Fantasy Football: Finding Every Wide Receiver's League-Winning Odds

Everybody wants to draft league-winning players in fantasy football. That's the whole point.

Often, true league-winners are found in the first round of fantasy football drafts.

And while it's true that a third-string wide receiver can catch fire and outperform average draft position (ADP), what are the odds an undrafted fantasy WR winds up as the WR1 for the season? (Hint: not great!)

But if we played out the 2024 NFL season 10,000 times, there will be a few instances where surprises happen, where studs bust, and where sleepers hit.

So, while anything is possible in a sense, we should also be trying to seek out what is most probable when it comes to our fantasy football drafts.

And that's why I like to simulate out the season thousands of times to see how likely each player is to reach certain fantasy football benchmarks.

I've already taken a look at the quarterback league-winner odds. Let's take a look at the WRs.

Simulating the NFL Season

I love fantasy football projections. I really do. I like to build my own that account for regression from the year prior and personnel changes.

But in most instances, projections are giving us a singular outlook for a player. What is "most likely" to occur.

But we only get one crack at the 2024 NFL season, and a pulled hamstring or bad touchdown luck can derail even the most precise preseason projections.

Which is why I like to look at a range of outcomes based on numberFire's fantasy football projections and a whole lot of math beyond that to figure out how the season may look.

The real litmus test for me is to make sure that the results I'm seeing are somewhat reflective of fantasy football history.

With that in mind, I pulled ADPs and fantasy outputs for wide receivers since 2016 from numberFire's database to see how often players in certain ADP buckets reached certain fantasy rank thresholds for that season.

The below table shows how likely a WR from a certain ADP bucket finished as the top fantasy scorer (or top-five, etc.) since 2016.

This shows that 8.3% of WRs with a top-six ADP (4 out of 48) over the last eight years finished as the WR1 for the full season. Further, 2 out of 48 WRs with an ADP of WR7 to WR12 were the WR1 at the season's end, and just 2 out of 96 WRs in this stretch who were the WR13 to WR24 by ADP led the league in scoring.

Those names were Cooper Kupp in 2021 when he posted a historic season -- and DeAndre Hopkins in 2017, when he was the WR13 and just barely in this tier.

These rates are largely reflected in the simulations, but it's important to note that even when we account for variance, the chalk tends to win out at WR pretty often.

2024 Fantasy Football League-Winning Wide Receiver Odds

Here are the results from the 10,000 simulated seasons.

Again, these are meant to account for historical injury rates, outlier performances in touchdown rates (above or below expectation), and other factors that can impact a baseline fantasy projection.

Of course, within all this discourse, the term "league-winner" is very subjective. Having the WR1, the player who outscores all the other WRs is definitely a league-winner.

At a depth-based position, having a late-round or undrafted receiver become a weekly starter and a top-24 performer is a league-winner in a sense, too.

With that out of the way, let's take a look at how likely each WR is to reach certain benchmarks this season -- again, with numberFire's fantasy football projections as the baseline.

The Big Six

There seems to be a Big Six forming at the top of the projections and the draft boards.

Those names?

• Tyreek Hill
• CeeDee Lamb (last season's WR1 in the midst of a contract holdout situation)
• Justin Jefferson (whose quarterback will be Sam Darnold after news broke that J.J. McCarthy will miss the season)
• Ja'Marr Chase
• Amon-Ra St. Brown
• A.J. Brown

All but Brown are projected by numberFire for at least 258.5 FanDuel points with Brown at 242.9 before a drop to the rest of the position.

In theory, that should impact the simulations quite a lot -- and it does. Even if, say, Lamb sits out substantial time, there are still five highly projected WRs who can easily end the year as the WR1.

This tier of six comprises 59.8% of the possible WR1 seasons. Put another way, 6 times out of 10, one of these six will be the WR1.

Let's hone in on the historical production of top-six WRs by ADP to see just why we can feel confident in highly-projected wideouts.

Since 2016, 37.5% of WRs with a top-six ADP finished the year as the WR5 or better, and 60.4% of them were top-12 WRs.

Primarily, injuries and missed time rather than weak production were the result of disappointing fantasy seasons.

In this span, 28 of 34 WRs with a top-six ADP who played at least 13 games finished as top-12 WRs (82.4%).

