Cleveland Browns wide receiver David Bell enters the NFL in one of the league’s more interesting situations. The Browns have their quarterback of the future, but it remains to be seen how much he’ll play this year, if at all. With a very climbable depth chart, what is Bell’s fantasy football outlook and ADP in fantasy drafts for the 2022 season?
David Bell’s fantasy outlook for 2022
It’s not very often that third-round rookies excel in their first professional season. There are reasons to think Bell can be the exception, though.
Bell was an early declare, which bodes well for his NFL success. He was also tremendously productive at college. In his final season at Purdue, Bell caught 93 passes for 1,286 yards and six touchdowns.
On the other side of the coin is Bell’s athletic profile. It’s … not great.
In fact, Bell might be the single worst athlete amongst wide receivers in the entire 2022 rookie class. The man ran just a 4.65 40-yard dash, and his burst and agility scores combined add up to below the 30th percentile. If he can overcome his athleticism with route running and winning at the catch point, Bell has the potential to be an impact player in the NFL.
How the Browns’ depth chart impacts David Bell’s fantasy projection for the season
The Browns’ depth chart looks very different entering the 2022 season than it did in 2021. Gone are Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry, and Baker Mayfield has been dispatched in favor of Deshaun Watson. Yet, Bell will start the season catching passes from Jacoby Brissett while Watson serves his suspension.
The good news for Bell is that the Browns’ WR2 role is wide open. Amari Cooper is locked in as the WR1, but Bell only has to beat out Donovan Peoples-Jones and 2021 third-rounder Anthony Schwartz.
If you’re going to draft a second Browns wide receiver, it should be Bell
You’re going to see analysts out there push Peoples-Jones as a late-round flier. I’m not just interested. We know who DPJ is — a situational deep threat.
Peoples-Jones will see a couple of targets each week, most of them downfield. Occasionally, he’ll catch a bomb for a touchdown and be fantasy relevant. This type of player is very useful in Best Ball, but in seasonal leagues, you’re never going to know when to start him.
Instead, if you want to take a shot on the Browns’ WR2 being fantasy-relevant, Bell is a better bet. If Bell can work his way into a starting role as a rookie, he has the skill set to be a nice PPR “big slot” type of player. Bell is unlikely to be a ceiling guy during his rookie season, but he can have games with 4-6 receptions in the right environment.
Bell is probably not going to start in Week 1 and likely won’t matter during the early part of the season. In all likelihood, you can just file Bell’s name away in your brain and circle back to him as the season progresses as the Browns get predictably fed up with Peoples-Jones’ inconsistency. With that said, Bell (and any non-Cooper Browns wide receiver) is still unlikely to matter this season with Watson suspended.
Jacoby Brissett has never supported two fantasy-relevant receivers
Back in 2017, Colts star wide receiver T.Y. Hilton was coming off an overall WR7 finish, averaging 17 ppg. Then, Andrew Luck got hurt and was forced to miss the season. Brissett replaced him, and Hilton averaged just 11 ppg.
In 2018, Luck returned, and Hilton went back up to 17.1 ppg, proving that it wasn’t Hilton — it was Brissett. Then, in 2019, Luck shockingly retired, forcing Brissett to start once again, and Hilton averaged just 12.5 ppg.
The obvious takeaway here is that this is a problem for Cooper. If Brissett can barely support his WR1, what hope does his WR2 have? In 2019, Zach Pascal was the Colts’ second-highest scoring wide receiver, averaging 8.5 ppg. In 2017, Donte Moncrief averaged just 6.4 ppg behind Hilton.
Bell’s ADP for 2022
While I wouldn’t necessarily advocate for drafting Bell over other higher upside players, taking a shot on an unproven rookie with an unknown ceiling is always better than drafting a floor-based player with minimal upside. There are situations where throwing a dart at Bell isn’t the worst idea.
Bell’s ADP is well outside the top 200. He’s going as the WR88. Given his cost (practically free), you can consider Bell amongst the slew of late-round hopefuls you nab at the end of your fantasy football drafts. He is currently our consensus WR78.
