Our analysts have put together fantasy football outlooks for all fantasy-relevant players. You can find them on our player pages and via our Expert Consensus Rankings (ECR). These will be updated throughout the preseason to help you navigate your fantasy football drafts utilizing our bevy of tools, including our FREE draft simulator and cheat sheet creator. We’ll cover players in different groups to help you identify those to target and others to avoid. Let’s take a look at breakout candidates to target in fantasy football drafts.
- More Fantasy Football Advice
- Snake Draft Pick Strategy: Early | Middle | Late
- Best Ball Draft Primers: QB | RB | WR | TE
- Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator
Fantasy Football Breakout Picks to Target
Here are 2023 fantasy football outlooks for potential breakout players.
Kadarius Toney could be an elite fantasy option if he can ever secure a full-time role and stay injury free. Toney was an efficiency darling in his rookie season, ranking seventh in target per route run rate and 17th in yards per route run. Those beautiful metrics carried over into 2022, with Toney garnering a 28.6% target per route run rate and 2.44 yards per route run. Toney only eclipsed 40% of the snaps once last year with the Chiefs. He then got dinged up and returned to 30-32% snap shares in Weeks 16-18. Even in the playoffs, he couldn’t surpass 29% of the team’s snaps in any game. If his stars align, Toney is a WR4 that could evolve into a weekly WR2.
-Derek Brown
A midseason trade to the Vikings invigorated T.J. Hockenson in 2022. In seven games with the Lions, he averaged 6.1 targets and had 26 catches. After the trade, Hockenson averaged 8.6 targets in Minnesota and had 60 catches in 10 games. He also had 10 catches for 129 yards in the Vikings’ playoff loss to the Giants. Entering his age-26 season, Hockenson is in the prime of his career and is an attractive option at the TE position now that he’s with a team eager to leverage his pass-catching talents.
-Pat Fitzmaurice
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
- Predicting First-Round Bust Candidates
- DBro’s Wide Receiver Lottery Tickets
- Erickson’s Running Back Lottery Tickets
- 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
Check out more Fantasy Football Draft Strategy & Advice 
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