Two of the six who failed to give us a top-12 year were drafted as the WR6 (i.e. at the bottom of the tier), including the Jordy Nelson collapse in 2017 when his TD count regressed and Aaron Rodgers played only seven games.

A Pair at the Top of Tier 2

As usual with wide receiver projections, rankings, or simulations, we see a steady drop-off from those with elite volume, efficiency, and touchdown projections to a list of names who may be as talented as that first tier but whose situations (offensive efficiency, market shares, etc.) are a step behind.

Theoretically, these names should jump out to us in an "if things go right, Wide Receiver X could easily be the WR1" type of way.

And they do.

I know I just ragged on Jordy Nelson above, but he is one of the two WR1s to come from the WR17 to WR12 tier, thanks to a 14-touchdown season as the WR9 by ADP.

Tyreek Hill also exploded for 12 scores and 1,479 yards in 2018 as the WR10 by ADP to lead the position in scoring.

These seasons are within the range of outcomes for this tier.

I do want to focus on Puka Nacua and Garrett Wilson, who slot in in a bit of a tier of their own by the simulations.

Nacua will have more target competition from Kupp from a full-season standpoint, but he outperformed Kupp with both healthy in 2023 and can repeat his fantasy dominance in 2024. He's also the poster boy for an improved TD rate in 2024.

Wilson is tough to pin down, as he played virtually all of 2023 without Aaron Rodgers under center. Wilson's 29.9% target share was elite in 2023, and it ranked tied for seventh at the position.

A 30% target share from Rodgers is why we can feel hyped about Wilson, who has performed well with weaker QB play so far in his NFL career.

Other Notable Names

Which names jump out a bit compared to their ADP?

Drake London: I outlined why I like London when examining fantasy football breakout players from every team, and the projections from numberFire are also high on his 2024 outlook. (So is Annie Nader, who views London as a league-winner.)

London is set to have unprecedented quarterback play for him in his career with Kirk Cousins under center and is set to be the WR1 in a top-tier passing attack.

Chris Olave: Olave was another candidate in my breakout article. While it's true that London and Olave are no longer strangers to the fantasy football landscape, it's just as true that we haven't seen them reach their true potential.

Olave has been one of the best downfield threats in the NFL and brings a combination of volume and value on targets that few other can match.

Marvin Harrison Jr.: Marvin Harrison Jr. has sky-high expectations, as his ADP lists him at WR9. The rookie receiver is projected to finish as the WR10 by numberFire and is within eight points of being the WR9.

Harrison Jr. doesn't set up with the most efficient QB play unless Kyler Murray reverses course with his passing numbers. However, MHJ is projected for over 150 targets as a rookie, and that level of volume can help mitigate some moderate efficiency concerns.

Only one of the last eight WR1s had fewer than 149 targets in their WR1 season.

Cooper Kupp: We already discussed Nacua, but there's a great case for Kupp to be a league-winner again.

On top of that, quarterback Matthew Stafford is due for touchdown regression, which would be key to the Los Angeles Rams' wide receivers having an outlier season.

Nico Collins: Collins has to share targets with Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell but is projected better than his teammates this season.

His per-target and per-route numbers were absolutely elite, which does call into question how repeatable the performance is.

However, C.J. Stroud's top-tier efficiency and the team's overall offensive expectations keep Collins justifiably in the top-12 of the positional projections.

Deebo Samuel: Samuel remains one of the hardest-to-project players in the NFL due tho his versatile usage that is unlike most WRs in the league.

Samuel also could be in line for elevated pass-game volume if Brandon Aiyuk were to be traded.

Either way, Samuel's range of outcomes do reach the WR1 level with a reasonable probability (1.0%).

With that said, Samuel has had more than 95 targets just once in his career (121 in 2021). The last eight WR1s have averaged 169.1 targets, and only Tyreek Hill (137 targets in 2018) was the WR1 with fewer than 149 in that span. Samuel is projected for 121.4 this year.

DeVonta Smith: While the focus in this offense is on A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith deserves a lot of love, too. Especially if Brown were to miss any time.

When Brown missed the team's wild card game last season, Smith was dominant. He saw 12 targets (37.5% target share) and 161 air yards (64.7%). He caught 8 of the targets for 148 yards.

Smith still has a top-15 projection with Brown expected to have a great year but could have top-tier usage if spending time as the team's true WR1.

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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.