Mecole Hardman - Fantasy Points Outlook

What You Need to Know:

• Hardman set career highs in his 3rd NFL season last year with 83 targets, 59 catches and 693 yards.
• He was still basically useless in fantasy football.
  • Hardman finished 47th among WRs in PPR points and 53rd in non-PPR.
  • He finished as a top 30 PPR WR in only 2 of 17 weeks. He finished 50th or worse in 10 weeks.
• Hardman earned a personal-best 70.4 Pro Football Focus receiving grade last year. That ranked 51st among 90 qualifying WRs.
• His 1.64 yards per route run ranked 46th among those 90 qualifiers.
• Hardman’s role diminished from the 1st half to 2nd half of last season.
  • He averaged 5.9 targets over his first 9 games, playing between 49% and 78% of Kansas City’s offensive snaps in all 9.
  • He averaged just 2.7 targets over his final 7 games (omitting Week 18 when Tyreek Hill was injured in pregame warmups). Hardman didn’t top a 44% snap rate in any of those games and played 35% or less in 5 of the 7.
• The Chiefs traded WR Tyreek Hill to Miami in March.
  • Hill garnered a career-high 9.4 targets per game last year.
  • He averaged 9.0, 7.4, and 8.6 targets per game the previous 3 seasons.
• Here are Hardman's box scores in 9 career games in which Hill played fewer than 50% of the Chiefs' offensive snaps:

• The Chiefs also lost WRs Byron Pringle and Demarcus Robinson this offseason. Those 2 combined for 15.0% of the Chiefs’ targets, 15.0% of the receptions, 16.9% of the receiving yards and 21.6% of the receiving scores last year.
• Kansas City signed WRs JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling in free agency and selected WR Skyy Moore in the 2nd round of this spring’s draft.

Draft Sharks Bottom Line:

Tyreek Hill’s departure opens up a big opportunity for Hardman this season. But he’ll need to duke it out with new arrivals JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Skyy Moore for snaps and targets.

Frankly, Hardman hasn’t done anything through 3 NFL seasons to make us excited about his 2022 outlook. But he’s still just 24 and was a 2nd-round pick, so his usage will certainly be worth monitoring this summer.