Dynasty Rookie Draft Advice: Rome Odunze (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. Here, we break down WR Rome Odunze and his fit with the Chicago Bears.

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 Chicago Bears have injected even more talent into their vastly improved WR room, taking Washington’s Rome Odunze with the ninth overall pick of the draft.

Let’s dig in.

Fantasy Football Rookie Draft Outlook

Fitz’s Fantasy Football Outlook

The Chicago Bears have injected even more talent into their vastly improved WR room, taking Washington’s Rome Odunze with the ninth overall pick of the draft.

A member of the “Big Three” in this year’s rookie WR class along with Marvin Harrison Jr. and Malik Nabers, Odunze had a fantastic final college season helping fuel the Huskies’ run to the National Championship with 92 catches for 1,640 yards and 13 touchdowns in 15 games. He had broken out in 2022 as a junior, catching 75 passes for 1,145 yards and seven touchdowns.

Odunze has extraordinary ball skills. He’s excellent at tracking the ball and is a beast in contested-catch situations, coming down with 20 of the 27 contested-catch passes he was thrown last season. Nabers was charged with only seven drops the last two seasons while making 167 catches over that span.

A terrific athlete with good size, the 6-2½, 212-pound Odunze ran a 4.45 at the NFL Scouting Combine and posted a dazzling 9.91 Relative Athletic Score on a 10-point scale. Odunze saw a lot of press coverage in his final season and had a high success rate against it. Odunze is a smooth route-runner and good after the catch.

As with Harrison and Nabers, Odunze has few discernible weaknesses. He’s not the threat after the catch that Nabers is, but he’s no slouch in that department either.

Odunze will face stiff target competition as a rookie, since the Bears already have WRs D.J. Moore and Keenan Allen. Odunze’s arrival could mean a short stay in the Windy City for Allen, who’s entering the final year of his contract. But the presence of those two established receivers puts a lid on Odunze’s target upside as a rookie, barring an injury.

But the future looks bright for Odunze considering that he’ll be paired with Caleb Williams, the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, for the foreseeable future. Williams is an electric playmaker, and it’s easy to imagine Williams and Odunze making beautiful music together for years to come.

Odunze’s rookie ADP in dynasty formats is WR3 behind Harrison and Nabers, though there are Odunze fans in the dynasty community who rank Odunze WR1 or WR2. I have Odunze ranked WR3, just a notch below Harrison and Nabers. I’d draft Odunze third overall in a 1QB rookie draft and either fourth or fifth overall in a superflex rookie draft.

For redraft, I have Rome Odunze ranked WR36 for half-point PPR redraft leagues. Although I’m bullish on Odunze overall, he faces serious target competition from Moore, Allen and Kmet.

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Thor’s NFL Draft Profile & Player Comp

Rome Odunze | Washington
6027/212 | RAS: 9.91
Comp: Davante Adams

Odunze does not have Nabers’ electric movement skills, nor Harrison Jr.’s physical package/Hall of Fame education. But you stacked the trio’s traits across the spectrum, Odunze, while not finishing No. 1 in many categories, would be No. 3 in relatively few as well.

Odunze combines size, strength, physicality, speed, footwork, agility, hops, route-running know-how and ball skills to produce an answer for most situations. He profiles as an alpha boundary WR1 at the next level. On multiple teams rumored to be interested, that would occur on Day 1 (cough Giants cough).

Last season, Odunze was only deployed in the slot on 17.4% of his snaps, second-lowest of my top-15 WR. His 15.5 aDOT was third-highest. He was pressed off the line more than any receiver in this entire draft class.*

*(The reason for that has to do with the dirty little secret about his collegiate quarterback Michael Penix Jr.: Penix loved going to his first read – often Odunze – and defenses realized the only viable way to slow Washington’s offense was by disrupting Penix’s timing and pushing him off his spot).

But try as they might, opponents couldn’t impede Odunze. Reception Perception’s Matt Harmon called Odunze’s 80.0% success rate against press coverage the “most impressive mark” of Odunze’s charting profile.

Odunze has a dynamic release package, with precise footwork packages and bullish upper-body strength. He is not the most sudden changing directions at his breaks, but Odunze gives himself plenty of cushion into them by running routes at unorthodox tempos. The defender is never certain exactly where he’s headed and when he’ll make his move.

Odunze is also blessed with flash-bang acceleration out of those breaks, ensuring he will at least win the last stage of every transition. And because of Odunze’s speed – he was a star sprinter in high school – defensive backs must always guard against the possibility of Odunze hitting the downtown jets, which makes them think twice about jumping intermediate moves.

Odunze’s ball skills are truly special – to me, this is the most impressive aspect of his game. He’s a dog on the bone with the ball in the air. Last year, Odunze had a microscopic 3.2% drop rate on 140 targets (after posting a stellar 5.1% drop rate the year before). He has a preternatural feel for tracking, as though he is watching the ball’s flight on Google Glasses inside his helmet before he has actually turned his head.

Rome Odunze was an incredible 20-for-27 in contested situations in 2023. Not only did he lead the class in contested catches, but Odunze also had the best contested catch rate of anyone in the double-digits. Odunze is so utterly comfortable in these situations – especially down the field – that he will sometimes appear to allow his man to get a bit closer with the ball in descent, perhaps to have a better feel for where exactly he is at the moment of truth for positioning purposes.

But Odunze also has a special skill at the catch point downfield to ensure he’s the only one who gets to make a legitimate play on the ball – he doesn’t put his hands up for the ball until the last possible moment, depriving defenders of the opportunity to compete with him for it.

Because of this honing device of his, Odunze is one of those guys who will immediately and drastically alter his plan to try to save poorly thrown balls. He’ll work back against the grain for underthrown balls, he’ll leap and extend for overthrows, he’ll pick low screamers clean before they hit the carpet and he’ll line his toes on the chalk to corral balls thrown too far up the sideline.

From the tape I watched this process, anecdotally, no receiver in this class was better at turning incompletions into completions than Odunze. He is a quarterback’s best friend who also led this class with 87 catches that ended in a first down or touchdown.

Odunze could have declared for last year’s draft. If he had, he would have been a first-rounder – likely somewhere in that 20-24 range where we saw four straight WRs come off the board. Instead, Odunze returned to school, where he made the leap to abject superstardom.

While Odunze may wind up WR3 in this class – it was a photo finish between him and Nabers for my WR2 designation – Odunze is a no-doubt top-10 pick. This version of Odunze easily would have been WR1 in last year’s class, and multiple others over the past decade.

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