Best Early-Season WR Matchups - Fantasy Football Strength of Schedule Analysis

Draft season for redraft fantasy football leagues is here. Team pecking orders are coming into clearer view. Mostly ignoring the results, we have seen which players are out there with the first-team offense, which WRs are staying on the field consistently in two-WR sets, and which WRs are getting more time in the slot. With that and injury news, you can be armed with the most information possible in your fantasy drafts happening between now and the first game of Week 1.

Many in the fantasy football space have spent all off-season preparing (and more importantly striving to prepare you) for draft day, the first chapter of the 2024 redraft fantasy season. Social media and published fantasy football content abound with draft strategies, mock drafts, sleepers, bold predictions, projections, and rankings, but one of my main points of emphasis (both in the preseason and weekly during the season) is focusing on fantasy strength of schedule (SOS).

This is the fifth and final article in my preseason fantasy strength of schedule series, looking closely at the fantasy WR position. Which teams and WR groups have the softest landing in the first month? Which teams have the bumpiest landing? And which WRs will see their matchups open up after the first month? It's all right here, enjoy!

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Projected Strength of Schedule (SOS) Process

In this article, I will present my projected strength of schedule for the fantasy WR position, with a focus on the early part of the season (Weeks 1-4) and the middle time frame that follows (Weeks 5-9).

A player’s strength of schedule should not be the sole reason you choose to draft or not draft that player. But it should be a piece of the puzzle. It can be a good tiebreaker if you are deciding between two players. If you are on the fence about a certain player at a given draft value, a brutal opening schedule should at least be factored into your decision.

By projecting matchup difficulties now and also breaking the season down into different time frames (e.g., early, middle, late, and fantasy playoffs), it also allows you to strategize for potential trade attempts.

Suppose a player has a favorable early season schedule followed by a brutal later season schedule. In that case, you might be able to reap the rewards of both the fantasy points and the subsequent value increase, then trade that player for a better later season schedule and vice versa.

You can keep your eyes on a talented player who underwhelms through a tough early season schedule and make a play for them before their schedule opens up. To that end, a new addition to this year’s article will be the inclusion of a closer look at Weeks 5-9 ("Middle Season"), rather than just being displayed in the full-season color-coded chart.

We’ll start by looking at my season-long projections including some insight into my process and what data I use to project the strength of schedule. Then we’ll look closer at early season SOS (top 10 easiest and top 10 hardest in Weeks 1-4) as well as middle season SOS (top 10 easiest and top 10 hardest in Weeks 5-9) for fantasy WRs.

Fantasy matchups are something I’ve spent a lot of time on over the last three years. During the season I compile game log data for every game to arrive at raw fantasy points allowed to each position as soon as possible each week. The goal is to have the results available before waivers so matchup strength can be factored into those decisions.

Plenty of sites provide fantasy points allowed data. I choose to do it myself so I can rearrange and reorganize in ways I think are helpful. Raw points allowed are helpful but don’t tell the full story. It’s important to dig a little deeper and look at points allowed relative to an opponent’s average.

For example, if Team A gives up 16 fantasy points to Tyreek Hill and Team B gives up the same number of points to Gabe Davis, raw fantasy points allowed would show Team A and B having the same matchup difficulty versus WRs. Using “Points Over Average (POA)” paints a more accurate picture.

Let’s say Hill has averaged 18 points per game and Davis has averaged eight points per game. Using POA, Team A held Hill two points under his average (a POA of -2) while Team B allowed Davis to score eight points above his average (a POA of +8).

Through this lens, these two teams are far from an equal matchup difficulty. This turns raw fantasy points allowed to an “opponent-adjusted” fantasy points allowed.

The other angle I add once the weeks add up is recency. A team’s season-long average points allowed can look different than over a more recent stretch of games. Defenses improve or regress for a variety of reasons. Players get injured or return from injury, coaches adjust their schemes and game plans (on both sides of the ball), and, more qualitatively, players and teams “figure it out.”

Neither season-long nor recent data sets are definitive, but it’s important to look at both when trying to increase the probability of making the right future decisions.

These are the two existing data sets in my process for preseason projections of fantasy strength of schedule:

1. Previous season POA rank (season-long).
2. Previous season POA over the team’s last five games (excluding Week 18).

Stopping there doesn’t account for the impact of changes made during the off-season. If we could simply use previous season results to predict what will happen the next season, fantasy football would be a lot easier (and less fun).

For the future prediction piece of the process, I use Pro Football Focus (PFF) grades for team defensive lines, linebackers, and secondaries. These grades are added to the equation in the following way:

• Versus QB: Defensive line and secondary grades.
• Versus RB: Defensive line and linebacker grades.
• Versus WRs: Secondary grades.
• Versus TE: Linebacker and secondary grades.

