The draft is always the most fun part of fantasy football season — minus winning your league, of course. But you can’t win it without hitting on some late-round sleepers at the end of your draft. Last season offered some last-round league-winning players like Raheem Mostert, Kyren Williams, Puka Nacua and Tank Dell that were plenty relevant for most, if not all, of last season.

For 2024 fantasy football, we’ve got a few players here that could have as big of an impact as last year’s late-round fantasy football draft picks. Let’s dive right in.

• 2024 Fantasy Football Draft Kit
• 2024 Fantasy Football Rankings
• 2024 Dynasty Fantasy Football Draft Kit
• Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator

Last-Round Targets

Ray Davis (RB – BUF)

ECR: RB51

The Buffalo Bills have been looking for the power complement to James Cook for much of last season, so much so they dusted off octogenarians like Latavius Murray, Ty Johnson and Leonard Fournette after Damien Harris was ineffective and eventually retired this offseason. The Bills sought that specific profile in this past April’s NFL Draft, selecting Ray Davis, who reeled off at least 950 yards at Temple, Vanderbilt and Kentucky. Davis was 34th in Pro Football Focus’ (PFF) breakaway rate and 27th in yards after contact per attempt last season at Kentucky. He has a super-high floor, a decent ceiling and an immediate standalone role in this Bills offense.

Get on board with Ray Davis ????????

Consistently available in the final few rounds of your home league drafts pic.twitter.com/w216QzHsxS

— Josh Norris (@JoshNorris) August 22, 2024

While Davis will turn 25 at midseason and may have already earned his NFL pension, being an older back means the floor is incredibly high for Davis. I’ve made the bullish comparison that Cook and Davis could be arbitrage Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery. The Bills may want to keep relying on their $258 million quarterback Josh Allen to run the ball as much as he does, so the investment in Davis was an investment in Allen’s continued health as well. Davis may go undrafted in home leagues, as he routinely goes in the RB50-RB55 range, according to average draft position (ADP) data, but he should be coming off of draft boards where Blake Corum and Zach Charbonnet go.

The FantasyPros expert consensus rankings (ECR) have Davis at RB51, so as a rookie “mystery” box option, he’ll fall in home leagues. Davis is somebody who will have a role from the get-go, so snap him up before your league mates do.

Dontayvion Wicks (WR – GB)

ECR: WR61

I will be more than happy to keep the steady Dontayvion Wicks drumbeat going as much as anybody will let me. As weird as it is to see Wicks here considering he’s a super hot name in best ball drafts, he’s still a volatile name in redraft circles and home leagues. If you’re in a league with your buddies who aren’t diehard year-round football news grinders, the fact Wicks is the fourth wide receiver on his own depth chart will lead him to slip to the last round of some home league drafts.

With Wicks, we’re talking about an ambiguous wide receiver room in Green Bay that is still very much up in the air when it comes to earning targets from Jordan Love. Wicks is the WR72 in fantasy football rankings behind teammates Jayden Reed (WR37), Christian Watson (WR45) and Romeo Doubs (WR54). You can certainly make the case of him being drafted much closer to Doubs, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Wicks is a major player for the Packers this season.

He was closer to the top of the Green Bay pecking order in many receiving efficiency and volume-predictive metrics:

Wicks is the classic “if he only ran more routes” receiver who gave off a clear signal he should be playing a lot more in 2024. At the end of redraft rosters with your last pick, Wicks is a perfect pick if you need an upside receiver who can win with efficiency and exhibits all the hallmarks of a “small-miss, big-hit” player. Wicks is one of the best receiver options available late in drafts when people are picking the scraps of Adam Thielen, Marvin Mims Jr. and Jahan Dotson

Jalen McMillan (WR – TB)

ECR: WR87

No matter what school you go to, it’s incredibly difficult to even get one of your wide receivers to go in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft. The University of Washington happened to get three. The latest of the three was Jalen McMillan at the end of the third round to Tampa Bay. From that point, the race was on to determine the WR3 for the Buccaneers between McMillan and Trey Palmer.

Offensive coordinator Liam Coen has already said Chris Godwin will be going back into the slot for the Buccaneers, which is where Godwin has done most of his fantasy scoring throughout his career:

With Godwin in the slot and Mike Evans manning one of the outside receiver positions as always, McMillian has seemingly locked up the other starting outside wide receiver, per ESPN’s Jenna Laine. That’s huge for McMillan to outright win that job as the Buccaneers used 11 personnel at the seventh-highest rate last season under Dave Canales. With Coen coordinating this offense, the 11 personnel utilization may keep increasing as Coen is a Sean McVay disciple and the Rams (and other adjacent offenses like the Bengals and Vikings that feature branches from the McVay tree) use a massive amount of 11 personnel.

With McMillan getting the hard part out of the way in earning routes, now he just has to produce. With the amount of attention Evans and Godwin command, adding a talented Day 2 wide receiver is only going to help the passing game get stronger across the board. I’m drafting McMillan everywhere I can.

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Kevin Tompkins is a featured writer for FantasyPros. For more from Kevin, check out his profile and follow him @ktompkinsii