Everything this offseason has built up to this point.
From our player tiers, positional rankings, and all of the 2024 off-season content you can find in one place on the site in the full Draft Kit we have fully prepared for fantasy drafts.
With that content in place as a North Star in how to play the game of fantasy football, I also know some of you are here because you want to know how I am playing drafts out myself this summer.
I want to dive into how I approach drafts this year at each position this week, starting with the quarterback position.
I will also update this throughout the remaining time in the offseason if we get any significant news that impacts draft approaches.
Even those with the draft kit may not have read every word written this offseason.
At this stage of the offseason, I am operating under the assumption you have at minimum checked out the player rankings page and the individual player writeups in the positional tiers posts.
With that in mind, these pieces will not be as statistically centric and fully into the weeds on the pros or cons of each player and focus on the approach to drafting the positions.
If you want further analysis on each player, I encourage you to read the player writeups in the Tiers post.
Wide Receiver Fantasy Related Articles:
- Wide Receiver Tiers
- Wide Receiver Rankings
- Wide Receiver Trends
- Red Zone Points vs Expectations: Wide Receiver
- Stats That Matter: Wide Receiver
- What We Can Learn From ADP: Wide Receiver
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How to Draft Wide Receivers in Fantasy Football Leagues
This opening section is going to reiterate a lot of what we talked about yesterday with the running backs, but it is the most important part of a structural approach in drafting.
You need to lock into your league scoring and lineup settings before anything else.
You need to diagnose the following:
- Does your league reward receptions?
- How many wide receivers do you have to start per week?
- How many FLEX spots are there?
These are critical components of how aggressive you should be in the wide receiver position.
Elite running backs provide greater seasonal and weekly leverage than elite wide receivers, but the wide receiver position runs down the running back position right away from an overall scoring in full-PPR formats and they do not take long to catch up in 0.5 PPR formats.
This is a significant component of why drafting WR-heavy has increased in popularity.
If you are in a league that forces you to start three wide receivers; you already inherently need more receivers on your roster than running backs.
If your league has additional FLEX positions on top of starting three wideouts, the necessity for roster allocation to the position is enhanced.
Not only do you want wide receivers in those FLEX positions in non-standard formats because they outright score more points than running backs, but you are also building towards a team strength.
One of the mistakes fantasy drafters often make is that they try to aggressively have the “perfect draft”.
What I mean by that is they are too scared to leave their draft with a roster deficiency to the point that it prevents them from leaving their drafts with an actual roster strength.
Many teams draft with too much of an emphasis on roster balance, but that can leave more surface area for the ice to crack in season.
A balanced draft approach just means that you are more vulnerable everywhere as opposed to being able to calibrate one deficiency in season through injuries, trades, and waiver moves.
Also, you are going to draft very few players that have wire-to-wire season output that is high level.
There are an extremely finite number of players per NFL season who are elite scorers from Week 1 through Week 17.
By the time your fantasy season ends, you will be fortunate to end the year with 50% of the roster you drafted in August through injuries, busts, and transactions.
But by drafting to create a positional strength and leaving one spot vulnerable, you in turn increase your potential of consistently maximizing your lineup for 17 regular season fantasy weeks through those busts, injuries, altering lineups, and transactions.
While also simultaneously reducing the resources for your opponents in that area.
More often than not, the position I am often more inclined to leave vulnerable to start a season off is the RB2 spot.
If you have followed my work in the past, then you are already aware that my preferred strategy in any leagues that reward receptions is Anchor-RB, Hero-RB, or whatever label you want to place on drafting one of the elite running backs and then hammering pass catchers.
What an Anchor-RB approach allows you to do is chase the best of both worlds.
Successful teams under this roster construction approach gain the value of having an elite running back and the leverage that player provides, while also gaining the benefits of maxing out the wide receiver position.
I do not always go with this approach.
I want to land one of Christian McCaffrey, Bijan Robinson, or Breece Hall to start as many leagues as possible.
But as noted yesterday with the running backs, the way that the landscape has changed this season has pushed better running backs down the board versus previous seasons.
You can still land a potential anchor RB in the opening four rounds depending on your draft room.
This season, you can potentially start with an alpha wideout and still land Isiah Pacheco or Kyren Williams in the second round.
