Our analysts have put together fantasy football outlooks for all fantasy-relevant players. You can find them on our player pages and via our Expert Consensus Rankings (ECR). These will be updated throughout the preseason to help you navigate your fantasy football drafts utilizing our bevy of tools, including our FREE draft simulator and cheat sheet creator. We’ll cover players in different groups to help you identify those to target and others to avoid. Let’s take a look at breakout candidates to target in fantasy football drafts.
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Fantasy Football Breakout Picks to Target
Here are 2023 fantasy football outlooks for potential breakout players.
Jerry Jeudy weathered the Russell Wilson stink better than Courtland Sutton in 2022. Sutton dealt with a hamstring strain down the stretch and a grossly ineffective Wilson when he decided to chuck it deep. Jeudy parlayed his 20.8% target share (35th) into a WR19 finish and a 16th ranking in yards per route run. Jeudy’s lower aDOT (11.8, 40th) helped shield Jeudy from the atrocious Wilson deep ball. Jeudy was 11th in open rate (per ESPN analytics). Jeudy is a talented player who still has untapped potential in the NFL. With Sean Payton in town, we could have been a year early touting this offense as a breakout unit. Jeudy is a borderline WR2/3.
-Derek Brown
Kadarius Toney could be an elite fantasy option if he can ever secure a full-time role and stay injury free. Toney was an efficiency darling in his rookie season, ranking seventh in target per route run rate and 17th in yards per route run. Those beautiful metrics carried over into 2022, with Toney garnering a 28.6% target per route run rate and 2.44 yards per route run. Toney only eclipsed 40% of the snaps once last year with the Chiefs. He then got dinged up and returned to 30-32% snap shares in Weeks 16-18. Even in the playoffs, he couldn’t surpass 29% of the team’s snaps in any game. If his stars align, Toney is a WR4 that could evolve into a weekly WR2.
-Derek Brown
Treylon Burks is staring down a sophomore season with tons of opportunities at his disposal to put his disappointing rookie season in the past. Burks saw a 17.6% target share last season while ranking 35th in air-yard share and 32nd in yards per route run. While none of these numbers will inspire confidence in Burks entering year two, his 17th-ranked route win rate and 24th-ranked open rate (tied with Marquise Brown, per ESPN analytics) should. Burks enters the offseason with only Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, Kyle Philips, and Chigoziem Okonkwo to compete for targets in 2023. Burks falls in the WR3/4 bucket, but he could easily crush that expectation.
-Derek Brown
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