Fantasy Football Wide Receivers You Must Draft in 2024 - Part I

Running backs are so 2010, am I right? Fantasy football has completely moved on. Now, all we want are the receivers. How many receivers are too many? That’s not actually a thing. You cannot have too many receivers. Who’s my No. 2 running back going to be? I don’t care, but check this out, Jameson Williams is my WR8. Can you believe that?!

That might be a slight exaggeration, but I’m not entirely sure it is. The reality is that more and more fantasy football managers are targeting receiver after receiver after receiver. In this series, we’ll focus on receivers available in different parts of the draft that fantasy managers should be leaving every single draft with. Seriously, these guys are priced excellently and have a ton of upside. For this first entry, we’ll be going in-depth on three of them, with more to follow.

Fantasy football is not so far away, and Best Ball season is already in full swing. OTAs and preseason games will be here sooner than you think, so the time to do your homework and research is right now. Let RotoBaller help you! Use promo code “BOOM” for a 10% discount on our premium tools.

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Tee Higgins, Cincinnati Bengals

Since Joe Burrow came into the league in 2020, he’s averaged 36.4 pass attempts per game. That amounts to 619 pass attempts over 17 games. In his past two seasons, Burrow has averaged 37.3 pass attempts per game or 635 over 17 games. Okay, we are talking about an absolute ton of passing volume.

In those past two seasons, in which Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins have both missed time, Burrow is averaging 1.92 touchdowns per game or 33 scores over 17 games. He’s also averaging 261 yards per game, or 4,437 yards over 17 games. See where am I going with this? We have a ton of volume and a ton of production.

We know Chase is an absolute stud. According to PlayerProfiler, he had a 26.3% target share in 2023 and 29.3% in 2022. Go ahead and give Chase a 28.5% target share on, let’s say, 625 pass attempts. With throwaways (give or take 25), he’d finish with around 170 targets on 600 targetable throws. For those of you playing along with a calculator, there are 430 targets left. Where are all those going?

The Bengals traded Joe Mixon this offseason, so their backfield consists of second-year player Chase Brown and four-year veteran Zack Moss. Moss has averaged 25 targets per season thus far. The running backs are unlikely to garner more than 75 or so targets. The talent just isn’t there. The tight ends are Mike Gesicki, Drew Sample, Tanner Hudson, and Erick All. Last season, Hudson, Sample, Irv Smith, and Mitchell Wilcox combined for 115 targets. Between the running backs and tight ends, let’s give them 200 combined. Feels fair, right? Well, we still have 230 targets left!

At receiver, the Bengals have Higgins, Jermaine Burton (third-round rookie), Andrei Iosivas (2023 sixth-rounder), and Trenton Irwin (sixth-year UDFA). It shouldn’t be surprising to see Higgins command 55% of those remaining targets, giving him roughly 127. That would equate to a target percentage just slightly higher than 20%. He was at 23.9% in 2021, 18.6% in 2022, and 17.9% last season in an injury-plagued year.

If we give him his career averages from his past three seasons playing with Burrow, Higgins would finish with 82 receptions, 1,197 yards, and eight touchdowns. In half-PPR, that would equal 208.7 total points and 12.27 half-PPR PPG. Last year that would have been the WR20. Higgins is currently being drafted as the WR27 on Underdog and the WR28 on Yahoo! drafts.

Terry McLaurin, Washington Commanders

Since McLaurin was drafted, Washington has never, not once, thrown for more than 3,725 yards in five years. They’ve never had 25 touchdowns. Washington has finished with fewer than 3,500 passing yards in four out of his five seasons. Twice, they’ve finished with less than 20 touchdowns. In McLaurin’s five seasons in Washington, the team averages 3,462 passing yards and 20.5 touchdowns per season. Washington has the 10th-fewest passing yards and seventh-fewest passing touchdowns since McLaurin’s rookie season.

Despite that, McLaurin has had over 1,000 yards every season since his rookie year. From 2020-2023, excluding his rookie season, McLaurin is averaging 7.82 targets, 4.85 receptions, 66.12 yards, and 0.27 touchdowns per game. Those per-game averages equate to 133 targets, 82 receptions, 1,124 yards, and 4.5 touchdowns over 17 games. It's pretty darn impressive, considering how pathetic his quarterbacks have been.

Enter Jayden Daniels. It is not a stretch to say he’ll be, by far, the best passer McLaurin has ever played with. He’s caught passes from Case Keenum, Colt McCoy, Alex Smith, Dwayne Haskins, Kyle Allen, Taylor Heinicke, Garrett Gilbert, Carson Wentz, Sam Howell, and Jacoby Brissett. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a crime in 48 of the 50 states. We don't need Daniels to be a superstar. We just need him to be okay. Okay, would be an improvement on what McLaurin has dealt with thus far.

In his four seasons with the Cardinals, Kliff Kingsbury’s offenses averaged 614 pass attempts per season. In 2022, they threw the football 664 times, which is a bit of an outlier. In 2019-2021, they averaged 597 pass attempts per year. From 2019-2021, again eliminating the 2022 season, the Cardinals averaged 4,044 yards per season and 25.5 touchdowns.

