Where Bears WR Mooney Ranks For Fantasy Football in 2023

Where Bears WR Mooney Ranks For Fantasy Football in 2023
Fact Checked by Jim Tomlin

For some fantasy football players, draft season is far more important than the actual NFL season. After all, it’s in the draft when the die is cast, and the season is won and lost.

Of course, in-season maneuvering is also important. But it’s the deliciousness of draft preparation that fantasy fans savor, almost as much as Illinois sports betting customers enjoy cashing wining wagers.

To that end, IllinoisBet.com took a hard look at wide receivers as those fantasy drafts approach. We took stock of two categories – the top 100 returning WRs in PPR ranking for 2023, according to FantasyPros.com, and the FantasyData.com final PPR rankings among wide receivers in the 2002 season. Subtracting the 2023 projections from the 2022 final results gave us the biggest jumps for WRs in fantasy football.

Players with fewer than 12 games played last year, or any current free agents for 2023, were not included.

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WR Biggest Fantasy Football Jumps

Rank Team, Player 2022 Ranking 2023 Ranking Difference
1 Chiefs WR Skyy Moore121 52 69
2 Browns WR Elijah Moore82 4438
3 Bills WR Khalil Shakir130 93 37
4 49ers WR Deebo Samuel37 20 17
T5 Commanders WR Jahan Dotson51 35 16
T5 Bears WR Darnell Mooney72 56 16
T5 Patriots WR Tyquan Thornton98 82 16
8 Packers WR Christian Watson40 26 14
9 Saints WR Chris Olave25 12 13
10 Jets WR Garrett Wilson21 10 11

Where Bears WR Darnell Mooney Ranks

After IllinoisBet.com, your source for Illinois betting apps information and reviews, compiled our research, we found a young Bears wide receiver who could be worth watching in 2023.

Chicago Bears WR Darnell Mooney appears to be one of those players who will make a big jump in the drafts that will be happening in the coming weeks – or at least that is the perception being generated among fantasy players.

Entering his fourth season, Mooney is tied for the fifth-largest elevation in rankings between the end of last season and the projected ranking for 2023. He jumped 16 spots, tied with Washington’s Jahan Dotson and New England’s Tyquan Thornton.

Mooney finished 2022 with a PPR ranking of 72. His preseason 2023 ranking for PPR is No. 56.

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Mooney A Bit of a Fantasy Football Gamble

Mooney is a bit of a dice roll. He is coming back from ankle surgery. Reportedly, Mooney is practicing hard, but he did not play in the Bears’ first preseason game, a 23-17 victory over the Tennessee Titans. On top of the injury concern, Mooney’s share of targets might be affected by Chicago signing D.J. Moore. Chase Claypool is also in the mix for targets from quarterback Justin Fields.

To Chicago’s advantage, the NFC North is not projected to be particularly strong in 2023.

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Mooney was once expected to be Chicago’s WR1 (he had 81 receptions for 1,055 yards in 2021). But in 2022, his production waned for the first three months of the season, then he was hurt in Week 12. He finished with 40 catches for 493 yards and two scores.

So Mooney’s jump in ranking is driven, in part, by a low baseline of 2022 performance. Still, he could be a bargain, especially if he flourishes as one of Fields’ go-to guys out the slot.

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Young Chiefs WR Is Biggest Mover

The top WR in the IllinoisBet.com analysis of wide receivers who are perceived to make jumps in fantasy rankings is the Chiefs’ Skyy Moore, by far. The Chiefs are the favorite at Caesars Illinois Sportsbook, with +600 odds, to repeat as Super Bowl champions.

Moore had a 2022 PPR ranking of No. 121 and a 2023 preseason ranking of No. 52. That is a 69-place leap.

The No. 2 WR in the IllinoisBet.com Difference of Ranking category was Cleveland’s Eijah Moore (38), and No. 3 was Buffalo’s Khalil Shakir (37).

Wideouts who finished No. 9 and No. 10 will go high in fantasy drafts, but they might also be hugely productive because they’ll be working with veteran quarterbacks. New Orleans WR Chris Olave, No. 9 on our list, is up 13 spots from 2022 to 2023 projections. His new quarterback is veteran Derek Carr, signed as a free agent after leaving Las Vegas.

And at No. 10 is New York Jets WR Garrett Wilson, who has odds of +2500 for customers using the BetMGM Illinois bonus code to be the AP Offensive Player of the Year. He rises 11 spots, up to No. 10 in preseason projected PPR. Wilson’s new QB is Aaron Rodgers. The Jets acquired the future Hall of Famer in a trade with Green Bay.

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Author

Bill Ordine

Bill Ordine covers state gambling issues for IllinoisBet.com. He was a reporter and editor in news and sports for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Baltimore Sun for 25 years, and was a lead reporter on a team that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News. Bill started reporting on casinos and gaming shortly after Atlantic City’s first gambling halls opened and wrote a syndicated column on travel to casino destinations for 10 years. He covered the World Series of Poker for a decade and his articles on gaming have appeared in many major U.S. newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald and others.

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