With each passing year not only are fantasy players growing smarter, but analysts are also becoming keener to spotting values and feeding said players good advice. This is leading to a closer-to-value ADP that you’ll find in drafts. You’ll find this, especially with the WR position, as the league is turning into an extremely pass-heavy product, and receivers’ roles are pretty cemented in each team barring new additions. There’s also a slew of new talent that's been entering the league and oversaturating the position. This has birthed the rise of tier-based drafting. Instead of having a linear-numbered ranking, you can bunch guys in a tier of similar production. I’ve combed through my tier-based rankings and scoured the draft order to find the ever-so-tricky value picks at the receiver position. With so many players being taken just a few picks before or after how I would personally rank them, I tried my best to avoid such players. Nonetheless, a few tended to find their way on the list for one reason or another.
All rankings mentioned will be under Full-Point PPR on Sleeper
HIGH TIER
Mike Evans
Commencing the highest cost ADP tier with Mike Evans, a player who has done nothing, but be the embodiment of consistency since the moment he stepped into the league regardless of the situation around him. Currently going at WR15 for a player of his caliber is criminal considering he’s coming off a WR7 finish. There were no attempts to replace him or add any threatening targets by Tampa this offseason. The numbers he hit last season weren’t personal bests in any category from targets, receptions, yards, yards per target, yards per catch, or touchdowns. Not to mention throughout his entire ten-year career he’s only been outside the top fifteen a grand total of three times. He finished at WR17 twice in 2022 & 2017, and his lowest finish was WR22 in 2015. This is a nasty case of ageism discount and you should be buying. He’s been a red zone threat his whole career so the touchdowns should stay consistent, though they’re arguably the hardest metric to predict. Also, the man has hit 1k yards in ten straight seasons and if this is the one time he busts I’ll gladly jump on that grenade. Yes, he admittedly has had a QB downgrade from Brady to Baker with the aforementioned coming off the best season of his rocky career. It’s easy to try to predict a drop in production from Evans, but the drop won’t be drastic enough to take him outside the top fifteen. We’ve seen enough of Baker Mayfield to know that once he finds his favorite target, he’s the type of QB to hypertarget said receiver. Opposed to Brady who loves spreading the ball around, dissecting the opposing defense, and simply finding the open man. This is evident with not just film, but it shows in the numbers as well. Evans saw his highest target total since 2018 with 136 targets. I know Brady arrived in Tampa in 2020, so before you get any ideas let me tell you the only reason Evans didn’t continue his trend of being a target monster in 2019 was because he only played 13 games in which he still saw 118 balls come his way. Which would have been his 2nd highest total in his three years with Brady. Baker even with all his warts has shown that he can excel in this scheme, and I see no reason to presume that Mike Evans, who has shown no signs of slowing down, should be drafted at his floor
Cooper Kupp
This next guy is a bit of a harder sell to some and for good reason I admit, but he wouldn’t be on this list if it wasn’t deserved. Cooper Kupp is currently going at WR22. I just want to start by saying that if Cooper Kupp plays all 17 games and STILL manages to finish outside the top 20 of wideouts there would be two immediate questions on my mind. Did Matthew Stafford finish the season? And how insane of a season did Puka Nacua have? It feels like ages ago that Kupp finished as the WR1 and obtained the ever-so-rare triple crown, but it was just a few years ago in 2021. Sadly in the NFL that could mean an eternity. Now 31 and a season removed from the hamstring and ankle injuries that forced him to miss games the past two seasons, Kupp is coming into this season completely healthy. There were ups and downs in the games he played last season, but it wasn’t the same production that we’ve all come to expect from someone who was once regarded as the de facto best receiver in the league not too long ago. The highs were high, but the lows were so very low. In the 12 games he played, he finished as a WR12 or better on the week four times and the WR49 or worse five times. The remaining games were a mix of being in the middle of that production where he didn’t win you your week, but he didn’t kill your team that week either. Combine all this with the sudden rise of superstar rookie Puka Nacua, and it's not difficult to see why people have soured on Kupp. I’m not here to feed you lies or fantasies of Kupp returning to form as the best receiver in football. I won’t even say he’ll be the most productive receiver on his team. So why in the world should I draft him you might ask. While I don’t believe he will ever sniff the triple crown production again, I don’t believe the drastic inconsistencies we saw last year are the new normal for him. Counting up all the twelve consecutive games he missed through 2022-2023 it adds up to nearly a full year off the field. Anyone away from the field that long will need to readjust, and when you throw in Puka emerging as an equal #1 option to Kupp, the inconsistencies start to add up. Sean McVay is still one of the smartest minds in football, and Stafford is still one of the best QBs in the game. They’ll all have an entire offseason to learn how to gel everything together. Kupp may not give you his signature performances on a week to week basis anymore, but he has still shown he can single-handedly win you a week. The connection he shares with Stafford is still very much alive, and with how bad the Rams defense is expected to be, he’ll be seeing a lot of work from an offense that will be passing the ball plenty. Fade him at your own risk.
Jaylen Waddle
My personal favorite pick on this list is currently going as the WR19. Fresh off of a WR34 finish, Jaylen Waddle lost a bit of the steam he had coming off his ridiculous freshman and sophomore years. Looking deeper into the numbers though, Waddle was having a season not too different from the one that saw him finish as the WR8 in 2022. The biggest difference apart from the touchdowns was missing three games. He was on pace to have more catches and targets in his third year than his second, so his role in the offense has already increased. His yards per target and yards per catch averages went down, but only a fool would believe those astronomical numbers were sustainable. The Dolphins had the #1 scoring rushing attack in the league, so it's only natural that some passing touchdowns will get lost in the mix. I expect Waddle to bounce back in a big way this upcoming season as some of those rushing TDs the Dolphins got will turn into passing TDs. He just signed an extension with the team and they’re paying him like a bonafide #1 receiver, and knowing NFL teams they’ll look to find even more opportunities to get him the ball. Tyreek is only getting older, and I’m not saying the end is near for him, but it’s likely the team will look to lean on Waddle more to ease the workload of Tyreek. He’s more of a safe value pick with a high floor, but an even higher ceiling. Having the ability to single-handedly win you a week is one of the most valuable things for a fantasy player. He’s one of the primary targets in what has been one of the most, if not the most, electrifying offenses in the league for the past two years. A receiver who broke the rookie reception record and finished as the WR13 then proceeded to follow it up with a WR8 finish is being taken at WR19 because of a season he “disappointed” in. I’ll hedge my bets that last season was the outlier and that he’ll return to form this season with the worst that could happen being a full return on value.
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