McLaurin had a 21.6% target share in 2023. Before that, he had target shares of 22.6% (2022), 24.5% (2021), and 25.4% (2020). If we expect the Commanders to throw it 597 times as Kingsbury’s offenses did in Arizona, and McLaurin has a 22% target share, he’d have roughly 125 targets. Based on his career averages, he’d finish with 78 receptions, 1,092 yards, and five touchdowns. But those career averages are based on his time catching balls from Keenum, McCoy, Smith, Haskins, Allen, Heinicke, Gilbert, Wentz, Howell, and Brissett. Sorry to do that again, but what if Daniels is better?

Those stats above would result in a 10.48 half-PPR PPG average, which would have resulted in a WR34 finish last season. You can draft him as the WR36 on Underdog right now and WR33 on Yahoo! That may not seem like you’re getting a lot of insulated value. Still, again, we’re basing his final stat line on his career averages, catching passes from Keenum, McCoy, Smith, Haskins, Allen, and you get the picture. What if Daniels is better? What if Daniels is a lot better? Shouldn't that be the expectation because he’s the No. 2 overall pick and a former Heisman winner?

George Pickens, Pittsburgh Steelers

Before we get to Pickens, let’s first focus on how his situation and environment have changed for the better. The Steelers traded Kenny Pickett and brought in Russell Wilson. Now, Wilson isn’t great. This is not the Seattle Seahawks' Russell Wilson, but the bar to be better than Pickett is incredibly low, and Wilson clears it by a country mile. Consider the stats below:

• Yards Per Attempt: 6.9 (RW) vs 6.4 (KP)
• Touchdown Rate: 5.8% (RW) vs 1.9% (KP)
• Deep Ball Attempts Per Game: 4.3 (RW) vs 2.6 (KP)
• True Completion Percentage: 73.5% (RW) vs 67.0% (KP)
• Pressure Completion Percentage: 63.6% (RW) vs 53.8% (KP)
• Red Zone Completion Percentage: 62.3% (RW) vs 43.8% (KP)
• Clean Pocket Completion Percentage: 67.6% (RW) vs 64.8% (KP)
• On Target Percentage: 77.9% (RW) vs 71.6% (KP)
• Off Target Percentage: 13.2% (RW) vs 18.4% (KP)
• True Passer Rating: 101.0 (RW) vs 76.7 (KP)

Whatever you think of Wilson, he’s much better than Pickett. Pickett is on the Zach Wilson level. Wilson is on the Derek Carr level. Neither is great, but oh boy, is one a lot better than the other. Now, that’s just one piece of the situational improvement. The other is the Diontae Johnson trade. Now check this out.

Some of you might be worried about new offensive coordinator, Arthur Smith. I get it, his stint in Atlanta was rough. However, some of that can be attributed to the quarterbacks he was forced to play. Marcus Mariota, Desmond Ridder… there’s only so much a coach can do. In 2019, the Titans, with Smith as offensive coordinator finished 10th in points and 12th in yards. In 2020, they were fourth in points and second in yards. In his final season in Tennessee (2021), they finished 15th in points and 17th in yards. Not too shabby, am I right? Not only that, but take a gander at Smith’s No. 1 receivers from 2020-2023, excluding 2019, which was A.J. Brown’s rookie season.

• AJ Brown, 2020: 25.9% (9th highest)
• AJ Brown, 2021: 27.0% (9th highest)
• Drake London, 2022: 29.4% (5th highest)
• Drake London, 2023: 23.3% (25th highest)

Those are some elite target shares! Okay, now that we've covered the situational improvements and Arthur Smith, let's talk about Pickens for a second. But before we do that, you need to consider these stats. The Pittsburgh Steelers offense was dreadful last season—truly, truly awful. So, as we look at stats specific to Pickens, it's important to keep these stats below in the back of our minds because Pickens was being forced to overcome many elements outside of his control.

• 29th in Pass Attempts
• 21st in Completion Percentage
• 25th in Passing Yards
• 30th in Passing Touchdowns
• 23rd in Yards Per Attempt
• 21st in Quarterback Rating
• 28th in Total Points Scored
• 25th in Total Yards Gained

Okay, now let's get to Pickens. Despite the numbers above, Pickens finished with 1,428 air yards, which was the 18th-most at the position. Not surprisingly, he also racked up a ton of unrealized air yards, 676 of them to be exact, which was the 16th-highest in the league. He finished with just eight red zone targets, tied for 56th among receivers. A better quarterback should lead to more red zone work in 2024, increasing his touchdown potential.

Despite the atrocious quarterback play, Pickens averaged 2.20 yards per route run, the 17th-best. This increased to 3.00 in the four games without Johnson. He also averaged 10.8 yards per target (fifth-best), 18.1 yards per reception (first), and 2.25 yards per team pass attempt (11th-best). He managed those excellent efficiency metrics despite just 68.9% of his targets being deemed catchable, which ranked 61st.

Pickens is currently being drafted as the WR34 on Underdog and WR30 in Yahoo! He had 63 receptions, 1,140 yards, and five touchdowns last year. He's in an excellent situation to improve on those numbers. Even if some of his efficiency metrics fall, he had just 106 targets total in 2023, which should be closer to 130 in 2024. Pickens has easy WR2 potential this season and should be targeted consistently at his current ADP in Yahoo! and Underdog formats.

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