The Best Wide Receiver to Take in Every Round of Your Fantasy Football Draft

Aug 07, 2024

The Best Wide Receiver to Take in Every Round of Your Draft

Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

Last season, if you managed to draft Mike Evans in the seventh round, Nico Collins in the teens, or by some miracle, Puka Nacua with your last pick, you probably had a decent year. Finding wide receivers that vastly outperform their draft value is one of the most surefire ways to make the playoffs and win championships.

Unfortunately, they can be tough to find. Their success is more externally dependent than any other position and there are more of them — sometimes near the double digits — on every depth chart. That said, if we follow the right factors — quarterback play, opportunity, offensive upside, talent — we can find a diamond in the rough of every relevant round.

To that end, here are my favorite wide receiver picks in each round of 2024 fantasy football drafts.

Round 1: Tyreek Hill

CeeDee Lamb is the consensus WR1, going ahead of Tyreek Hill on every major draft platform, so picking him here would feel like a copout. Plus, we probably saw the best possible Lamb last season, when he compiled 181 targets and scored the fifth-most points at any position. Hill, on the other hand, had an even more historic season quietly derailed by a Week 14 ankle injury. Prior to the injury, he was on pace for an NFL-record 2,098 receiving yards.

Tyreek Hill’s 17-Game Pace, Before & After Ankle Injury
	Before (Weeks 1-13)	After (Weeks 14-18)
Receptions	132	110
Receiving Yards	2,098	1,352
Receiving TDs	17	4
Fantasy Points	377	215.9

While it’s wild to say Hill’s 110-catch, 1,300-yard pace over his last four games was disappointing, it would have slotted him in as just the WR11 over the full season. His pre-injury pace of 377 fantasy points, on the other hand, would have made him not just the WR1 in 2023, but the number two player overall (behind only Josh Allen) … and the WR1 in NFL single-season history.

With a fully recovered ankle, a $90 million restructured contract extension, and a reportedly improving Tua Tagovailoa, there are very few reasons to expect anything but dominance from Hill in 2024. It would be more than valid to take him ahead of Lamb and within reason to take him 1.01 overall ahead of Christian McCaffrey.