Fantasy Football Buy Low: Wide Receiver Breakout Candidates (Week 2)

There are a lot of ways to value NFL players for fantasy football.

Of course, how many fantasy points they score is paramount, and no amount of regression analysis or film grinding will ever change that.

However, players can overperform and underperform in certain games and timeframes, and it's important to find some sort of balance.

Is a receiver coming off of a six-target, two-touchdown game? He's probably someone we should expect to take a step back in the production department. But what if he's slotted into an elite matchup with a high game over/under?

Or if a wideout leads the league in unrealized air yards (basically a lot of high-leverage targets without as many catches as he should have), he's easy to pinpoint as a breakout candidate. But what if he's outdoors in heavy winds against a top-tier pass D? Maybe next week is his week.

For that reason, I assembled a three-tier breakout model for wide receivers.

The Breakout Score model accounts for three key things:

1. Expected Fantasy Points: Based on things like targets, air yards, red zone targets, and end zone targets, we can assign a value to a player's actual workload.
2. Game Environment: By combining some key variables such as opposing pass defense, wind, game total, and more, we can see who is in a spot actually primed for a breakout.
3. Weekly Volume Projections: Sometimes, a player gets a lot of extra volume and high-leverage looks but is in line for a role reduction with a starter returning. We can help account for that by relying on numberFire's fantasy football projections and projected rushing and target volume.

With all that out of the way, let's dig in.

Note: All NFL odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.

Week 2 Buy Low Wide Receiver Targets

Here are the top candidates whose Breakout Score is noticeably higher than their actual FanDuel points per game output leading into Week 2.

With only one game and with some historically low passing touchdown trends in Week 1, it's no surprise to see a lot of big-name WRs underperforming out of the gate. But the data says we can still be high on some of them for this week.

Let's highlight a few names.

Drake London

Drake London had just 3 targets a week ago, so by pure volume, he doesn't pop by just pure unrealized air yards (8), but he saw a downfield target (10-plus yards downfield) and a red zone target for some solid leverage on a limited workload against a tough pass defense.

London now enters a game against the Eagles with a 47.5-point total as an underdog. He's projected for 8.7 targets with pretty strong efficiency.

London ran 27 of 28 routes in Week 1 and was on the field for all 5 red zone snaps. The underlying role here tells us not to worry just yet about London.

Marvin Harrison Jr.

Marvin Harrison Jr.'s debut against the Bills was pretty forgettable. Marv went for just 4 yards on 3 targets, carving out only a 9.7% target share and 16.7% air yards share.

With that said, he ran a route on 86.8% of the Cardinals' drop backs and was on the field for all 12 red zone snaps.

Going back to his targets, 2 of the 3 were at least 10 yards downfield, and he maintained a 10.2-yard average depth of target (aDOT).

Along with that came a -34.1% catch rate over expectation (per NextGenStats).

He's now at home, indoors, and facing a Rams defense that let up explosive plays last week to the Lions.

Amari Cooper

If we were talking purely unrealized air yards, Amari Cooper would top the list.

Cooper had a league-high 170 air yards in Week 1 but just 16 yards to show for it for 154 unrealized air yards. Of his 9 targets, 5 were downfield, 2 were in the red zone, and 1 was in the end zone. That's a ton of leverage.

However, he's on the road, outdoors, and potentially facing double-digit winds. He's still primed to build on a disappointing Week 1, but he's not necessarily a surefire slam dunk with a few of these other concerns.

Chris Olave

Chris Olave's 2-target, 11-yard Week 1 showing doesn't really put him into buy-low territory from a pure workload standpoint. He's sort of the opposite of Cooper in that regard, but both should have better Week 2s than they had Week 1s.

Olave saw one downfield target and had a team-best 84.6% route rate while really operating as the team's clear primary WR from a snaps standpoint. He had an 85.3% first-half snap rate with Rashid Shaheed (70.6%) the only other WR above 40%.

Olave is indoors and likely won't be playing from ahead like he did last week against the Panthers.

Tank Dell

It's not that Tank Dell has a better underlying profile than Nico Collins and Stefon Diggs -- just that those two produced in Week 1, and Dell didn't.

But there's a lot to like about Dell entering Week 2.

Dell continued to see rushing work (2 carries for 19 yards) to go along with 7 targets for 40 yards. The fun part here (other than the rushing work)? He had 105 air yards, per numberFire, and 4 downfield targets on those 7 total looks. If you give appropriate weight to downfield and red zone targets, he had more like 10.4 targets' worth of looks.

Dell is at home on turf with no wind concerns while being tied to a 26.0-point implied team total.

Gear up for NFL season! Customers who bet $5 will get a free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube & YouTube TV! This promo expires September 22nd. See here for full terms and conditions.

Interested in playing NFL DFS? Head over to FanDuel’s daily fantasy football lobby to see all the offerings for this week's slates.

Sign up for FanDuel Sportsbook and FanDuel Daily Fantasy today!

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.