8 WRs You NEED To Draft BEFORE They Breakout in 2024

Intro what's going on man welcome back to the basement I'm Ron and you guys absolutely loved our breakout running backs video from a couple days ago so we're going to run it back with the wide receivers today because breakout receivers are just about as impactful as the breakout running backs in a given year last year three of the top 12 wide receivers in points per game did so for the first time you had pukaa Nico Collins and DJ Moore and these guys you pretty much got a free wide receiver one either in the middle rounds the late rounds are off of waivers like puka AA so today we are going to be a mission to give you the eight wide receivers you need to Draft before they break out this season as always we put a lot of research and time into these videos if you enjoy make sure you subscribe leave a like let's [Music] go now first up let's talk about Malik Malik Nabers neighbors he's going at the 408 as the wide receiver 23 over on sleeper and I'll be honest back in early July when we did our wide receiver rank videos I wasn't as high on Mal neighbors as I am now it's tough he's in a a rough offense we don't know how the touchdown upside is going to shake out in New York but when we look at his home League ADP of 408 as the wide receiver 23 I think he's a smash there and I would even take him as high as like the middle of the third round in fantasy drafts when we talk about Malak neighbors I want to focus in on the talent before anything else this is if it wasn't for Marvin Harrison Jr who is the prince who was promised this is somebody who is a special special wide receiver Prospect we talked a ton about him during Dynasty season and we look at points per game so just PPR points per game over each year right freshman sophore Jr and we compare him next to Justin Jefferson and Jamar Chase he goes toe-to-toe with those guys he actually produced more than Jefferson did in his third year of course Chase didn't play a third year and Chase dusted both that's because Jamar Chase is Jamar Chase but Malik neighbors was also 20 years old in this season and also competed next to Brian Thomas Jr and then also had Jaden Daniels not Joe burrow jadden Daniels was great but Joe burrow had so much passing volume so much passing stats that's going to boost up Jamar Chase's points per game pretty much the point is really good player drafted top 10 and then also freak freak athlete where you can see next to Jamar Chase here we're talking 6 foot about 200 lb 43 speed 42inch vertical he is a monster he can play inside and out freak athlete production everywhere that you want it next to another NFL stud receiver in Brian Thomas Jr and now we have preseason usage that signals to at least that we're not going to get off to a slow start in the NFL that can sometimes happen for rookie receivers and it's like man get them on the field already I'm screaming at top my lungs when we're doing the rookie wide receiver report but here a 31.6% Target share is not going to stick during the season all right that would be unprecedented for a rookie receiver though it is in it's in his range of outcomes but something more like 25% would be about right and even that is huge he had a 31.6% Target share when on the field during the preseason this is a tweet from Jacob Gibbs 13.3 average depth of Target so he's not just getting like your layup uh jsn ju Del Robinson type routes that we've seen over the last few years you're getting real wide receiver routes at a big boy Target share and that is huge because you're going to get after the catch efficiency you're also going to get before the catch efficiency with your average depth of Target and if they build the offens at of Malik neighbors that's going to be a lot of targets and a lot of efficiency just because of what he is as a talent now the big thing to note here is him being used in pre- snap motion he said here Gibbs neighbors has been used as the pre- snap motion man five times in Target on two of those five routes that's massive when we get these guys in motion that is a really good way to sort of boost things we saw it last year with Keenan Allen and Kell Moore's offense we saw it as well uh with Tyreek Hill all the time with Mike McDaniel any of these guys that get in motion before the snap it just is a huge boost to like fantasy points EPA everything you could possibly imagine if D's going to use him in that role in that specific way as kind of like all around the formation in motion down the field that is huge now I know a lot of people's preconceived notion as we've seen this before with Chris olve Drake London Garrett Wilson where they're stuck in these bad offenses and they can't produce until they're out of them well what I would say is I think that that's taking it a little bit far right the Giants aren't that bad D's a good play caller in just in 2022 the last time that Dan Jones was actually healthy Bush points it out here from fantasy stock exchange those giants 16th in points per game 12th in EPA per drop back which is just efficiency per drop back uh 18th in total yards Danel Jones led the NFL in adjusted completion percentage and then also so their skill position players were garbage they had saquon Barkley who was good of course but he led the team in targets then you're talking Darius Slayton Richie James isaah hjin so now we have a good play caller and a better skill group right now you get an upgrade of leak neighbors now you get as well a wand Del Robinson in there who should at least give you something out of the slot and it should just be you know at the very least a better core of receivers and passing weapons for Daniel Jones with an already good play caller who's going to push the tempo and run a lot of plays this is a really good blurb for from Pat thorman over at establish the run where he breaks down the pace over on that site and pretty much the gist is is that if we look at Brian dable he plays relatively fast during neutral situations in 2021 Buffalo