De’Von Achane goes at the 2-3 turn.
Workhorse backs such as Joe Mixon and Rachaad White go in the third and fourth rounds.
Alvin Kamara (I am only looking at in full-PPR) goes in the fourth round.
Anchor-RB is the draft approach that I have used more than any in my history playing fantasy football since a large amount of the leagues that I play in are 0.5 or full-PPR scoring that requires at least three starting wide receivers and have at least one FLEX position (often with multiple FLEX spots).
Those are just the leagues I play in the most.
In leagues that reduce the amount of starting wideouts or do not have added FLEX positions (a general population site like ESPN as an example), it can be viable to keep hammering running backs and leave my last wide receiver spot as the vulnerable position to enter the season with.
While elite running back scoring dries out early in drafts, baseline wide receiver production is more abundant in the season than it will be for running backs.
Pairing that with the adding element that we are still really good at identifying the area where elite running back production comes from, all that continues to steer me in wanting to jump out of the gates in attacking those workhorse running backs and then shifting towards primarily stacking wide receivers for several rounds.
Tack on the fact that this also allows us to inherently avoid the “dead zone” at running back and you can see how this all ties together.
Even with wide receivers going earlier this season than ever, you do not need to “zig while others are zagging” because the game is properly calibrating itself.
I do prefer Anchor/Hero-RB as a blanket approach more often than not, but you also can stack WR-WR to open this season successfully.
You can go full WR-Heavy and continue to bypass that “dead zone” of running backs, or if you are brave enough to wade in those waters, I did identify the players from that area of the draft that fit the criteria of historically hitting from that portion of drafts.
With that all out of the way, make sure that you have a firm grip on your league format and settings. Understanding your format is the most important element in building out your top-down approach.
Early-Round WRs
I wish I had something groundbreaking here, but like most of the field this offseason, I have a top group of 7 wideouts that I hold above the rest.
CeeDee Lamb, Tyreek Hill, Justin Jefferson, Ja’Marr Chase, Amon-Ra St. Brown, A.J. Brown, and Garrett Wilson.
I view all of these as first-round picks.
Jefferson has the worst quarterback situation of this group if you are splitting hairs and looking for a red flag among the elites, but he still offers plenty of weekly upside.
If I do take Jefferson, I often am looking to follow up with another wide receiver in Round 2.
One of the misconceptions about the wide receiver position, in general, is that the position is “deep”.
Yes, wide receivers do outscore running backs as the draft progresses, but your difference-making seasons come attached to high capital.
Teams are getting the ball more to their feature wideouts in creative ways, which has pushed more emphasis on the importance of WR1 in fantasy.
With the market drafting wide receivers now earlier than ever, you can find yourself chasing the position very quickly this summer if you bypass a potentially elite wide receiver at the start of your drafts in the opening two rounds.
The second round is where the position starts to flatten out.
At the 1-2 turn, my favorite pick at the position is Chris Olave.
I believe we are set to get the best season of his career.
The same can be said for Drake London with all of the changes in Atlanta, but I have more confidence in Olave in starts where I am splitting WR and RB at the 1-2 turn.
Marvin Harrison Jr. is expensive, but his ADP within the position does make sense given that the tier of young wideouts he keeps company with is also based on projection over proven results.
If I take London or Harrison, it is almost always in WR-WR starts versus splitting up wide receiver and running back at the turn.
A pair of old guys I believe are still worthy of second-round picks but have more nuance since you can sometimes land them in Round 3 are Davante Adams and Mike Evans.
I prefer to have each of these wideouts as my WR2 on rosters in which I have landed an elite-tier WR in the first round.
Adams just projects for too many targets to ignore.
If you add Adams to a team with a feature wideout, you are kicking off drafts with 300-plus targets locked in without injuries.
Evans just has too much touchdown upside compared to the field at that stage of the position.
Cooper Kupp is only a stone’s throw away from those older profiles, but he has steamed up draft boards with the murky status of Puka Nacua.
I prefer to land Kupp in the third round, but he is the last of the older options that I am willing to use tangible capital on.
Among wide receivers currently being drafted among the top 60 players, I am higher on Deebo Samuel, D.J. Moore, DeVonta Smith, Malik Nabers, Rashee Rice, George Pickens, and Amari Cooper.
