Darren Waller has been one of the best fantasy tight ends over the past four seasons. But over the past two years, he’s underwhelmed and underperformed, largely due to injury. Now a member of the New York Giants, can Waller stay healthy and put together a bounce-back campaign for fantasy football this season?
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Darren Waller’s Talent Is Still There
It’s been three years since Waller’s incredible TE2 finish when he averaged 17.4 PPR fantasy points per game. Each of the past two seasons saw Waller not only average even fewer ppg than his initial 2019 breakout but also miss time due to injury.
Looking at Waller’s efficiency metrics from last season, they are clearly worse than 2020 by a wide margin. When I say the talent is still there, that’s something not necessarily measured in the metrics.
With that said, Waller’s 1.69 yards per route run was still 11th in the league, which isn’t terrible. His 9.0 yards per target was fifth, and he was still utilized downfield more than any other tight end. His 13.6 average depth of target led the league, as did his 13 total downfield targets, despite playing just nine games.
What About the Injuries?
Calling Waller “injury-prone” is probably a bit unfair. For starters, 99% of the time we slap a player with that tag, we are wrong. That doesn’t mean the player will necessarily stay healthy. Rather, getting injured doesn’t make a player injury-prone.
Waller has missed time with ankle, knee, hamstring, and back injuries over the past four years. While that’s obviously not exactly encouraging, the only real concern there is the hamstring, as that has a tendency to linger. In fact, we saw Waller try and return too soon last season, only to aggravate it in practice and miss even more time.
Prior to the past two seasons, Waller was the pinnacle of health. He played all 16 games in both 2019 and 2020. He’s still just 31 years old, which is not as old for a tight end as it is for a wide receiver.
Ultimately, we have no reason to believe Waller is any more likely to get hurt this season than any other player. He’s been fully healthy the entire offseason and will presumably enter the regular season that way as well. If fantasy managers are fading Waller this year, injuries should not be the reason.
Can Darren Waller Bounce Back?
Even though we’re not concerned about the injuries, we still need to make sure Waller is in a situation where he can return to top-five levels of performance. The Giants’ passing offense didn’t exactly provide much fantasy value last season, outside of Daniel Jones himself.
In an effort to curb Jones’ propensity for turning the ball over, head coach Brian Daboll limited his QB’s overall volume and kept his targets near the line of scrimmage.
The Giants’ 51% neutral-game-script-pass rate was the ninth-lowest in the league. They averaged 30 passes per 60 minutes, the seventh-fewest in the league.
On the season, Jones set career-lows in attempts per game (29.5) and passing yards per game (200.3) but career-highs in completion percentage (67.2%) and interception rate (1.1%).
Entering his second year in Daboll’s offense, we should see Jones allowed to open things up a bit more. Jones was 30th in deep-ball attempts and 31st in average depth of target last season. He also didn’t have a true top target to throw to.
The Giants went out and traded for Waller because they viewed him as superior to any of the wide receivers available. They view Waller as their WR1.
At wide receiver, the Giants have Isaiah Hodgins, Darius Slayton, and a medley of slot receivers. Waller is 6’6″ and runs a 4.46 40-yard dash. He looks different than every other pass catcher on the Giants.
Waller is the overwhelming favorite to lead the team in targets. I would be stunned if he didn’t. The question then becomes whether that will be enough to restore Waller to the ranks of the elite tight ends.
My projections have Waller catching 76.5 passes for 967 yards and 5.1 touchdowns. That comes out to 11.9 ppg and a TE5 finish. The TE5 finish would certainly qualify as a bounce-back campaign. However, 11.9 ppg is certainly not what we’ve come to expect from Waller.
I have Waller seeing a 22% target share. While we don’t know who will emerge among the Giants’ receivers, Jones is going to throw to wideouts. It may be a different guy each week, but I doubt Waller is going to see anything resembling the 28.7% target share he saw in 2020.
With that said, there’s undoubtedly room for Waller’s target share to be higher. I could see him getting up to 24-25%. If Jones runs a little less and the Giants throw a little more, there’s room for Waller to add another 10+ receptions. He could also easily score more than five touchdowns.
Last season, the Giants scored 38 touchdowns, with 55% of them coming on the ground. Jones rushing for a career-high seven TDs certainly contributed to that.
The 2021 Giants were an abomination offensively, scoring just 23 touchdowns. But it is worth noting that just 35% of them came on the ground. To be clear, just because the Giants’ touchdowns skewed run-heavy last season doesn’t mean they will regress to the mean this season.
However, the manner in which teams score tends to vary year-to-year. It’s not very sticky and difficult to predict. That means it’s entirely possible the Giants could have a similarly productive offense (I actually think it will be better) but score far more through the air.
What if Waller added another 10 receptions, 125 yards, and three touchdowns? That’s not an unrealistic increase over my projections. Well, that would bump him from 11.9 ppg to 14.3 ppg. All of a sudden, Waller’s posting the second-best season of his career.
In 2019 and 2020, Waller posted back-to-back seasons with over 1,100 receiving yards. He is certainly capable of doing it again, especially in an offense where he lacks target competition.
Historically, middle-round tight ends have been bad investments in fantasy football. You either want the elite guys or just wait and take a random back-end TE1 in the later rounds. The hit rate on late-round tight ends isn’t much different than on middle-round tight ends.
However, if there is one middle-round tight end who will break the mold, I believe it is Waller. As long as Waller stays healthy, I struggle to see any scenario in which he busts at his TE7, No. 80 overall ADP. My money is on Waller bouncing back in 2023.
