Wide receiver sleepers to consider in 2024 fantasy football drafts

23/08/2024 14:16

Later round wide receivers who can help make a difference for your fantasy football team.

With the meteoric rise in points per reception (PPR) formats in the past decade along with the increased sustained durability of the wide receiver position in comparison to running backs, your core of receivers feels like something that can make or break a fantasy season.

More receivers than ever seem to be going in the first round of drafts, and this is a year where we expect to see the primary pass catchers make up the majority of first-round picks in most leagues.

Whether you decide to load up on strong WRs early, go with the "hero WR" philosophy of selecting one great one and then holding off on the position for a number of rounds or granting less importance to the position in favor of loading up elsewhere, identifying late-round sleeper receivers will always be crucial.

Below are four sleepers to consider in fantasy football drafts. First, let's define who can considered a sleeper for the purposes of this article. Fantasypros.com has a handy tool which takes the average ADP (average draft position) of three different platforms — Yahoo, Sleeper and RealTime Fantasy Sports — and compiles them into one list.

Every name in this exercise will be outside the top 30 in Fantasy Pros' compiled positional ADP list for wide receivers in the half-PPR format, and all are typically available in the seventh round or later of 12-team fantasy drafts. You can find the full list of half-PPR wide receiver ADPs here.

Calvin Ridley - Tennessee Titans
Positional ADP: 34th; Overall ADP: 77th

Sometimes the best thing to do when analyzing potential fantasy picks is to "follow the money." No wide receiver signed for money during the free agency period than Calvin Ridley.

The Tennessee Titans successfully enticed Ridley with a four-year, $92 million contract with $50 million of it guaranteed, and they did not make that financial commitment to not feature the former first-rounder out of Alabama in their offense.

During his last two full seasons of play, Ridley has accumulated a combined 2,390 receiving yards and 17 receiving touchdowns, demonstrating the talent. He now moves to a Titans team overseen by head coach Brian Callahan, who is expected to institute a pass-centric approach to the offense for the benefit of sophomore quarterback Will Levis.

Ridley's primary target competition will be 32-year-old DeAndre Hopkins, who is already in doubt for Week 1 with a knee injury. No matter Hopkins' presence in the lineup, Calvin Ridley will be a focal point in Callahan's offense and should be available in the seventh round of your draft.

Diontae Johnson - Carolina Panthers
Positional ADP: 38th; Overall ADP: 86th

You may have been burned by Diontae Johnson in the past, but with an offseason move to the Carolina Panthers, he has an opportunity at a sort of resurrection.

Following a Pro Bowl 2021 campaign in which he racked up 1,161 receiving yards and eight touchdowns, Johnson had a disastrously inefficient 2022 where he somehow didn't catch a single touchdown despite having 147 targets. Last season seemed to be a bit of a bounce-back with five scores and 717 yards in a season where Johnson battled an IR stint and an offense which limited everybody's ceiling with incredibly poor quarterback play.

The Panthers, who had a gaping hole atop their WR depth chart, traded for Diontae Johnson back in March and head coach Dave Canales immediately informed the Toledo alum that he would be the primary option in Carolina's passing game for quarterback Bryce Young.

While the Panthers offense doesn't scream explosive, there is not much target competition for Johnson beyond the likes of unproven rookies/sophomores such as Xavier Legette and Jonathan Mingo and the aging Adam Thielen, who was the overall WR25 in half-PPR last season as Young's No. 1 target.

Canales also comes from a background as the offensive coordinator of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where his play calling helped support an overall WR5 season for Mike Evans.

The fantasy community seems to have soured on both Diontae Johnson and the Panthers offense, and that's been the perfect mix for a depreciated ADP which could end up being real value in the eighth round.

Khalil Shakir - Buffalo Bills
Positional ADP: 51st; Overall ADP: 130th

The Buffalo Bills have 152 catches, 1,929 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns which left the building this offseason and need to be replaced. These, of course, are the combined stat lines of Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis in 2023, and given quarterback Josh Allen's prolific nature as a passer, it's a rather safe bet that that yardage will be redistributed elsewhere instead of completely lost.

The main candidates who are expected to get a piece of that vacated passing attention are tight end Dalton Kincaid, second-round rookie Keon Coleman, journeyman free agent signing Curtis Samuel and Khalil Shakir, who is Buffalo's only holdover at the wide receiver position from last year.

Shakir is the cheapest among these options, on average going in the 11th round of 12-team half PPR leagues, and it's more than worthwhile to take a swing on the third-year man out of Boise State.

The sure-handed Shakir caught 86.7% of the 45 passes thrown his way last season as he made a leap from 161 receiving yards in his rookie year to 611 receiving yards in his sophomore campaign. This includes leading the Bills as a team in receiving yardage from Week 11 through the end of last season. Thus far in the preseason, Shakir led the Bills with 28 receiving yards in the only game in which Josh Allen saw any action.

The upward trajectory and the trust from his quarterback is there, and the target competition is not nearly as stiff as it was last season. There's a chance that you could be walking away with Josh Allen's WR1 in the 11th round by taking a chance on Khalil Shakir.

Joshua Palmer - Los Angeles Chargers
Positional ADP: 56th; Overall ADP: 150th

Keeping up with the theme of football teams that lost their two top receivers off of last year's depth chart, the Los Angeles Chargers similarly had to part with Mike Williams and longtime stalwart Keenan Allen due to a salary cap crunch.

LA made a number of changes this offseason, both in terms of the roster and on the coaching staff, hiring Jim Harbaugh and bringing in Greg Roman as offensive coordinator. While there will likely be more of a shift toward a run-based philosophy, the prolific Justin Herbert is still under center and Joshua Palmer is coming off of back-to-back seasons where he was the team's second-leading wide receiver, with each of the players who were number one (Williams in 2022 and Allen in 2023) now gone.

Much like Shakir, Palmer's main competition in helping replace the departed pass catchers is a second-round rookie — Ladd McConkey, who went one pick after Keon Coleman. Also much like Shakir, Palmer already has a leg up on many of his teammates in having already developed a very solid repertoire with his star quarterback.

Palmer has also shown his ability to produce when given an opportunity to play the majority of the game. Last season he had five games where he played 70% or more snaps, and he put together a stat line of 20 catches, 430 yards and a touchdown in those games.

Not every pick in a fantasy draft has to be a home run. Given the opportunity in front of him, Josh Palmer can be a very solid single with the potential for more, and that's very worthwhile in the 13th round.