Finding value at any position can be the difference between being a contender or a pretender in your favorite fantasy football league. Unfortunately, finding value at the wide receiver position in today’s economy can be nearly impossible.

While running backs get disrespected across the NFL and some fantasy football circles, the wide receivers are flying off draft boards. According to FantasyPros ADP, seven wide receivers are currently being drafted in the Top 12 in PPR formats. They are joined by four running backs and Travis Kelce in the first round.

If you look down the board, 14 wide receivers are going in the Top 30 picks. Even further down, you’ll see that 25 wide receivers are going in the Top 60. It’s a very popular position, meaning these WR3’s with WR1 potential could come off the board as early as Round Four or Five.

Throughout the offseason, you can use our ADP tool to determine players who present values and reaches on popular league host sites. The tool combines the updated ADP for different sites along with our latest Expert Consensus Rankings (ECR) to provide players to target and avoid based on average draft position.

You can also use our mock draft simulator to sync your league and complete fantasy football mock drafts against the current ADP of your league host.

• Snake Draft Pick Strategy: Early | Middle | Late
• Draft Targets for Every Round: Early | Middle | Late
• Fitz’s Draft Primers: QB | RB | WR | TE
• 2023 Fantasy Football Draft Kit

WR3s with WR1 Potential

Drake London (ATL) – WR27 | ADP 67.8

Too many people focus on the negatives when it comes to Falcons wide receiver Drake London. Quarterback play, volume, and a run-first offensive philosophy are all immediately mentioned as reasons why London will fail.

Those are all fair concerns, but I also think it’s overlooked just how talented London is. The film and fantasy production don’t exactly match up. London has been held back by terrible quarterback play, but there’s optimism we’ll see an improvement there.

That’s not just the eye test, either. It showed up on the field late last season. After scoring 9.72 points per game in the first 13 games of the season, London’s production skyrocketed in Desmond Ridder‘s four starts. In those four contests, London averaged 14.57 points per game and saw a massive boost in receptions and receiving yards per game.

One caveat that must be mentioned is that London’s late-season fantasy push coincided with tight end Kyle Pitts being sidelined. The presence of Pitts and running back Bijan Robinson will likely prevent London from ever reaching overall WR1 status, but an offensive jump could certainly lead to a Top 12 finish at the position.

Brandon Aiyuk (SF) – WR28 | ADP 74

My boy. My dawg. My white whale. While I still have the chance, I’ll continue to push the Brandon Aiyuk narrative despite the negatives surrounding him. Similarly to London, Aiyuk’s question marks have more to do with the situation (Brock Purdy‘s health, target share, passing volume) than the actual player.

Aiyuk set career highs in targets (113), receiving yards (1,015), and receiving touchdowns (eight) en route to a WR15 finish in half-point PPR scoring last season. It’s not hard to imagine a world where he takes the next step and overtakes Deebo Samuel as the alpha WR1 in San Fransisco.

Tyler Lockett (SEA) – WR29 | ADP 74.3 & Jaxon Smith-Njigba (SEA) – WR36 | ADP 94.8

Earlier this month, I mentioned Seattle wide receiver Tyler Lockett as a wide receiver to target in the middle rounds. I’ll continue beating that drum here, while also grouping in his Seahawks teammate Jaxon Smith-Njigba

This might sound crazy to some, but it’s okay to like both Lockett and Smith-Njigba at their current ADPs. DK Metcalf is the 1a in that group and that shows in his current ADP as WR15. I think Lockett and Smith-Njigba possess similar Top 12 upside but at a fraction of the price.

Lockett has finished as the WR13, WR13, WR9, WR14, and WR15 over the past five years and many considered Smith-Njigba the best wide receiver prospect to enter the 2023 NFL Draft. If that’s not WR1 potential, I don’t know what is.

More Players to Target & Avoid

• Pat Fitzmaurice: (Targets | Avoids) (Premium)
• Andrew Erickson: (Targets | Avoids) (Premium)
• Derek Brown: (Targets | Avoids) (Premium)
• Fantasy Football Sleepers for Every Team (Premium)
• How to Identify Fantasy Football Busts (Premium)
• Erickson’s Guide to Drafting Players on Good Offenses
• Fantasy Football Draft Values for Every Round
• Hoppen’s Final Round Draft Dart Throws
• Predicting First-Round Bust Candidates
• DBro’s Wide Receiver Lottery Tickets
• Erickson’s Running Back Lottery Tickets
• Hoppen’s 4 Players Who Could Become First-Round Picks Next Year
• Players to Target in Each Round (v2 | v3)
• Players to Avoid in Each Round
• Late-Round Draft Targets
• Late-Round QB Targets in Superflex Leagues | More QB Sleepers
• Late-Round RB Targets | More RB Sleepers | July RB Targets
• Late-Round WR Targets
• Late-Round TE Targets
• Deep Dart Throw Draft Targets
• WRs to Target in the RB Dead Zone (v2)| RBs to Avoid in the RB Dead Zone | RBs to Target in RB Dead Zone
• Identifying the Next WR1s | Identifying the Next RB1s
• 2022 Duds That Will Become 2023 Studs
• 4 Kickers To Target at the End of Drafts
• Making the Case for RB1
• Post-Hype Sleepers

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