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John Johnson's fantasy football wide receiver value picks and late-round sleepers for 2026. His draft targets include Quentin Johnston, Keenan Allen, and more.
The wide receiver position seems to produce excellent values, and even a few league-winners in the later rounds of drafts or even among those wideouts who aren't drafted in most fantasy football leagues.
A big part of the appeal of drafting multiple running backs early in redraft leagues is that their roles are usually more defined in their offenses, while things are much more fluid with receivers. Roles can come alive and evaporate in no time, while the workhorse running backs tend to keep their roles throughout the season.
Such a gap in predictability means that taking shots on WRs with upside in the later rounds can be worth your effort, while picking random handcuff running backs usually leads to nothing much, aside from in injury situations. So, let's break down eight late-round sleeper WRs you should consider for your fantasy football leagues in 2026!
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Keenan Allen, Indianapolis Colts
ADP: 173, WR60
Allen's recent DUI arrest complicates things a bit. His ADP will probably fall. But if his suspension this season isn't long or it's pushed to next year altogether, we could see Allen have one of the better seasons of any late-round wideout.
He's still a competent wideout, and he was likely signed to help with run-blocking. He'll probably be on the field for two-WR sets. There was quite a bit of smoke earlier in the offseason about WR Josh Downs taking those reps, but he's a diminutive player who's not well-suited for blocking bigger cornerbacks and even linebackers.
Additionally, it's likely that the case won't be handled until after this season, per Drew Davenport. He sees it as unlikely that Allen faces a suspension at all, meaning he should be good to go for this season. That might lead to a fall in ADP, which would be good to take advantage of.
Anthony Richardson showing off the arm and finds Keenan Allen 🎯
DETvsIND on @NFLNetwork
Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/SrPPgbWEqY— NFL (@NFL) August 29, 2026
Before the Los Angeles Chargers offense collapsed last season, as it typically does, Allen was a legitimate top-10 fantasy receiver, with 15.9 PPR fantasy points per game and multiple contests with more than 19 points.
He's 34 years old, and while his athleticism has faded, he's typically won with high-level route running and great ball skills at the catch point. The Colts got rid of a lot of their receiving talent last season and are rolling with Alec Pierce (ankle), Downs, and tight end Tyler Warren as their top targets.
Pierce's injury situation is very concerning. He had surgery on his ankle, and recent videos suggest he can't even walk properly. He's likely to miss time, and some injury experts think he won't be 100 percent until late in the season.
Early in the year, the Colts should be leaning on Allen heavily, which is what you want when drafting him. It's easy to see a path to top-25 production over the first eight weeks of the year, which is far better than what you get for WRs around his WR60 ADP in most cases.
Quentin Johnston, Los Angeles Chargers
ADP: 96, WR43
The Chargers offense under former Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel should be much improved over where it was in previous seasons. OC Greg Roman, who was with the team the two years prior, never led a good offensive attack, especially in the passing game.
Wide receiver Quentin Johnston, by all accounts a first-round bust to this point in his career, could see usage more in line with what he was asked to do in college. That happens to align better with his skill set -- he's a big receiver who's not ideally suited to play X, but is excellent after the catch.
McDaniel told Johnston that his "drive phase" would "tear this league up," which seems to hint Johnston will be used in more of a yards-after-catch role. That tends to lead to easier PPR fantasy points through receptions on shorter passes. McDaniel did a good job setting his players up to run after the catch last year in Miami.
Justin Herbet LAUNCHES it to Quentin Johnston for a 65-yard TD 🎯
Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/h1wr48fiC4
— NFL (@NFL) August 28, 2026
McDaniel, often lauded for his creative play-calling, has never been paired with a quarterback as talented as the Chargers' Justin Herbert. He sports a Howitzer for a right arm and is capable of making insane throws when the play calls for it. There's plenty of reason to be excited about this team's receivers.
While WR Ladd McConkey put up more receiving yards in the last two seasons, Johnston was more efficient, with over 14.4 yards per target, significantly higher than McConkey's. And Johnston has a much cheaper price tag, which allows you to draft better players earlier, like Denver Broncos wideout Jaylen Waddle.
Waddle has nearly the same ADP as McConkey, and comes with fewer question marks. In the early rounds, it's better to focus on scarcity more by drafting running backs anyway, according to my analysis. A rising tide lifts all boats, and McDaniel's potential proper utilization of Johnston should lead to a great fantasy outcome, making QJ a solid value in the later rounds.
Denzel Boston, Cleveland Browns
ADP: 164, WR58
The Cleveland Browns are a mess on offense right now. They're handled incompetently by the team's owner, and that's unlikely to change. We have QB Deshaun Watson as the starting QB early in the season, which could spell doom for all the team's pass-catchers. Watson has been utterly horrific, both on and off the field, for a while now.
Eventually, it's hard to see him not getting benched. It will likely be extremely difficult for the coaching staff to justify keeping him out there and not giving quarterback Shedeur Sanders the starting reins. Sanders was quite bad last season, too, but at least he's young and has potential for improvement.
Watson, meanwhile, is one of the few players my analysis indicates is hardly trying to play good football. On film, he seems to ooze a lack of effort, almost as if he was handed a massive guaranteed contract, realized it was the last huge one he would get, and understood that he wouldn't have to try at all.
He can put zero effort into playing football, and as long as he shows up for practices and games and trots on the field, he will get paid. Cleveland pulled off the worst trade of all time to get him, and it is reaping what it sowed. Once he's benched, though, we could see rookie WR Denzel Boston have some surprising games.
