Hitting on your late-round draft picks can turn a good fantasy football team into an unstoppable one. Ask those who drafted Puka Nacua or Tank Dell in 2023, Zay Jones in 2022 or Amon-Ra St. Brown in 2021. Using FantasyPros’ average draft position (ADP) data, below are six wide receivers you should target in the later rounds of your fantasy football drafts.
- 2024 Fantasy Football Draft Kit
- 2024 Dynasty Fantasy Football Draft Kit
- 2024 Best Ball Fantasy Football Draft Kit
- Free Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator
Late-Round Draft Targets: Wide Receivers
Darnell Mooney (WR – ATL): 147.5 ADP
Darnell Mooney entered the league in 2020 into a difficult Bears situation with them yo-yo-ing between Nick Foles and Mitchell Trubisky, before doing the same in 2021 with Andy Dalton and Justin Fields. Despite this, Mooney put up a solid 1,055 yards in his sophomore campaign. Unfortunately, Mooney couldn’t build on this in 2022 as the Bears turned very run-heavy with Justin Fields completing only 12.8 passes per game. In 2023, injuries to both Mooney and Fields made it hard for Mooney to take a further leap, but now he finds himself with a fresh start in Atlanta joining Kirk Cousins. The Falcons have no clear-cut WR2 behind Drake London and there’s going to be plenty of opportunities for Mooney to have a bounce-back campaign with one of the more accurate and pass-heavy quarterbacks in the league.
I will take the ability to stop at a high speed and re-accelerate quickly over a top gear if forced to choose.
Darnell Mooney illustrates pic.twitter.com/HeoKhLyhfl
– Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) November 6, 2023
Jermaine Burton (WR – CIN): 150.5 ADP
There is no questioning Jermaine Burton’s raw abilities with him being an excellent athlete who possesses excellent twitch and flashes great route running ability. The numbers never really came together in college, with Burton failing to reach 800 yards or double-digit touchdowns in any of his four years, and the character concern issues are real. With all that said, Burton has a clear opportunity to fight for the third wide receiver role on a Bengals offense that has deployed three consistently over the last few years. The Bengals’ schedule is a cupcake this year, due to finishing a miserable fourth place in the AFC North last year, but with Joe Burrow potentially healthy again, this could be a worthwhile late dart throw.
Jermaine Burton is a SCARY addition to the Cincy offense ????
pic.twitter.com/gRywbs8Bs3– SleeperNFL (@SleeperNFL) June 28, 2024
Demarcus Robinson (WR – LAR): 168.0 ADP
The Rams led the league in 3-WRformations in 2023. This benefitted Demarcus Robinson massively, who, from Week 13 onwards never finished lower than WR29, averaging 15.4 PPR points per game, as he played 90% of the snaps. Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua require so much of the defense’s attention, along with Kyren Williams forcing teams to defend against the run. Eventually, this causes ancillary players to find soft spots in coverage and be able to exploit them. Robinson reportedly has an excellent relationship with Matthew Stafford and Sean McVay, so it’s hard to see him not being a big part of their plans in 2024.
Rashod Bateman (WR – BAL): 173.0 ADP
The Ravens let Odell Beckham Jr. walk after one year in Baltimore, on the surface making their wide receiver room that bit thinner, but ever since the season ended, John Harbaugh has talked — unprompted — about how much he expects Rashod Bateman to take a big leap in 2024. So far (touch wood) this is Bateman’s first healthy offseason of his NFL career and many players have said it takes two years to fully recover from a Lisfranc injury.
Bateman was getting open last year, he just failed to get on the same page as Lamar Jackson, in part because they had very little chance to in the offseason, with Bateman recently revealing he only found out he was able to play in 2023 a matter of two weeks before the season started. We likely can’t expect the same things we did when Bateman was drafted, but a solid WR2 on an offense we expect to be good is worth a dart throw.
#Ravens HC John Harbaugh on which player he expects to make a leap in 2024:
“I think Rashod Bateman’s gonna take a big step… The ball’s gonna get to him a lot more next year.”
Harbaugh sports an 85% reliability rating on usage/workload coachspeak
We’ll be drafting a good… pic.twitter.com/9x2vtg56yS
– The Coachspeak Index (@CoachspeakIndex) February 27, 2024
Michael Wilson (WR – ARI): 171.0 ADP
As the Cardinals sought to rebuild this offense in their new coaching staff’s image, Michael Wilson was one of the first skill position players they brought in for the 2023 season. Wilson went on to play 12 games, averaging 79% of snaps. In the four games he played with Kyler Murray, he saw 19 targets and ran a route on 91.9% of dropbacks. Wilson checks all the boxes for a wide receiver, coming in at 6-foot-2, 213 pounds. He doesn’t need to leave the field. If this offense can be more functional this year he could be in line to have plenty of good weeks with defenses focused on stopping Marvin Harrison Jr. and Trey McBride.
Darius Slayton (WR – NYG): 205.0 ADP
Perhaps no quarterback in the NFL is fighting for their future as a starter as much as Daniel Jones is in 2024, but he should be helped by the recent addition of Malik Nabers, who is light years better than the next best wide receiver the Giants have had in Jones’ tenure. Darius Slayton has played 55 games with Jones and the two have regularly displayed chemistry together. Now, with the pressure eased on Slayton to be the top dog, the field might open up more for him and he can have a fine season.
Subscribe: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeart | Castbox | Amazon Music | Podcast Addict | TuneIn
