When to Draft a Wide Receiver in Your Fantasy League

Aug 04, 2021

Hannah Foslien/Getty Images

Running backs? Where we’re going, we don’t need running backs!

I kid, of course, as running backs are essential to the game of fantasy football. However, this article isn’t about those ball hogs. It is all about wide receivers, and how to strategically approach the position as you prepare for 2021 fantasy football drafts.

As was the case in years past, the setup of this article is simple: operating within the framework of a traditional 12-team snake draft, I’ll pull ADP data from 4for4’s brilliant Multi-site ADP tool to examine strategies to exploit when it comes to fantasy wide receivers in 2021. As is tradition, the article will be broken down into three different parts based on where you might hypothetically be picking (early, middle, or late in the first round). You’ll notice that some of the strategies include similar names, and that’s because right now those players are far and away the best values based on 4for4’s analysis and rankings. I’ll be updating this article throughout the next month as ADPs shift and rankings change, so be sure to bookmark it for now and check back as your draft approaches. Speaking of which, included at the bottom is a handy cheat sheet with round-by-round wide receivers to target that will I also update throughout the summer for you to reference on draft day. So let’s get to it.