Fantasy Football Wide Receivers You Must Draft in 2024 - Part IV

May 28, 2024

An in-depth look at three fantasy football WRs available at different rounds of your draft that need to be selected in 2024. This is Rob's fourth entry in the series.

This series continues to move on, and we're now getting into the middle rounds of our fantasy drafts, so the options are getting slimmer and slimmer. Not only that, but fantasy managers may need to be just a wee bit more optimistic with some of these players than they've had to be with the previous receivers in our first three series. That makes sense. The receivers mentioned in this entry are routinely available after the WR45 range. Without question marks or concerns, they wouldn't be drafted that cheaply. Still, I've identified three more receivers with plenty of upside at their given ADP cost.

This is this series' fourth edition, and we'll have one final edition that will look at four receivers that fantasy managers need to draft this season, so be sure to look for that in the next few days. These receivers mentioned in this series have a great chance to outperform their current ADP vastly. While that doesn't necessarily mean they all have the realistic potential to be league winners (because for the receivers in this article, that would require a significant improvement from their ADP), they can provide fantasy managers with a positive return on their investment.

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Keon Coleman, Buffalo Bills

Coleman was drafted early in the second round by the Bills after trading Stefon Diggs to the Texans and seeing Gabriel Davis leave in free agency and sign with the Jacksonville Jaguars. In 2023, Diggs, Davis, Trent Sherfield, and Deonte Harty combined for 284 targets, 178 receptions, 2,165 yards, and 17 touchdowns. All four of those players are no longer with the team. In 2022, Diggs, Davis, Isaiah McKenzie, and Jamison Crowder combined for 325 targets, 204 receptions, 2,748 yards, and 22 touchdowns. All four of those players are no longer on the team.

There is so much touchdown upside up for grabs in the Bills passing offense

Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis accounted for 80.6% (29 of 36) of their endzone targets last season. No other teammate had more than 3 EZ targets. @FantasyPtsData

Keon Coleman jump balls 🚀 pic.twitter.com/ZJsT4AJjvj

— Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) May 13, 2024

Since 2020, Allen has been averaging 591 attempts, 4,385 yards, and 34 touchdowns. Dalton Kincaid will likely operate as Allen's No. 1 target-earner in 2024, but who will be the No. 2? That's a position that could very well go to Coleman. Khalil Shakir was in his second season in the league last year and finished with 45 targets, 39 receptions, 611 yards, and two touchdowns. Curtis Samuel will enter his age-28 season and eighth season in the NFL. Over the past two years in Washington, he's averaged 91 targets, 63 receptions, 634 yards, and four touchdowns. Samuel has just one season with more than 100 targets and 675 yards.

While Coleman's 2023 collegiate stat line may not look encouraging, fantasy managers must remember that Florida State's starting quarterback was injured and missed several games. In 2022, when Coleman was at Michigan State, he outproduced senior Jayden Reed. Reed had an electric rookie season this past year for the Packers. In 2022, Coleman had more targets, receptions, yards, and touchdowns than Reed as just a sophomore when Reed was a senior. Considering Reed was drafted in the second round and showed out as a rookie, that's impressive. Michigan State used Coleman almost exclusively as an outside receiver, where he ran over 94% of his routes.

Things changed a bit at Florida State. He saw just 69% of his routes out wide, and his slot percentage increased from 5% to 30%. According to PlayerProfiler, Coleman had a 39.6% college dominator (81st percentile), 24.1% target share (70th percentile), and a 19.3 breakout age (82nd percentile). He was an early declare and garnered second-round draft capital. He posted an 8.18 RAS (relative athletic score). He's currently being drafted as the WR48 on Yahoo! and WR62 on Underdog.

While he's a rookie and somewhat of a raw prospect, Coleman's potential in a high-passing-volume offense that has been one of the most efficient aerial attacks in the NFL presents a ton of upside. Especially considering the target competition is just Samuel and Shakir as receivers. Coleman turning a Rashee Rice-like second half of the season in 2024 should not be surprising.

Jameson Williams, Detroit Lions

Have we given up on Williams? Absolutely not. However, this is probably his last chance. Williams played just six games as a rookie due to a late ACL tear in the college football playoffs. Then, in his second season, Williams was suspended for gambling and missed six games. That was his fault, but it still can harm his on-the-field performance. Especially since the Lions were in win-now mode and couldn't wait for Williams to get his feet wet once the suspension ended.

Still, we must remember the Lions traded up in the first round back in the 2022 NFL Draft and selected him 12th overall. They were very high on him, and it appears they have not yet given up on him. This offseason, the team elected to let Josh Reynolds leave. He had 64 targets, 40 receptions, 608 yards, and five touchdowns. He also played 70.6% of the snaps last year, almost double that of Williams at 37.7%. With Reynolds no longer on the roster and Detroit adding no other receivers, Williams, who played the third-most snaps at receiver last year for the Lions, seems to finally be in a position where he will be the clear-cut No. 2 receiver this season. That's exciting!

This offense finished with 606 pass attempts (ninth most), 4,401 passing yards (second most), and 30 passing touchdowns (fourth most). While we cannot expect Williams to become the No. 1 or No. 2 target earner in Detroit, not with Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta, the team's elite volume and efficiency still gives Williams a solid chance to pay off at his current price. He is currently being drafted as the WR49 on Underdog and Yahoo! platforms. The schedule-makers gave another big boost to Detroit this season...

In what is probably the most impactful schedule note: #Lions QB Jared Goff won't play outside of a dome until Week 9 in Lambeau. The #Lions will only play 3 games outdoors in the regular season (GB, CHI, SF).

