2. Drake London, WR, Atlanta Falcons
NFL.com Fantasy Ranking: 26 out of 80 WRs
Drake London is coming off of a great rookie season for the Atlanta Falcons, all things considered. He was stuck in a run-heavy offense with a subpar quarterback for most of the season and still managed to haul in 72 passes for 866 yards and four touchdowns.
Desmond Ridder is also a huge factor in this. One thing was apparent when Ridder took over for the final four weeks—he likes Drake London, a lot. Ridder looked London's way on virtually every snap and targeted him a lot.
In the 13 games that Marcus Mariota was the Falcons' quarterback, here are the percentages of his targets, completions, and yards that Drake London accounted for:
- 27% of Mariota's targets
- 25% of Mariota's completions
- 26% of Mariota's passing yards
And here are the same stats but with Desmond Ridder as his QB:
- 31% of Ridder's targets
- 34% of Ridder's completions
- 49% of Ridder's passing yards
So, when Ridder took over at quarterback, London was targeted on 4% more passing attempts, accounted for 9% more of the QB's completions, and was responsible for 23% more of the QB's passing yards. And while Ridder never completed a touchdown to London, that will certainly change in 2023.
That is a huge uptick in opportunity/production for Drake London, and now he will have a full offseason and, hopefully, a full season with Desmond Ridder. I don't know that he will have top-ten production, but there won't be 25 receivers who score more points than the second-year wide receiver.