 2022. That’s foolish. Robinson signed a massive three-year, $46.5M contract with the defending champion Rams this offseason, teaming up with Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp, and Sean McVay out in LA. It’s not like he landed in their laps either. The Rams had to free up cap space and got Stafford on the recruiting trail to get Robinson to sign.
One of the greatest offensive minds in football identified Robinson as a player who could thrive and elevate the Rams’ offense. He’s now saddled up alongside the best quarterback of his career and is surrounded by the best supporting cast in his career. Now, what could that mean for Robinson’s fantasy upside?
While the Robinson signing might have been disregarded by the scorned fantasy community, it’s hard to ignore the inspiring training camp reports. His coaches, teammates, and Rams’ beat reporters are absolutely gushing over him.
“We had played him a good bit over the last few years during his prime,” Rams’ GM Les Snead said about Robinson. “But he is one of those players where you can put him in some isolated situations.
You know what, mom, dad, god just made him a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger and maybe a little bit more agile than some people. So in those one-on-one iso situations, non-schemed – ‘Hey, let’s just go make a play.’ Matthew’s one of those players that can notice that, realize that and feel comfortable trying to bring that to fruition.”
I was excited when he signed with the Rams, now I’m chomping at the bit just imagining the possibility of scooping him up in the fourth round of drafts. I will be drafting Robinson every single time he is available in the fourth round because he will be a WR1 in 2022.
PAST PRODUCTION IN WEAK OFFENSES
Since Robinson entered the NFL, he’s consistently been a top-10 fantasy receiver with this dumpster fire of quarterbacks throwing him the football:
The only time Robinson was not in a bottom-20 passing offense, he posted 80 rec for 1400 yards and 14 touchdowns — finishing WR6 in fantasy. That was in 2015 when the Jaguars were the 10th-bestoffense led by Blake Bortles (shoutout to the BOAT). If that doesn’t get your heart pumping thinking about Robinson’s ceiling in the Rams’ offense — you don’t have a pulse.
Under Sean McVay, the Rams have ranked top-five in passing three of the last four seasons. It feels like half the offensive coaches in the league are already from the McVay coaching tree and they only added Stafford last year! Stafford promptly led the Rams to a Super Bowl and had the second-most passing touchdowns in the league.
Not only is the Rams’ offense the best of Robinson’s career by a mile, but it might also be the best offense in the NFL. Outside of last season’s debacle, Robinson has proven he can survive in horrific situations. Now, he’s going to show he can go nuclear in an elite offensive scheme with a gunslinger at quarterback.
STAFFORD AND MCVAY ARE KING MAKERS
Stafford and McVay are fantasy goldmines for wide receivers.
Stafford made lemonade out of garbage in Detroit. He took guys like Golden Tate and Marvin Jones Jr. and consistently made them fantasy relevant. In 2019, Kenny Golladay was on pace to finish as the fantasy WR2 before getting injured.
He also set the world on fire with Calvin Johnson, aka MEGATRON. Shamelessly inserting some Stafford-Megatron highlights here:
Stafford and Megatron were the best jump ball combo in the NFL for the better part of a decade. I’m not saying Robinson is Megatron, but he is the best-contested catch receiver Stafford has played with since Johnson — sorry Giants fans, but Robinson is better than Golladay. Since entering the NFL in 2014, Robinson has had 71 contested catches, the most in the NFL during that time. Stafford is willing to trust his receiver to make big plays, especially in the red zone, and Robinson stands to benefit.
Similar to Stafford, McVay has a track record of producing high-octane offenses. The Rams have had at least two top-20 WRs in FPPG in all-but-one season under McVay. Just last year, Robert Woods was the WR12 in fantasy before going down with a torn ACL and we all know what Kupp did. Since 2017, the Rams have had five 1,000-yard receiving seasons, with the Kupp-Woods and Brandin Cooks-Woods combos each hitting this mark twice. If any offense is going to have two WR1s, it’s going to be the Rams.
HIGH-OCTANE AERIAL PIE
But, but… what about Cooper Kupp, isn’t he the WR1? He’s going to hog all the targets, right? Duh, he just set the single-season receiving yards record. He’s going to get fed. The Wolf has him projected as his WR1 for 2022. Kupp is going to be just fine, but so is Robinson. With Woods in Tennessee and OBJ unsigned, those two exits open up 20% of last year’s targets, 17.7% of the catches, 17.6% of the receiving yards, and 22% of the receiving touchdowns from last year.
All of this is to say that the delectable Ram’s aerial pie is looking like a two-way split between Kupp and Robinson. I repeat that Ram’s offense is now going to be split between just Kupp and Robinson. That’s over 4,500 yards and 40 touchdowns mostly being funneled to Kupp, Robinson, a questionable Van Jefferson, and a bunch of scrubs (sorry to Ben Skowronek and Tutu Atwell, no disrespect).
Last season on the Bengals, Zac Taylor, a McVay disciple, created a scheme that produced fantasy WR1s in Jamar Chase and Tee Higgins, with a still relevant Tyler Boyd. Kupp and Robinson, right now, are equal to Chase and Higgins and the Rams don’t have a third receiver of Boyd’s caliber. There is precedent for multiple receivers to feast in McVay’s scheme and both could eclipse 1,200 yards and 12 touchdowns next season.
SUMMARY
Robinson is going to an electric offense with an elite quarterback for the first time in his career. He is also paired with Kupp, a top receiver in the league who demands constant double teams, which will give Robinson the pleasure of harassing CB2s for the first time in his career.
There is no player more undervalued going into this season.
Robinson is being treated by the fantasy community like a beat-up Toyota Camry when he’s a Porsche 911 that had a fender bender fixed over the offseason. This time next year, Robinson will be regarded as a WR1, not as an afterthought WR2/WR3.
Do yourself a favor, if Robinson is available in the fourth round, don’t think, just draft him and rejoice.
Robinson sits at WR14 on The Wolf’s 2022 Fantasy Rankings, which is currently 10 spots higher than the consensus. Also, hammer Robinson over 850.5 receiving yards on the season at PrizePicks. Click this link or use promo code RSJ after downloading the PrizePicks app to get a 100% match on your first deposit up to $100.