Goff’s stats in 2023:

DOME - 14 games:
11-3, 69.8%, 277 ypg, 28 TDs,… pic.twitter.com/N977Rtmch3

— uSTADIUM (@uSTADIUM) May 16, 2024

Williams' route participation rate last season was just 53%, while Reynolds' was 75%. It shouldn't be surprising to see Williams' route participation rate approach at least 80% this upcoming season. On 605 pass attempts, Williams would have around 485 routes run, a significant increase from the 236 routes he ran last season.

That increased opportunity will surely lead to more targets, receptions, and yards. While Williams' stats in the NFL have thus far been disappointing, he's never had an ideal offseason or a prominent role in the offense. This year, he'll get both.

Unfortunately, there aren't many stats from the 2022 or 2023 seasons that we can point at and say, "See, this is why we should be betting on Williams." Betting on Williams is based almost entirely on what the Lions front office and coaching staff are telling us. They were so sold on Williams in the 2022 NFL Draft that they traded the No. 32, No. 34, and No. 66 picks to the Vikings for picks No. 12 and No. 46 to select Williams.

While his first two seasons haven't gone the way Williams or Detroit have envisioned, there are clear and understandable reasons why. First, the torn ACL, and second, the gambling suspension. The Lions are telling us they're comfortable putting Williams on the field full-time this upcoming season.

Since Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell arrived in Detroit, everything they have done has worked marvelously. This season, they're fully determined to play Williams, who had 79 receptions, 1,572 yards, and 15 touchdowns in his final year in college on the field full-time. Their confidence is enough for me, and the cheap price makes it more enticing.

Jahan Dotson, Washington Commanders

Like Williams, Dotson is in do-or-die mode. Go big or go home. He's struggled through his first two seasons, and now that he's entering his third season, he's got a lot riding on how he performs this year. Things haven't been easy for Dotson since entering the NFL as a first-round prospect in 2022.

As a rookie, he was forced to catch passes from three different quarterbacks: Carson Wentz, Taylor Heinicke, and Sam Howell. The Commanders' trio of quarterbacks finished 23rd in completion percentage, 21st in yards, 17th in touchdowns, sixth in interceptions, 22nd in yards per attempt, and 22nd in quarterback rating.

In his second season, he caught passes from Howell and Jacoby Brissett, his fourth different starting quarterback. On top of that, Washington switched offensive coordinators for this past season. In 2023, the Washington quarterbacks finished 19th in completion percentage, 18th in yards, 16th in touchdowns, second in interceptions, 25th in yards per attempt, and 26th in quarterback rating. That is certainly not the environment for success -- four mediocre-to-downright-bad quarterbacks and two different offensive coordinators.

The team hired Dan Quinn as its new head coach this offseason and Kliff Kingsbury to run its offense. It also drafted Jayden Daniels, a quarterback from LSU, with the No. 2 overall pick. Daniels will be, by far, the most talented quarterback Dotson has played with in the NFL.

In his four seasons with the Cardinals, Kliff Kingsbury’s offenses averaged 614 pass attempts per season. In 2022, they threw it 664 times, which is a bit of an outlier. In 2019-2021, they averaged 597 pass attempts per year. From 2019-2021, again eliminating the 2022 season, the Cardinals averaged 4,044 yards per season and 25.5 touchdowns. Kingsbury had Kyler Murray as quarterback during those seasons, including his rookie season. It was not so different from the current status quo with Daniels in his rookie year.

Behind No. 1 receiver Terry McLaurin and Dotson, Washington will likely trot out third-round rookie Luke McCaffrey as its No. 3 receiver. Another option could be 2021 third-round pick Dyami Brown, who has 29 receptions and 476 yards in three seasons. The starting tight end will be either third-round rookie Ben Sinnott or Zach Ertz, who will turn 34 in October. The target competition behind McLaurin is nonexistent, which is why many fantasy managers are enamored with Sinnott, and rightfully so. Still, that same logic applies to Dotson, who is not a rookie and a former first-round pick.

Dotson can be drafted as the WR63 on Yahoo! and Underdog. It's a cheap cost of admission for a former first-round receiver who just, in theory, received a massive quarterback upgrade. Dotson hasn't been a complete disappointment, either. During the final five games of Dotson's rookie season, he led Washington with a 24% target share and tied McLaurin with a 2.20 yards-per-route-run average. Over that time, he ranked 18th in expected fantasy points per game, according to Fantasy Points.

Jahan Dotson's rookie year #ReceptionPerception was outstanding. RP already loved him as a prospect and he still exceeded expectations.

- 80.1% success rate vs. zone coverage
- 87th percentile success rate vs press (!!)
- Had a top-10 contested catch rate
- Near elite success… pic.twitter.com/GkvypGelVX

— Matt Harmon (@MattHarmon_BYB) August 22, 2023

The tweet above is from Dotson's rookie season, but it still shows he hasn't been a complete bust, even though the final numbers don't look overly encouraging. While fantasy managers are likely turned off by Dotson's second season, there's no reason to be out at his current price. He was a popular breakout pick last year, and unfortunately, that never materialized.

However, the entire offense struggled. McLaurin had his fewest yards since his rookie season. Dotson showed plenty of promise as a rookie. What if we get more of that player in 2024? What if Daniels is really good like his draft capital and Heisman-winning final season in college indicate? What if Luke McCaffrey and Ben Sinnott play like the third-round rookies they are?

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