2024 Season-Long Fantasy SOS

I generated tables showing each team’s full season schedule with each weekly opponent color-coded based on that opponent’s projected rank (1-32) versus the fantasy WR position. Lower number ranks with a red color indicate more difficult fantasy matchups.

Higher number ranks with a green color represent easier matchups. Also known as schedule “heat maps,” the full season schedule for WRs is included at the end of the article.

Also included are each team’s season-long SOS, which is the average of their opponents’ ranks in Weeks 1-17.

As described above, the projected ranks are based on:

• 2023 POA season-long rank
• 2023 POA rank over the team’s last five games (Weeks 13-17)
• 2024 PFF grades for defensive lines, linebackers, and secondaries
  • In this article, for WRs, it will be secondary grades

Softest Early Season Schedules – Process

In separating the full season into “early, middle, and late” time frames, I define each as follows:

• Early Season: Week 1-4
• Middle-Season: Weeks 5-9
• Late Season: Weeks 10-14
• Fantasy Playoffs: Weeks 15-17

In this article, I will be looking at the Early and Middle Season schedules and the teams with the Top 10 easiest fantasy matchups for WRs. I will look closer at Late Season and Fantasy Playoffs in a future article.

My process for determining the Top 10 easiest Early Season schedules for each team’s WR group is the same as season-long. I average the opponents' ranks in Weeks 1-4 for each team, and the ten highest averages comprise the Top 10.

When I wrote this article during the 2023 off-season, I introduced what I call “Top-Heavy” schedules. Some of the “easy schedules” that are initially determined by average projected rank tend to include an additional top-heavy characteristic:

Top-Heavy schedule: A mixture of bottom-ranked opponents with one Top 10 matchup. This could also be called “Extreme Matchups.” In this scenario, there may be one week where you are hesitant or at least need to curb expectations, but outside of that, the probability of ceiling games for your fantasy players on those teams is higher.

I developed a formula for determining Top-Heavy schedules. I remove each team’s most difficult matchup from the average rank. I then averaged the remaining three ranks. From there I added the difference between 32 (easiest rank) and the new average of the team’s three easiest ranks. This is then filtered from highest to lowest to show the Top-Heavy SOS score and rank.

The purpose here is to remove the impact of the one difficult matchup on the overall average while also accounting for just how easy the easier matchups are. The bigger the difference between 32 and the average of the team’s easiest three matchups, the lower the score, because that difference is being subtracted.

The reason I chose to look at this particular breakdown was to determine if there is a significant deviation from the score arrived at by simply averaging the ranks of the first four opponents. I know we cannot simply ignore difficult matchups, but I would rather take my potential lumps with one brutal matchup if it means the chances are higher that the other three opponents could be week-winning matchups.

The results? The order the teams fall in using the Top-Heavy SOS score is very close to the order generated by averaging the rank of the first four opponents, with some notable exceptions.

Soft Early Season Schedules – WRs

As shown with QBs, the following chart shows the teams with the Top 10 easiest Early Season schedules for fantasy WRs according to my SOS projection process, along with the rest of the teams from 11 to 32.

The following chart shows each Top 10 team’s matchup rank (color-coded) in Weeks 1 through 4, followed by the average rank and Top-Heavy score.

Not surprisingly, the Top 10 list for easiest Early Season WR SOS is the same as for QB, just in a different order. You can find the QB SOS article here.

The Packers move from the seventh-easiest QB schedule to the overall easiest WR schedule when looking at the first 4 SOS. The Commanders have the easiest Early Season WR schedule when looking at Top-Heavy SOS, thanks to two Top 3 easiest matchups: a home game versus the Giants (31^st) in Week 2 and a road game in Arizona (30^th) in Week 4.

The Bears start off closer to the middle-of-the-pack with matchups against the Titans (21st) and Texans (15th), but then get the 28th-ranked Colts and 27th-ranked Rams. These are ideal matchups for rookie QB Caleb Williams, and both D.J. Moore and Keenan Allen should eat in the first month.

Moore is currently one of the best deals in redraft. He finished as the overall WR8 in 2023, the Bears upgraded at QB (I don't care if Williams is a rookie), and yet his 2024 ADP is WR22 (according to FantasyData.com).  The main question I have is will there be enough to go around for first-round rookie Rome Odunze to also join the dinner party?

As with the QB position, the Buccaneers are the first team on the list to meet the Top Heavy criteria. Tampa Bay has a Top 10 toughest matchup in Week 2 at Detroit, but their next toughest matchup ranks 23^rd (Broncos), and they get the easiest projected WR matchup in Week 1 (Commanders).

