4 Fantasy Football Wide Receivers To Buy In Dynasty Leagues (2026)

July 1, 2026

Which fantasy football WRs should you trade for in 2026? Patrick examines WRs to target in dynasty leagues. WRs to buy include Jordyn Tyson, A.J. Brown, and Christian Watson.

Summer is here, and while our favorite players are off eating phones, ingesting powders in colors too bold for even children’s cereal and experimenting with all other manner of headline-grabbing activities in the six-week lull before training camp, we laypeople need to find our dopamine spikes in more traditional ways.

Singeing your knuckle hairs on the grill. Swallowing a cup of chlorine during a suddenly too-aggressive game of Marco Polo. Discovering your local drug store is fresh out of calamine lotion after a weekend at Mosquito Lake. All quintessential activities for this time of year, but for dynasty managers, summer doesn’t officially begin until the better-than-any-theme-park exhilaration of your first accepted trade notification.

With minicamps drawing even the deepest dynasty dozers out of their offseason hibernation, trade talks are flowing again, and players who spent the spring buried beneath a mountain of unchecked offers are suddenly attainable. As you put the finishing touches on your roster before the 2026 season, these are four wide receivers worth targeting.

Jordyn Tyson, New Orleans Saints (WR17)

Puka Nacua and Davante Adams. Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens.

While that’s already a lot of faces for the current Mount Rushmore of wide receiver duos, there’s no need to put the chisel away just yet when Chris Olave and Jordyn Tyson are about to go full send in Kellen Moore’s receiver-friendly offense.

In four of his six seasons as an offensive coordinator, and essentially every time he’s overseen a receiver room with a pulse, Moore has produced two top-30 fantasy wide receivers.

With the rest of the league drifting toward heavier personnel usage, only five active play-callers deployed three-plus receiver sets at a higher rate than Moore in 2025, despite the fact that his second and third receivers were often guys like Devaughn Vele and Mason Tipton.

Meanwhile, Olave remains one of the league's premier man-beaters, and the softer coverages he creates in those three-receiver sets helped Rashid Shaheed produce low-end WR2 numbers by expected fantasy points before his trade to Seattle. Tyson is a considerably better player.

In the early stages of the predraft process, Tyson had a legitimate claim to the top receiver spot in the class. His 99th-percentile breakout age and 94th-percentile dominator rating are the type of sticky indicators of fantasy success that kept him in that conversation despite legitimate durability concerns.

Yet, once Carnell Tate was selected a few picks earlier, the debate effectively ended overnight, with most managers prioritizing the WR1 job in a mediocre offense over a secondary role in one that has proved capable of producing multiple fantasy studs.

As rookies, Tyler Shough threw for more than 40 additional yards per game than Cam Ward, completed passes at a significantly higher rate, and finished second in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting on a half-season resume. Ward, meanwhile, supported just one wide receiver above 425 yards.

Tennessee should certainly improve under OC Brian Daboll, but there's still far more projection required to build a functional fantasy future around Tate than Tyson. With Olave’s frightening history of concussions and now blood clots, the path to a No. 1 role could open for Tyson at a moment’s notice.

Missing minicamp with a lingering hamstring injury, Tyson’s buy window remains open until his inevitable training-camp highlights remind everyone why there used to be a debate between him and Tate.

A first look at @Saints rookie WR @tyson_jordyn at practice, He's wearing 0, the same number he wore at @ASUFootball. Tyson looked quick and fluid running his routes at day one of rookie minicamp. @wdsu pic.twitter.com/zxNyGZk00J

— Sharief Ishaq (@ShariefWDSU) May 8, 2026

Until that happens, those who have not yet started their rookie drafts should be looking to flip spots with any manager convinced that Tate is the receiver to own from this class. And if that was already you, it’s not too late to own your mistake and seize the opportunity to turn Tate into Tyson-plus.

A.J. Brown, New England Patriots (WR19)

Drake Maye to A.J. Brown is going to feed families.

CORNER TUD 💪@newbalance | #NEPats pic.twitter.com/8ctP8bXpRE

— New England Patriots (@Patriots) June 11, 2026

Operating behind a leaky offensive line in his first full season as a starter, the 23-year-old Maye emerged as one of the league’s most dangerous downfield passers, accomplishing the feat with Kayshon Boutte fighting above his weight class as the team’s primary vertical threat.

While Boutte deserves credit for developing into a clutch contributor, he and Brown are different breeds of cat. Boutte is essentially still on the Patriots because no other team has been willing to send a fifth- or sixth-round pick for him, while Brown is one of only five receivers this century to receive a vote for MVP.

According to Next Gen Stats, Brown's 129 receptions for 1,977 yards against man coverage both lead the NFL since 2022, while his 22 touchdowns rank fourth. Meanwhile, Maye finished in the top four in both passing yards and passing touchdowns against man coverage last season.

Take the opportunity to read that string of words one more time before they’re rendered indecipherable by a salivary overflow from OC Josh McDaniels.

While Brown remains one of the game's premier downfield weapons, McDaniels has historically loved turning dominant X receivers into target vacuums with slants and digs that allow them to do damage after the catch.

