Dynasty Rookie Draft Advice: Ladd McConkey (2024 Fantasy Football)

This is what we’ve been waiting for, fantasy football enthusiasts. The NFL Draft is under way, and we finally get to see where the rookie prospects are going to launch their professional careers. And NFL Draft landing spots allow us to start to zero in on fantasy football and dynasty rookie draft pick values. We look at wide receiver Ladd McConkey and how he’ll fit with the Los Angeles Chargers.

Throughout the draft, we’ll take a closer look at fantasy-relevant prospects, giving you an overview of their strengths and weaknesses, and assessing their fantasy value in both redraft and dynasty formats.

Let’s dig in.

Fantasy Football Rookie Draft Outlook

Fitz’s Fantasy Football Outlook

The Los Angeles Chargers added a badly needed wide receiver, selecting Georgia’s Ladd McConkey with the 34th overall pick of the NFL Draft.

McConkey is a route-running savant. He’s lightning-quick into and out of his route breaks, creating big cushions when he faces man coverage. McConkey clowned the defensive backs he faced in one-on-one drills at the Senior Bowl, eventually prompting those DBs to play well off the line of scrimmage so McConkey wouldn’t embarrass them.

Although he never had more than 58 catches or 762 receiving yards in any of his three seasons at Georgia, McConkey fared well on a per-snap basis. He averaged 3.26 yards per route run last season and caught 80% of his targets. As FantasyPros NFL Draft and college football analyst Thor Nystrom has noted, Georgia ran a 12-personnel, run-heavy offense and often pulled starters early during their frequent blowout victories, tamping down McConkey’s numbers.

McConkey does most of his work in the short and intermediate areas of the field, but with his 4.39 speed, he’s capable of hauling in deep balls. With his speed and quick feet, he’s also dangerous after the catch.

At 5-11½, 186 pounds, McConkey isn’t built to win in contested-catch situations. He dealt with a back injury last season, and his size could make him an injury risk.

Ladd McConkey should have a major opportunity to contribute immediately, since the Chargers had an urgent need at receiver. They traded star Keenan Allen to the Bears and let Mike Williams walk in free agency, leaving Josh Palmer and Quentin Johnston as the top wide receivers on their depth chart. Johnston’s rookie season was an abject disaster, so more help was needed.

Although the Chargers figure to have a run-heavy offense with Jim Harbaugh as their head coach and Greg Roman as their offensive coordinator, McConkey should see a substantial target share right away, and those targets will be coming from Justin Herbert, one of the top young quarterbacks in the league.

The 22-year-old Ladd McConkey is my WR8 among rookies and my WR34 overall in dynasty. He’s likely to be selected somewhere in the back half of the first round in 1QB rookie drafts and early in the second round of superflex rookie drafts.

McConkey had a predraft FantasyPros Expert Consensus ranking of WR70 in half-point PPR formats and an Underdog best-ball ADP of WR59. I have him ranked WR52 for redraft.

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Thor’s NFL Draft Profile & Player Comp

Ladd McConkey | Georgia
5115/186 | RAS: 9.34
Comp: Jordan Addison

Ladd McConkey is the JJ McCarthy of the WR class: McConkey’s profile cannot be encapsulated by collegiate counting stats. McConkey, like McCarthy, hails from a 12-personnel, run-leaning offense for a program that slapped opponents silly and yanked starters early.

McConkey also wasn’t helped by the lower back strain he suffered in last year’s training camp. He played through the pain – the kid is tough as nails – before he was given a rest for the last two regular season games in advance of the epic SEC title showdown against Alabama.

Volume stats – which exist in a vacuum of context – lie. Context is the oxygen truth that needs to exist. And here’s the truth about Ladd McConkey: On a per-snap basis, he was a top-3 WR in this class.

Want an absurd stat? In 2023, more than 80% of the balls that left the quarterback’s hands headed in McConkey’s direction became completions. That wasn’t courtesy of a diet of spoon-fed targets – McConkey’s 12.2 aDOT was the exact same as Malik Nabers’. McConkey’s 3.26 YPRR ranked No. 4 among FBS prospects in this class.

One month after McConkey’s injury-riddled 2023 season came to an end, I was chewing ice cubes on a Delta flight headed to Mobile, Alabama. I didn’t know exactly where I stood on Ladd McConkey. I knew he was good… but just how good was he, exactly?

Over the next 48 hours, McConkey systematically destroyed all comers in one-on-one drills. No defensive back within Mobile’s city limits was safe. The shoot-em-up spectacle evoked Tank Dell’s show-stopping performance the year before when defenders began freely grabbing Dell’s jersey on Day 2 of practices so they wouldn’t get torched in front of NFL evaluators again. One year later, on the same field, on the same day of practice, McConkey was being.

With a night of sleep to think about their futures, the DB group had lost its appetite for playing Ladd McConkey off the line in one-on-ones. Better to keep Ladd McConkey in front of you than try your odds at hip-to-hip again. Nobody had the guts to start a snap within seven yards of Ladd McConkey.

At that point, one assumes, McConkey’s representatives told him the NFL had seen enough. Practice returned to normal on Thursday.

McConkey is the opposite of a “first guy off the bus” guy. I’ll freely concede it: I had to see it in person to totally get it. He is truly special at one thing and one thing only: Separating. If you leave one defender on McConkey in man coverage, McConkey’s shaking him. It just is what it is.

That’s good because McConkey is mediocre in contested situations. He is so rarely in them that it almost doesn’t bear mentioning. McConkey played three-quarters of his snaps in UGA’s 2-TE system. In the NFL, like the guy I comp him to, Jordan Addison, I think McConkey could play either, and also interchangeably shift between the two on a snap-to-snap basis.

McConkey’s work in the short- and intermediate-areas speaks for itself. His separation percentile, during his less-than-100-percent 2023 campaign, was top three in this class. He’s been undersold on the downfield stuff. On those concepts, McConkey bursts off the line and shoots up the field with 4.39 gas.

He’s extremely sudden into and out of route breaks. Every break is Origami, a clean angle. He flees the crime scene with high-octane acceleration. Zone coverage won’t save you. Ladd McConkey is devilishly clever against it, sussing out coverage sectors immediately and parking himself in your sore spot.

McConkey’s ankle-breaking agility plays with the ball in his hands – he makes defenders miss and forces off-angle attempts in space. McConkey broke four more tackles than Marvin Harrison Jr. on 50 less receptions, and five less than Rome Odunze on 62 fewer catches.

McConkey doesn’t have a huge catch radius, but he’s a contortionist at the catch point, someone who will drop to his knees for poorly thrown balls, extend high, and grab balls outside his frame on the move.

When I departed that airplane in Mobile, Alabama, I thought Ladd McConkey was going to be a very good NFL slot receiver. By the time I boarded the return flight, he had shot that theory full of holes. McConkey gave it a Viking funeral at the NFL Combine with a 93rd-percentile flaming arrow.

McConkey doesn’t have NFL superstar physical gifts. Which means he likely will not be a superstar. But Ladd McConkey will not fail. The same cannot be said for the poor souls who draw him without help in man coverage.

Check out more NFL Draft profiles and player comps from Thor in our 2024 NFL Draft Guide