How can you get an edge over your fellow players in fantasy football? Select players who are having their best season! Here, the Yahoo Fantasy team shares five of their favorite WR candidates to consider when making your selection.
Drake London, Atlanta Falcons
Writing about Drake London at this point makes me feel like a proud mother holding up her son’s role as Tree Number 5 in the school play, because the first two years of London’s career were disappointing and unproductive. London’s early career was marred by poor play from quarterbacks Marcus Mariota, Desmond Ridder and Taylor Heinicke, and the result was fewer than 1,000 receiving yards per season on six total touchdowns.
However, with the signing of Kirk Cousins, London has real breakout potential. The Falcons have one of the easiest schedules this year and while his ADP in Round 3 is aggressive given the lack of production thus far, London is the clear WR1 and will lead the team in terms of targets. If he can be Cousins’ first pick in the red zone, he’s a legitimate top-five candidate. — Tera Roberts
Zay Flowers, Baltimore Ravens
Zay Flowers is coming off a 77-catch rookie season in which he showed only a fraction of his game. He was a serious vertical threat at the college level, but functioned primarily as a short-range target last year (8.8 ADOT).
Flowers has been a busy player throughout training camp, and there’s reason to believe his portfolio of tasks will expand in his second season. Let’s give him two or three of those targets each week and see what happens. Flowers is almost certainly on pace for 120-plus targets next year, and he’s tied with a two-time league MVP. His situation is excellent, and his talent is obvious. — Andy Behrens
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Rashee Rice, Kansas City Chiefs
I know what you’re thinking, he’s already broken out. But I want you to realize that Rice will have to reach a higher level when he returns in 2024. It took a while for Kansas City to really trust the rookie last year, but look at what he’s done in the last 10 games, including the playoffs: 69 catches, 822 yards, four touchdowns. Jesus, that’s the music of the sun god.
Also, the risk of Rice being suspended for 2024 seems virtually zero. Either he won’t be suspended or the Chiefs can put the issue off. Please draft this guy this year. His current ADP is insane. — Scott Pianoski
Xavier Worthy, Kansas City Chiefs
It’s hard to ignore Worthy in Round 8 of this season’s fantasy football drafts. Patrick Mahomes is coming off his worst season as a downfield passer; he lacked the personnel to win downfield, and it showed when he posted the lowest air yards per attempt of his career. However, the Chiefs solved that problem in the offseason by signing Marquise Brown and moving up to Round 1 to draft Worthy. The news out of camp is that these guys win downfield a lot.
We saw Worthy excel in all three years of college and have an outstanding ability to get targets. I get a little excited thinking about how Andy Reid and Mahomes will use him. Will we see those long developmental routes again like Tyreek Hill had? Kansas City has the offensive line for that, they will give Mahomes time for those developmental concepts.
I’m banking on Worthy in this offense, not only as a breakout candidate, but also as a potential league winner. — Salt Glass
Tank Dell, Houston Texans
Tank Dell is coming off a very impressive rookie season that was shortened by injuries. He had a slightly higher target share (22.6%) than Nico Collins (22.1), but a big advantage in air yards share (36.0% vs. 25.4%) during the seven games in which both played at least 50% of the snaps. Dell is a true route runner, averaging 10.8 targets, 6.3 catches and 92.3 receiving yards with five touchdowns in his final four games as a rookie. He was WR5 in eight games with full route participation.
Meanwhile, newcomer Stefon Diggs showed clear signs of a decline in performance last season and will start in a new offense in Year 10. Khalil Shakir has more receiving yards than Diggs in Buffalo’s last 10 games, despite having less than half as many targets.
CJ Stroud is the right guy (and his rookie numbers would have been even more impressive had he not suffered multiple concussions) and there’s no chance the Texans will rank 19th in passing percentage above expectations again like they did in 2023. Dell should be fully recovered from his injury from last season, which didn’t require TightRope surgery like Tony Pollard’s.
Dell is expected to make the breakthrough in 2024. — Dalton Del Don