Through five rounds, my goal is to have 3-to 5 of these named wideouts unless my league is non-PPR and we are only starting 2WRs without a FLEX.
How to Select Better Wide Receivers
In the middle rounds (Rounds 6-10), I am higher on Diontae Johnson, Chris Godwin, Xavier Worthy, Christian Watson, and Brian Thomas Jr.
In the later rounds, Rashid Shaheed and Khalil Shakir have been the wideouts I have drafted the most with expectations that I will use them.
After those players, we are in dart-throw territory.
When we are in the area of the draft where we are adding wideouts that inherently going to be bench depth, we can find a strike zone in terms of archetypes to look at.
We highlighted a few weeks ago that the wideouts most often cruising past ADP are players in their first or second season.
When we are in the later portion of drafts, I want to allocate my bench wideouts to rookie-contract players.
I did not mention Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Ladd McConkey, or Keon Coleman as outright targets at cost, but I do add all of them when they slip past ADP.
Dontayvion Wicks, Ja’Lynn Polk, and Adonai Mitchell have been the players I most often add to benches, but you can pick out your favorites.
There are a few players who have let down that I am keeping the lights on for.
Jerry Jeudy and Darnell Mooney are players who have new offenses, still project to play a lot of snaps, and have underpriced contingent value should Amari Cooper or Drake London miss any action.
Round-By-Round Targets
No matter how you open your draft, I want to lay out my favorite targets by round (based on ADP) so that you can always have a lifeline or need to recalibrate in drafts on the fly.
These will be in order, so if a player from a previous round is still available or your draft room is valuing wide receiver at a lower rate overall as a position, then you are catching value.
- Round 1: CeeDee Lamb, Tyreek Hill, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Ja’Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, A.J. Brown, Garrett Wilson
- 1-2 Turn: Chris Olave, Drake London, Marvin Harrison Jr.
- R2: Davante Adams
- R3: Mike Evans, Cooper Kupp, Deebo Samuel
- R4: Malik Nabers, D.J. Moore, DeVonta Smith
- R5: George Pickens, Rashee Rice, Amari Cooper, Terry McLaurin
- R6: Tee Higgins, Diontae Johnson
- R7: Diontae Johnson, Chris Godwin, Xavier Worthy
- R8: Christian Watson, Rome Odunze
- R9: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Brian Thomas Jr., Keon Coleman, Ladd McConkey
- R10: Rashid Shaheed, Jameson Williams, Khalil Shakir
- Throwing Later Darts: Rookies and year-two players. Jerry Jeudy and Darnell Mooney.
Keeper Targets
Rookie Wideouts: This was a rich receiver class. While Marvin Harrison Jr. and Malik Nabers will cost you, they still have keeper potential. The rest of this class is priced where a larger upside exists.
It would not be shocking if we saw Ladd McConkey, Keon Coleman, Xavier Worthy, Brian Thomas Jr, and Rome Odunze all have significantly higher ADPs in 2025.
Odunze, Thomas Jr, and Worthy profile as the highest upside wideouts big picture.
Thomas Jr, McConkey, Coleman, and Polk could all lead their wide receiver rooms in targets as rookies.
Keenan Allen is only signed for 2024, freeing up Odunze.
Marquise Brown is also only signed for this season while we are still expecting a suspension for Rashee Rice down the road. Should Worthy hit, his runway for 2025 could be wide open. Travis Kelce also will be going on age 36 next season if he is still playing.
Tank Dell: I have not mentioned Dell as an outright target, but in a keeper league, he is extremely enticing at cost. There is still a non-zero chance he is the best wideout on the roster while Stefon Diggs is only signed for this season.
George Pickens: Too cheap compared to the other year-three wideouts while Pittsburgh could solve their quarterback situation heading into 2025.
Tee Higgins: This is the cheapest he has been since his rookie season for fantasy. Higgins has strong splits when he has not played alongside Ja’Marr Chase. Should he hit the open market, a team will pay him to be a feature option in their passing game.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba: His rookie season usage could end up being a blip and mismanagement while Tyler Lockett is past the age apex.
Jameson Williams: Has the draft pedigree and a true spade with his speed should it all come together this season.