#BROWNS SHEDEUR SANDERS TOUCHDOWN PASS!!! pic.twitter.com/ZPSPCYquFT
— Cleveland Sports Talk (@CLEsportsTalk) December 7, 2025
While Sanders is exceptionally poor at navigating the pocket, throwing on time, sensing pressure, and avoiding sacks, he does have a tendency to launch deep passes. When he's kept clean, he's not wildly inaccurate. Boston could get more than a few deep downfield looks, and it wouldn't take many for him to be a nice flex fill-in in deeper leagues.
Of course, it's hard to imagine Cleveland's offense being great this season. But the Browns don't have a ton of receiver talent to take looks away from him. A few good games later in the season would make him worth keeping your eye on for waivers.
He was drafted lower than fellow rookie WR KC Concepcion, but the deep passes from Sanders could lead to an asymmetrical benefit for the bigger wideout.
Rashid Shaheed, Seattle Seahawks
ADP: 156, WR57
Shaheed seems to have been completely forgotten in this draft cycle. It makes sense when you look at his production last season -- after being traded to the Seattle Seahawks, he was less than an afterthought in their offense. But he's a talented wideout and will be much more involved this season.
Players traded midseason to another team tend to struggle to put up numbers. There are exceptions, like San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, but he's a Hall of Fame-level talent who an NFL team can build its offense around.
In 2024, Shaheed's accomplishments included outproducing Saints WR Chris Olave while both were on the same team. In the five healthy games they played together, Shaheed had over 71 PPR fantasy points compared to Olave's 56.
Watch Rashid Shaheed reach his top speed 🔥
Fastest ball carrier of Week 5 (21.72 mph) @NextGenStats pic.twitter.com/9JvfjqKWUI
— NFL (@NFL) October 8, 2025
We didn't see much work out last season, but that was to be expected. Shaheed is a speedster, and his quarterback, Sam Darnold, has one of the better deep balls in the NFL. The pairing should be a nice match for when Shaheed has had a full offseason to acclimate to the new offense, learn the playbook, and build chemistry with his new QB.
Shaheed is the clear WR2 on what could be a solid passing offense. Darnold helped propel WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba to over 1,700 receiving yards and the receiving yards title in 2025. There should be room for another target to be productive in fantasy football, especially since the team's tight ends aren't very special.
That's a lot of upside for a player outside the top-50 wide receivers in fantasy.
Tre Tucker, Las Vegas Raiders
ADP: 175, WR61
Tucker has a shot of being the Raiders' WR1. He's been on the team longer than the rest of the top receivers the team has, and he's actually flashed upside, unlike the others. He's a bit of an underrated player. Playing on a bad team with poor quarterback play and an offensive coordinator who was an extremely questionable hire, among other things, hasn't worked out well for any of the team's wideouts.
Geno Smith to Tre Tucker touchdown for the Raiders!
LVvsNE on CBS/Paramount+https://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/CteEp7nh0v
— NFL (@NFL) September 7, 2025
The Raiders made a few moves in free agency to try to bolster their receiving corps. One of them was to sign WR Jalen Nailor, but he played with the second team in the preseason while the starters rested. He was seen as a sleeper by many, but it should be Tucker who gets a lot more work in the offense.
He'll start, and he hardly has any competition. And he'll be playing in a much better offense headed by new Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak. Even if QB Kirk Cousins starts this season while rookie Fernando Mendoza takes a redshirt year, Tucker at WR61 seems cheap.
Tyreek Hill
ADP: 200, WR69
The moment Hill signs with a team in desperate need of receiving talent, expect his ADP to rise. That may not happen until midseason, but he'll immediately become worthy of flex consideration. He still has plenty of work to do in his recovery from a devastating knee injury early last season.
That doesn't mean he doesn't have any value this year. He's one of the best wideouts to ever play football, and he changed the way defensive coordinators try to stop the pass, leading to more two-high safety looks. In his prime, which wasn't long ago, he was impossible to stop, even when double-covered.
Still don’t know how Tyreek Hill turned this into a touchdown 😲 pic.twitter.com/Jo2ymEma3D
— Brad Henson Productions (@BradHensonPro) November 28, 2024
There's an argument to be made that Hill is a top-5 receiver of all time in his prime. His career numbers don't stack up with a lot of Hall of Famers, but he was so unguardable in his prime that he gave defensive coordinators fits. They'd plan their pass defense around stopping him without much success.
Even after his injury, and with him being over 30 years old, it's hard to believe there's not gas left in the tank. He doesn't have to be elite to be worth stashing in the late rounds.
Ryan Flournoy, Dallas Cowboys
ADP: 222, WR76
There is little doubt now that Flournoy is genuinely a talented receiver. His efficiency metrics have been impressive, and several highly regarded film analysts have put out glowing reports about his skill set on film. He simply has to play behind two of the NFL's best wideouts.
WRs George Pickens and CeeDee Lamb will obviously continue to take the lion's share of the valuable targets for Dallas. But if one of them goes down with an injury, Flournoy immediately becomes a player you should consider starting at FLEX in fantasy football.
Ryan Flournoy and the Cowboys score on the 10th play of the opening drive!
LACvsDAL on FOX/FOX Onehttps://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/Yk6Qsye2Vh
— NFL (@NFL) December 21, 2025
Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer and quarterback Dak Prescott combine to run one of the best offenses in the NFL. The passing attack is excellent, Prescott is still playing at a high level, the schemes are good, the scoring is high, and drives are consistent. There's not much more you could ask for from a receiver's standpoint.
Of course, you can't expect a player to get injured. But in a deeper league, Flournoy is an intriguing receiver handcuff because he has immediate upside for high receptions, yards, and touchdowns when either Lamb or Pickens aren't playing for whatever reason.
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Below are some popular searches and comparisons from our Who To Draft tool for 2026 drafts for Quentin Johnston, Keenan Allen, Denzel Boston, Rashid Shaheed, Tyreek Hill, Tre Tucker, Ryan Flournoy:
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