Cheap Wide Receivers With WR2 Upside - Fantasy Football Draft Values After Pick 100

Will's favorite late-round fantasy football wide receivers with WR2 upside in 2025. These sneaky fantasy football WR values can be drafted after pick 100.

Finding value in the late rounds of drafts is key to winning your fantasy league. Stacking a roster with safe, quality depth options can be a viable strategy, but placing a few bets on players with upside is a necessary component of roster-building.

When searching for wide receivers with upside in the later rounds, there are a few factors to take into account. Talent is obviously important, but the most talented players come off the board early. Seeking out changes in role, offensive scheme, or quarterback talent is a good place to start in the hunt for value late in drafts.

Below is a list of five wide receivers who come off the board after pick 100 but have a chance to finish as WR2s in fantasy. Let’s dive in.

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Marvin Mims Jr., WR, Denver Broncos

The Mims Jr. breakout began in Week 11 of the 2024 season. Over his final seven games last year, Mims Jr. recorded 28 catches for 434 yards and six touchdowns. That production was good for 15.5 PPR points per game, placing him at WR23 on a per-game basis over that span.

A look under the hood shows that Mims Jr.’s late-season surge was more than just a hot stretch. Among 141 receivers who ran a minimum of 100 routes, Mims Jr.'s 2.98 yards-per-route-run rate ranked fourth behind only Puka Nacua, A.J. Brown, and Nico Collins.

TOUCHDOWN MARVIN MIMS JR. WOW.

📺: #DENvsCIN on NFL Network
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/oC9GXAwXdJ

— NFL (@NFL) December 29, 2024

Mims Jr.’s end to the season just so happened to coincide with a breakout for the Broncos’ offense. Over the team’s last seven games, Denver went 5-2 (5-5 in its first 10 games) and averaged 32.6 points per game (19.7 in its first 10).

With head coach Sean Payton scheming up more touches for Mims Jr. over the last seven contests, quarterback Bo Nix averaged 258.1 passing yards and 2.4 passing touchdowns per game. That was a marked increase from Nix’s production over his first 10 games, when he averaged 196.8 passing yards and one passing touchdown.

Based on Denver’s moves this offseason, Payton took notice of Mims Jr.’s importance to the success of the offense. The Broncos traded away wide receiver Devaughn Vele, opening up a clear starting role for Mims Jr. as the team’s WR2 next to Courtland Sutton.

Mims Jr. will be reliant on big plays and touchdowns to score his fantasy points, which will lead to some week-to-week variance. However, his high-end outcome as a WR2 has already been proven over nearly half a season’s worth of production.

With a more stable role and an improving Denver offense around him, Mims Jr. is a late-round receiver to target.

Rashid Shaheed, WR, New Orleans Saints

Cedric Tillman, WR, Cleveland Browns

If Tillman had not missed the final six games of 2024 after suffering a concussion in Week 12, there is a good chance he would be getting drafted in the WR3 range. As is, Tillman is an absolute steal as a late-round pick who can fill one of the last spots on a fantasy manager’s bench.

Taking out Week 12 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, where Tillman was forced to leave the game early, he shared the field with quarterback Jameis Winston for four games in 2024. In those contests, Tillman averaged 10 targets, six catches, and 75.5 yards per game, scoring three total touchdowns.

Jameis finds Cedric Tillman to retake the lead!

📺: #BALvsCLE on CBS/Paramount+
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/sjSIvER5b5

— NFL (@NFL) October 27, 2024

The Browns have other capable pass-catching options in wide receiver Jerry Jeudy and tight end David Njoku. However, in the four games where all three of Tillman, Jeudy, and Njoku shared the field with Winston in 2024, Tillman had 40 targets, compared to 37 for Njoku and 36 for Jeudy.

Winston is gone, but Joe Flacco will be starting the year under center for Cleveland. In Flacco’s last 11 starts under center, he’s averaging 38.7 pass attempts and 291.7 passing yards per game. Five of those 11 starts came for Cleveland under the current head coach and play-caller, Kevin Stefanski.