Both Mike Evans and Chris Godwin should come out of the gate hot against Washington, and both could outplay their current Average Draft Position (ADP) in the first month. And one of my favorite WR sleepers, rookie Jalen McMillan, from my hometown University of Washington Huskies, should be an early-season waiver wire darling.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers Round 3 rookie WR Jalen McMillan only has run 16 preseason routes but has put up elite per-route data to follow up a steady drumbeat of training camp praise.

- 37.5% target per route run rate
- 3.56 yards per route run

Smooth operator. pic.twitter.com/STcVJGAxUa

— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) August 24, 2024

The Cardinals are in a unique position, making this list even with two Top 10 toughest WR matchups. Arizona gets Buffalo (7^th) in Week 1 and Detroit (10^th) in Week 3. It’s their other two opponents that push their overall early season schedule into the “soft” category. The Rams (Week 2) rank 30^th and the Cardinals get the Commanders (32^nd) in Week 4.

Joe Burrow and the Bengals have a tough start against the Patriots (14^th) and Chiefs (5^th). But they (and hopefully those who roster Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins) are rewarded with matchups against the Commanders (32^nd) and Panthers (24^th) in Weeks 3 and 4. And Ja'Marr Chase's potential contract dispute seems to be at rest for now.0

Ja’Marr Chase.

Full participant.

Expected to go full all week.

More on the #Bengals WR returning to practice: https://t.co/dJUHFANtlE

— Paul Dehner Jr. (@pauldehnerjr) August 25, 2024

Here are the Top 10 toughest early-season schedules for fantasy WRs.

The Ravens check in with the toughest Early Season schedule, with all four opponents in the Top 11. Zay Flowers is a somewhat controversial second-year wideout, with some fully on board with Flowers as the WR1 in Baltimore, and others advising to steer clear at his current ADP.

I agree with Luke here.

The passing pie from Lamar Jackson in the low volume Baltimore offense is not big enough to support both Mark Andrews and Flowers as top options at their position.

But if Andrews gets hurt, THEN we can talk about Zay Flowers WR1 upside. https://t.co/l2mZpZSrfS

— Hutchinson Brown (@hutchinsonb_ff) August 26, 2024

I tend toward the latter stance and do not see myself ending up with many Flowers shares in redraft, especially with the Ravens' brutal first month.

The Cowboys are another team with a difficult start to the 2024 season, with three of their first four matchups against the Top 10 toughest opponents, and two of those in the Top 5 (Ravens and Browns).

You are drafting CeeDee Lamb near the top of the first round and playing him every week he suits up. That is non-negotiable. Lamb may just not put up the astronomical numbers we saw in 2023 until Dallas gets the 31st-ranked Giants in Week 4. This is more of a statement against the other Dallas WRs (Brandin Cooks and Jalen Tolbert), who you were not spending much draft capital on anyway.

The following chart shows each team’s matchup rank (color-coded) for fantasy WRs in Weeks 5 through 9 (middle season), followed by the average rank and Top-Heavy score. Here we can start looking ahead to the second month of the NFL season.

The Bears and Packers keep the party going in Weeks 5-9, with Chicago having the easiest SOS, including Top-Heavy SOS. The Bears have better all-around matchups but they also have a bye sandwiched into this time frame.

The Giants make an appearance on this list, and this is the stretch of games where I think rookie Malik Nabers ascends into must-start status (if he isn't already there after the first month).

Malik Nabers preseason breakdown:

31.6% - Target share when on the field
43.7% - Air yardage share when on the field

13.3 - Average depth of target

(Data per @TruMediaSports)

Nabers has been used as the pre-snap motion man five times and targeted on two of those five routes.… pic.twitter.com/mA8nr57Q7Q

— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) August 20, 2024

This is also the stretch of the season that Chris Olave may finally match his fantasy output with his elite peripheral metrics. The Saints did barely make the Top 10 for the first four games as well, but I expect that offense to have a slow start to the season. After their Week 5 game in Kansas City (fifth-toughest WR matchup), Olave gets the Buccaneers (20th), Broncos (23rd), Chargers (29th), and Panthers (24th).

And here is the chart showing the Top 10 hardest middle-season schedules for fantasy WRs.

The following chart shows the difference in WR SOS between each team’s Early and Middle Season schedule, sorted from highest (schedule gets easier) to lowest (schedule gets harder).

Before I go, I will leave you with the full-season heat map schedules for each team across each fantasy skill position. Good luck in your upcoming drafts and have a great fantasy season in 2024!

2024 Strength of Schedule vs. WR

Thank you so much for reading! I love diving deep into the fantasy strength of schedule with the hope that I can help you make the best decisions possible in the maze of fantasy football decisions.

I will not be writing the weekly DST article for Rotoballer again this year, but I will still be compiling the data, and I am always available to help out. If you have any questions about this article or general questions about fantasy football, reach out to me on X (@MunderDifflinFF).

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