Fantasy Football: 3 Sleeper Wide Receivers to Target for the 2024 Season

Fantasy football drafts are underway, making now a perfect time to dive into potential sleeper picks.

FanDuel Research's staff covered the top fantasy football sleeper options for 2024, and for the purpose of this article, we'll turn our attention to sleeper options at the wide receiver position, in particular.

Which NFL wideouts could take on a role that allows them to outperform their ADP in 2024? Let's dive in.

3 Sleeper Wide Receivers Picks for 2024

Jameson Williams, Detroit Lions

Jameson Williams has been hardly more than a ghost in his brief NFL career. Will 2024 be the year he finally breaks onto the scene? I'm holding out some hope.

Williams led the SEC in receiving yards (1,572), receiving touchdowns (15), and yards per reception (19.9) in his final collegiate season with Alabama. In turn, the Detroit Lions selected him in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft with the No. 12 overall pick.

He appeared in just six games during his rookie season due to a torn ACL. A suspension then forced him to sit out the first four games of his second year, and in the aftermath, the wideout struggled to carve out a substantial role on Detroit's loaded roster in 2023.

Fantasy managers already have to navigate Amon-Ra St. Brown, Sam LaPorta, Jahmyr Gibbs, and David Montgomery. Add Williams to the mix and things get hazy. But we've got to keep a few things in mind here.

For starters, Josh Reynolds is gone and the Lions didn't bring in a new wideout to replace him. Plus, St. Brown played 16 games in 2023 while LaPorta was active for a full 17-game season. Will they manage to stay as healthy this go-around?

There's room at the inn for Williams, potential injuries aside. Detroit had the second-highest performing passing offense in 2023 and Jared Goff is an ideal signal-caller to juice his receivers for production.

Our glass-half-full narrative of Williams is as follows: he is a third-year former top-12 draft pick who will be featured as the WR2 in one of the most boisterous passing offenses in the NFL. Currently, he's being selected as WR48 at pick 117, per FantasyPros.

Curtis Samuel, Buffalo Bills

Stefon Diggs and Gabriel Davis led the mass exodus out of Buffalo this offseason. Buffalo wideouts caught a total of 217 passes in 2023, and 82% of those catches (178) were achieved by players who are no longer with the team. Khalil Shakir is the only WR who remains on the Buffalo Bills.

Josh Allen can't use his legs for everything, and the Bills logged the eighth-most receiving yards and the seventh-most receiving touchdowns in 2023.

There's a lot of love to go around, adding intrigue to Curtis Samuel's fantasy football outlook.

The word "sleeper" is perhaps more apt for wide receivers Shakir or Keon Coleman, but Samuel is still only being taken as WR49 at pick 121, and he could surprise people this season.

The rookie Coleman has the unknown on his side when we're talking about ceilings, while Shakir could benefit from being Allen's sole returning wideout. But Samuel has experience on his side and is the only one of the bunch who knows what a serious workload looks like.

Sure, his production with the Washington Commanders was down in 2023, but he's still exceeded 600 receiving yards in four straight healthy seasons. He notched a career-high 1,081 yards from scrimmage in 2020. Allen and this powerful Buffalo offense could excavate the best out of Samuel, who has at times been left to the wolves under meh signal-callers.

Ladd McConkey, Los Angeles Chargers

Ladd McConkey was selected by the Los Angeles Chargers with the No. 34 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.

Injuries forced the former Georgia wideout into an abridged final collegiate season, but he averaged a minimum of 13.1 yards per reception during his three seasons with the Bulldogs. He's now joining a Chargers offense that figures to be ground-focused with Jim Harbaugh at the helm, but Justin Herbert and the lack of competition in LAC's receiving room create an intriguing landscape for the rookie.

With Austin Ekeler and Keenan Allen out of the picture, the Chargers have lost key offensive weapons who saw a boatload of work when healthy. Entering 2024, the wideout room consists of hardly much past McConkey and Josh Palmer, as Quentin Johnston and D.J. Chark are uninspiring periphery options.

Our Austin Swaim notes Palmer as a sleeper pick, and I think both he and McConkey come into 2024 at a value. As run-heavy as we may assume this offense will be, we're still talking about the team's WR1 and WR2 who will be put alongside Herbert. We've seen what Palmer can do, but McConkey could have the role to explode in his professional debut.

FanDuel Research's fantasy football projections expect McConkey to notch 890 receiving yards and 4.4 receiving touchdowns in his rookie season, assuming he plays all 17 games. This would pit McConkey as WR40. Currently, he is being drafted as WR44 at pick 101. He could be worth claiming inside the top 100.

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The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.