Randy Moss set the single-season touchdown record in his first year with McDaniels, but stylistically, Brown is closer to Brandon Marshall or Davante Adams, both of whom saw 180 targets as bright spots in McDaniels’ two failed head-coaching tenures.

While a degenerative knee condition is thought to be the reason more teams weren’t involved in the very public trade conversations for Brown, dynasty managers are often willing to overlook age-related concerns for short-term production, and an overall WR1 finish remains firmly within his range of outcomes.

As RotoBaller’s dynasty WR19, any price being asked for his services is likely a bargain. With Brown completing that latest New England trinity of quarterback, receiver, and visor-wearing play-caller, he should be a priority target for all contending managers.

Christian Watson, Green Bay Packers (WR37)

A checkered injury history and a crowded depth chart have long obscured the fantasy dominance of Christian Watson, but 2026 could deliver the most explosive unmasking since Kane made good on his loss to Triple H by finally revealing his face and promptly setting fire to Good Ol’ JR.

Watson has never topped 620 receiving yards in a season or had a fantasy finish within the top 30 of the position, but that has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with staying on the field. In his 23 career games with a route participation rate above 75%, he has averaged 14.1 half-PPR points per game, which would have been enough to finish as a top-12 wide receiver in each of the past four seasons.

In agreeing to a four-year extension worth up to $110 million and clearing out anyone standing in his way, the Packers appear fully committed to finding out what that production looks like over a full season. Romeo Doubs, who played more offensive snaps than every Packers skill player besides Jordan Love last season, was allowed to depart in free agency, while the team traded Dontayvion Wicks to Philadelphia.

Watson’s biggest threats for a true every-down role are now a slot-only receiver in Jayden Reed, who has run fewer than 10 career routes with one or two receivers on the field, and 2025 first-round pick Matthew Golden, who certainly got his steps in running cardio as a rookie but went untargeted on more than 82% of his routes.

Watson and tight end Tucker Kraft overlapped for only a game and a half in 2025, which helped Watson maintain his Clark Kent persona, somehow hiding his two-tight-end superpower like a pair of glasses.

Watson's 3.18 yards per route run with two or fewer receivers on the field ranked eighth in the NFL. Although Green Bay operated out of 12 personnel at the fifth-highest rate in the league, that usage was even higher before Kraft’s season-ending ACL tear.

Malik Willis TO CHRISTIAN WATSON TIES IT UP

BALvsGB on @peacock
Also streaming on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/HovaSsIRM6

— NFL (@NFL) December 28, 2025

So let’s review…

When Watson runs routes like a full-time receiver, he scores like a WR1, and the Packers removed two of their most active receivers from last year's roster.

When Watson runs routes out of multi-tight-end sets, he produces like a WR1, and the Packers have expressed confidence in Kraft’s return for Week 1.

And this is the same guy who dynasty managers can acquire right now as a low-end WR3? No practical jokes? No hidden cameras? Just WR1 value at a WR3 price? Excuse me while I squint my eyes in disbelief and send out a few more trade offers.

Adonai Mitchell, New York Jets (WR94)

While dropping the ball before crossing the goal line has become all the rage in recent years, has anyone ever done it with the flair of Adonai Mitchell?

A spectacular contested catch 25 yards downfield. A B-button spin that left two defenders colliding like cartoon henchmen. A tightrope walk along the sideline. And then, just before completing one of the most absurd highlight-reel touchdowns of the season, he casually bowled the football through the back of the end zone.

Ball is out before it crosses the goal line. It’s a touchback!

INDvsLAR on FOX/FOX Onehttps://t.co/HkKw7uXnxV pic.twitter.com/DtuT1kDX9s

— NFL (@NFL) September 28, 2025

Mitchell spent the next four games in Shane Steichen’s doghouse, targeted only four more times in his Colts career before becoming the living embodiment of one man’s trash.

Potentially viewed by the Colts as merely a throw-in as part of the deal that landed Sauce Gardner in Indianapolis, Mitchell was said to be a coveted piece in the trade for the Jets. With Garrett Wilson out of action by that point, he became the team’s leading receiver over the second half of the season.

Learning a new system on the fly and catching passes from a combination of Tyrod Taylor and Brady Cook, he twice finished as a top-15 fantasy wide receiver, seeing a 17-game pace of 133 targets across his six full games.

In his first full offseason with the team, multiple beat writers have highlighted Mitchell as one of the team's minicamp standouts, and he appears firmly on track to open the year as the WR2 opposite Wilson. Reports have noted his immediate connection with Geno Smith, whose willingness to challenge tight coverages and take shots downfield should be naturally well-received by the smooth-moving contested-catch artist.

The additions of Kenyon Sadiq and Omar Cooper Jr. could be framed as negatives by some dynasty managers, but those are precisely the types of players built to muck up the middle of the field and send a guy like Mitchell screaming into space in Frank Reich’s mesh-heavy offense.

At just 23 years old, with a starting job, a quarterback upgrade, and organizational backing, Mitchell has no business being priced as low as WR94. But if the market wants to remember him for a ball he dropped almost a year ago, by all means let it. Just don't forget all the cool stuff he did before that, and don’t be surprised by what comes next.

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