Fantasy Football 2022: Top 5 Detroit Lions

1. RB D’Andre Swift

The Lion with the highest fantasy ceiling is clearly Swift. In 10 games of significant action last season (13 actual games played), he topped 1,000 yards from scrimmage (1,069) with 62 receptions and seven total touchdowns (five rushing, two receiving). Oh, what might have been if he hadn’t landed awkwardly on his shoulder early in the Thanksgiving Day game against the Chicago Bears.

Swift is one of the very few backs who could see 90-100  targets. Looking at his first 10 games last year, before he was injured and had a limited workload the final two games of the season, he was on a 17-game pace for 114 targets (and 90 catches).

Health is the biggest question mark for Swift. Duce Staley openly challenged him this offseason to know the difference between being injured and hurt. He has missed a total of seven games over his first two seasons, though it’s hard to quarrel with the injuries that have taken him out of the lineup (concussion as a rookie, sprained AC joint in his shoulder last year).

Swift is lined up to be among the best fantasy running backs in 2022, health-permitting, with latent potential to be the overall RB1–with a lean to PPR on that latter point and probably overall too. A projection of 1,400-1,500 total yards and double-digit total touchdowns would not be crazy.