Even if Tillman’s target-share regresses over a larger sample, there will be more than enough volume to go around in Cleveland if Flacco keeps hucking the ball all over the field like he did in his last go-around with the team.

Based on draft-day cost, Tillman is the Browns’ receiver to target. It’s not hard to envision him providing top-24 production for as long as Flacco is under center.

Jayden Higgins, WR, Houston Texans

What if there were an NFL offense that boasted one of the league’s best young quarterbacks while also having the 2025 version of Nick Chubb as its lead running back behind a completely new offensive line? Would you bet on that team to be among the league leaders in pass attempts?

Now, what if you heard that the same team’s top receivers were Collins and Christian Kirk, two players who have combined to miss 21 games over the past two seasons? Would you be interested in the team’s WR3?

Ok, enough with the rhetorical questions. But seriously, Higgins is a player who needs to be getting more love heading into 2025. The 22-year-old was the fifth wide receiver off the board in the 2025 NFL draft and should be a starting outside receiver in Houston as soon as Week 1.

In his final collegiate season at Iowa State in 2024, Higgins recorded 87 catches for 1,183 yards and nine touchdowns in 13 games. Standing 6’4” and weighing 215 lbs., Higgins has prototypical outside receiver size.

Nonetheless, he was productive in a variety of areas as a college receiver. According to Pro Football Focus, Higgins averaged at least 2.7 yards per route run regardless of whether he was lined up outside or in the slot, or faced man or zone coverage.

Jayden Higgins

- So silky for a 6'4 215 guy. pic.twitter.com/1EsXPQXY6I

— Jacob Morley (@JacobMorley) January 31, 2025

There’s no doubt that Houston’s passing game is going to be built around Collins, who is one of the best X receivers in the NFL. However, Collins has missed 17 games across four NFL seasons. If he goes down at any point this year, Higgins is the obvious choice to step into Collins’ role in the Texans’ offense.

Even if Collins stays fully healthy, Higgins is versatile enough to become the number-two target earner in Houston early in his rookie season.

Especially when considering where other top rookie receivers like Matthew Golden and Emeka Egbuka have been pushed to on draft boards, Higgins is a steal with a double-digit round ADP.

Keenan Allen, WR, Los Angeles Chargers

Unlike the other players on this list, Allen is not a young player on the verge of a breakout. However, that doesn’t mean that he can’t have a fantasy upside relative to draft day cost.

The last time Allen shared the field with Chargers quarterback Herbert, he was the WR3 in terms of per-game PPR scoring. Granted, that was two seasons ago, and Los Angeles has a very different offense now under play-caller Greg Roman than it did in 2023 under Kellen Moore.

Still, the chemistry and implicit trust between Herbert and Allen from their four shared seasons have not vanished just because of one year apart. Herbert targeted Allen 32% of the time in 2023, which was the third-highest rate of any receiver in the NFL with at least 100 routes run.

While Allen dropped to WR34 in PPR points-per-game while playing for the Chicago Bears in 2024, his ability to command targets did not fall off a cliff. Allen led Chicago with a 27.3% target share, higher than a pair of very talented receivers in D.J. Moore (26.6%) and Rome Odunze (19.2%).

Keenan Allen keepin' the feet in!

📺: #CHIvsMIN on ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus & ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/vgYyQuTSeu

— NFL (@NFL) December 17, 2024

It’s safe to say that the 2025 version of Herbert will provide Allen with much better quarterback play than the 2024 version of Caleb Williams did. As such, Allen should provide more fruitful production on a per-target basis this season in Los Angeles than he did last season in Chicago.

Allen’s new Charger teammate, McConkey, is a far better wide receiver than anyone who lined up alongside Allen in 2023. Still, Allen is the clear WR2 in Los Angeles. Additionally, McConkey is a 185 lbs. wideout who missed five games due to injury in his final collegiate season at Georgia.

If McConkey were to miss any time in 2025, Allen’s target share in Los Angeles could go to the moon. Maybe it’s because he signed late in the offseason, or maybe it's because of his perceived lack of upside due to age, but Keenan Allen’s 11th-round ADP overlooks his potential to be a fantasy asset this season.

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