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After diving deep into all 32 NFL teams, our fantasy football analysts are ready to answer an important question:
Who is the best fantasy football wide receiver value pick in 2023?
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Best Wide Receiver Value for Fantasy Football: Brandin Cooks
From a value stance, Brandin Cooks is far too cheap.
I get that he was a massive disappointment last year in a season in which he “quiet quit,” but the market has overcorrected itself for a player that has been the WR22 or better in per-game scoring in seven of his nine NFL seasons.
Cooks was still a strong performer in Matt Harmon's Reception Perception, so he still has juice.
I see him in a similar fashion as Amari Cooper a year ago — a player who has a clearly strong resume but is being heavily discounted changing teams, something both have in common.
Cooks will not be the WR1 on his team like Cooper was (although he does have contingency upside in that department should anything happen to CeeDee Lamb), but he has done nothing but produce when he has been attached to functional (and sometimes without) quarterback play.
I am a believer that the Cowboys end up playing more aggressively than assumed by the public this offseason because their best players on offense outright fit them running a lot of 11 personnel compared to a year ago when Dalton Schultz was their second-best pass catcher.
At WR42 in current ADP at Underdog, I outright prefer Cooks over 10 to 12 wideouts he is selected after.
Best Wide Receiver Value for Fantasy Football: Skyy Moore
Skyy Moore is my most rosterted receiver on Underdog Fantasy.
While his ADP has risen as his certainty to be a starter has increased, he is still priced very fairly, and I love him as a post-hype sleeper.
Moore is playing in JuJu Smith-Schuster role that netted 101 targets and 78 catches last year, and Moore has upside beyond what a clearly slowed JuJu showed last year.
As a small school raw player, Moore's role last year was always in doubt, but now as a starter he can pay off all of the optimism that the community had for him at a very reasonable cost.
And if age finally catches up with Travis Kelce, Moore could be the player you need to win your fantasy football leagues in 2023.
Best Wide Receiver Value for Fantasy Football: Amari Cooper
In a world where wide receivers glitter with gold along the fantasy football marquee, Amari Cooper is a receiver flying under the radar.
Last offseason, the narrative odds were stacked against Cooper. The receiver found himself in a brand new offense and was without Deshaun Watson for the first 11 games of the season.
The four-time Pro Bowler proceeded to haul in 78 receptions for 1,160 yards and a career-high nine touchdowns. Those numbers were good enough to finish the season as the WR10 in half-point formats.
That would mark the second time in the last four seasons that Cooper finished as a WR1. Also during that time, he only finished outside the top 24 once.
Headed into Cooper’s second season as a Brown, with the exception of Elijah Moore, the team did not make any headline pass catching additions. This would lead one to believe that Cooper’s team high target share of 26% should stay intact.
The one drawback for Cooper was his catch percentage dipped to 59.1%. In the three seasons prior, his average was 67.5%. If he is still getting his consistent target share and his catch percentage bounces back, you’re looking at even more production.
Taking all of this into account, Cooper’s average draft position over at FFPC has him slated as the 19th wide receiver off the board, a mid-to-late fourth-round pick.
Let’s think about this now. A top-10 wide receiver from 2022, who has had 100+ targets in seven of his eight seasons and never scored less than five touchdowns, can be yours in the fourth round.
If there is such a thing as a fourth-round bargain, Amari Cooper is it.
Best Wide Receiver Value for Fantasy Football: Rashod Bateman
The 2021 first-round pick has been drafted around WR50 in August high-stakes leagues.
Rashod Bateman was just removed from the PUP as he recovers from a Lisfranc injury.
Deepak Chona of Sports Med Analytics has remained consistent in his evaluation of Bateman’s return stating that Week 1 is likely with data predicting 85% explosiveness with progress ramp up to 90% in mid-October.
With Bateman currently being drafted as a WR4, there should be no rush to start Bateman in fantasy lineups in Week 1.
In his sophomore season, Bateman earned a 23.3% target rate per route while averaging 2.38 yards per route and 8.87 yards after catch per reception.
The Ravens have signaled that the offense is likely to increase both pace and pass volume, increasing the floor and ceiling for all Ravens pass-catchers.
Once up to full speed, Bateman has an excellent opportunity to lead the wide receivers in targets as he is competing with a rookie and a 30-year-old veteran who didn’t play a single snap in 2022.
The upside for Bateman in his current draft position makes him worth a shot.
Best Wide Receiver Value for Fantasy Football: Christian Watson
Christian Watson opened his rookie season by dropping a 75-yard touchdown, and he played just 121 snaps prior to Week 10.
He exploded in that game, going for 107 yards and three touchdowns, scored five more touchdowns over the next three games, and averaged four catches for 65 yards over the final eight weeks.
Watson tied with Justin Jefferson for third in yards per route from Week 10 until the end of the season. He commanded 22.7% of Green Bay’s targets over that span with Allen Lazard healthy.
Watson did overshoot his expected touchdown total last season, but he profiles as the kind of big-play player who will do that regularly – Tyler Lockett, A.J. Brown, and Tyreek Hill also went over their expected touchdown totals last year by a similar amount.
Uncertainty is the word for the Green Bay passing game, but Watson is a good bet to see over 20% of Green Bay’s targets, has big-play upside (25.8% of his targets were 20 air yards or more last season), and Jordan Love has the arm to connect on those deep targets.
That profile gives Watson a chance to hit at his current draft cost even if the offense is run-heavy and Love struggles, and he would have the upside for more if things click in Love's first season as the starter.
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