RADIO
Antonio Losada looks at wide receiver groups poised to score high in 2020 fantasy football leagues as WR stacks to consider in drafts.
Sometimes we're afraid of putting together players from the same team in our rosters, let alone weekly lineups. To a certain extent, that makes sense: the opportunities one gets will take from the opportunities the other could have gotten. Why limiting the fantasy upside of our team with two receivers playing in the same offense rather than picking two from different ones?
The truth is that there are certain players often overlooked that while going at cheap ADPs can still become game-changers. Virtually every no. 1 wide receiver will get drafted inside the first 10 rounds of your draft, and there is nothing you can do to prevent that. But when it comes to picking second-fiddles and flex options, you can take advantage of some "buried" receivers in certain depth charts that still carry tons of potential because of the teams they play for.
Today, I'm trying to highlight some teams/receivers worth stacking even if they will be sharing opportunities in their offenses. Let's get to it!
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New Orleans Saints
Michael Thomas & Emmanuel Sanders
Let's be honest for a minute here. This is Michael Thomas' offense and nothing is changing that. The thing with New Orleans (or any other one-man receiving corps) is that one single player is not going to get all of the targets. Even if Thomas repeats his otherworldly 185 targets (which he won't do), there will still be plenty of passes going other players' ways. Just last season, the other top-five receivers/TEs in targets from New Orleans combined for 181 targets, and the top-two RBs got 140 themselves.
There is a new kid in town this season, too: Emmanuel Sanders. And it is not that Sanders is bad at all. PFF has Sanders as the WR45 for the 2020 season reaching 150.5 PPR points. His ADP of 119.2 is higher than his projected OVR112 finish next season, making him a positive-ROI candidate. Sanders projects to get 82 targets, catch 57 of them, rack up 722 receiving yards and score 4 TDs.
Getting Thomas will be expensive, of course, but if you go after him and then fill your roster with running backs while most no. 1 and no. 2 WRs leave the board, consider Sanders as a great late draft pick to bulk up your team's upside.
Atlanta Falcons
Julio Jones, Calvin Ridley & Russell Gage
Again, there is no point in discussing no. 1 Falcons' receiver Julio Jones here. He is a known asset, a beast at racking up fantasy points, and has the potential to finish as the WR1 without much trouble. Jones' current ADP of 18.5 is that of the WR4 entering 2020 (at the time of this writing). Considering he's projected to finish as the OVR8 player and WR3 next season, his ROI is, plain and simple, massive.
But the best to come from Atlanta are their no. 2 and no. 3 WRs. Calvin Ridley is starting to become a serious threat to Jones' fantasy upside. He's still going a little bit more expensive than I'd like to (ADP 43; WR17), but PFF projects him to break the 200-point mark come next season. Who you might have not thought a lot about is Russell Gage. The no. 3 receiver of the Falcons is projected to get 76 targets, 52 receptions, and 530 yards (with 2 TDs), which translates to 121.4 PPR points.
Between the three of them, Atlanta's top receivers are expected to rack up 605 PPR points and average 201.7. That group of receivers is one of only eight expected to average more than 200 PPR per player over the year, and the only one to do so featuring at least three receivers in it. While Jones alone raises their floor on those averages, the truth is that both Ridley and most of all Gage (because of his silly-cheap ADP 240.6, or WR80 off the board) should have great baseline numbers by themselves.
Carolina Panthers
D.J. Moore, Curtis Samuel, Robby Anderson
As much as the Panthers will lack a top-tier quarterback in 2020 (QB Teddy Bridgewater will be the starter) and that could probably impact their wide receivers outcomes, there is no reason to think their current ADPs aren't valuable. Moore has the most expensive of them and it is only at 37.6 (WR13) while those of Samuel (176.2; WR62) and Anderson (159.5; WR59) are both outside of the first 13 rounds of 12-team drafts.
Carolina is the only team in the NFL projected to have three wide receivers finishing the season with at least 124 PPR points (Moore at 219.6, Samuel at 132.8, Anderson at 124.7). While Moore is obviously a fantasy WR1 and you'd have to pay a high price to roster him, both Samuel and Anderson are very good options to draft late if you are looking to bulk up your receiving corps with cheap-yet-valuable assets.
Even in an offense that will feature target-magnet Christian McCaffrey, Samuel and Anderson project as two of only five non-top-two players in targets among teammates to project to reach at least 124 PPR. The other ones are Golden Tate, Emmanuel Sanders, and Justin Jefferson, all of them suffering from the presence of pass-catching RBs or clogged receiving corps. The two Panthers are also the cheapest of those five names in terms of ADP.
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