ranked second in pass rate third in play clock seconds remaining fifth in Pace eighth in no huddle rate as well then we go down to the second paragraph even during last year's tire fire of a giant season they ranked fourth in average play clock seconds remaining at the snap Fifth and neutral no huddle rate and they threw it the fifth highest clip on first and that was all on an offense that couldn't sustain drives or get first downs now if we get a decent offense we should be much better we're going to have a lot of pass attempts we're going to have a lot of plays ran which is Big right that gives you a lot of volume so anything he can't get in terms of touchdowns should be compensated for with volume in pass attempts and yes there is a concern that he's not going to score touchdowns but he could kind of give you similar to what Michael Pitman was last year as a guy who didn't score a lot of touchdowns but caught a lot of passes he's also not a not all that dissimilar of a bet to a guy like Chris olve right bad offense but good player who commands targets that's what Malik neighbors is but instead of going in the second round in your home League he's going in the fourth round and again I would take him as early as the middle of the third so Malik neighbors I've come around on I I I don't want to be the guy who's missing out on a generational talent and I think that we might be too harsh on this Giants offense Brian dable to me is actually one of the better play callers in the NFL now after Tank Dell that our next breakout candidate at wide receiver is tankel who goes at the 506 of the wide receiver 26 over on sleeper and it's pretty simple what this boils down to for me you guys might say Well Ron you like nicoo Collins how are you going to like tank Del to well this is going to be one of the best offenses in the league and as Josh Norris over at Underdog fantasy has been saying all off season I just want good players and good offense when we're talking about a fifth round pick a guy that you're drafting as your wide receiver three or throwing in your flexx I'm very much fine making that bet because I'm pretty sure that tenell is a good player we look at the top 20 wide receivers last year in points for game tankel was the wide receiver 18 and that was not even being a full-time player in terms of rap participation and that was also his last game he got hurt that's factored in here which was pretty much a zero in his last game and even then he was between Amari Cooper and Chris olve in PPR points per game and last year this Conor Allen tweet outlines in the seven games he played 60% more of the snaps next to Nico Collins he paced with niiko Collins across the board in terms of targets receptions yards touchdowns half PPR points all of it he looked apart again as a rookie and when we talk about kind of how wide receiver careers go year 2 is where we see a big Improvement shout out to Ryan Heath over at fantasy points he does this age curves and cliffs article every offseason it's genuinely a must read like I would go check it out if you just if you lit just type in Ryan Heath age curves it'll come up um and the key takeaway that he showed here is he kind of looked at wide receiver performance over their career and his key takeaway is that wide receivers typically underwhelm his rookies before making a big leap in their sophomore season and here if we get tank Dell to improve and make a leap in his second year we're talking about a guy who just finished in the top 20 wide receivers in points per game if he improves on that we're really cooking here then we also have the idea that yes I know again people are going to say well there's Diggs here there's Nico Collins it's too crowded well what I would say is that we want pieces of good passing offenses right I don't want the wide receiver one like I wouldn't take deont Johnson over tankel yes he's the wide receiver one are his targets more clear sure but he's not as good as tankel he is talented and then also tank Dell is in a really really good offense where there's going to be a lot of touchdown upside and I would even say these are Mike Clay projections here right he works over at ESPN he has a free set of rank or a free set of projections he does that are really useful and I think that he's even being conservative here he has them for top six in past attempts completions yards and touchdowns I think with CJ strad he could be top three in these categories and even fight for like first place in these categories and just go scorched Earth MVP type of run kind of what we saw in year two from Joe burrow and Justin Herbert it wouldn't be all that shocking last year they were 12th in pass attempts that's now projected to go up to sixth at the very least they were 13th in completions projected to go up to six now they were seventh in yards which to me just highlights how efficient CJ strad was on a per attempt basis I think that fourth in yards in terms of projection is too low and then 14th in passing touchdowns last year they had just 23 this year Kay has been projected to be fifth in passing touchdowns and again he's being conservative trying to get things as accurate as possible this isn't even his seal projection type of outcome like this is just expected so if they hit their ceiling in terms of this offense two of them are going to absolutely destroy their ADP whether it's Nico and tank or it's Diggs and Nico or if it's Diggs and tank Dell I just want pieces of this offense to me Nico projects as the most clear number one option but tank Dell again in the fifth round is like your wide receiver three I'm all over that now when we talk about our George Pickens third breakout wide receiver here we're going to talk about George Pickins he's going the 509 as the wide receiver 27 over on sleeper and I I'll be honest I haven't been drafting a lot of George Pickins like I don't have him on a lot of my teams but I want to change that because after doing this research I'm actually really coming around on George pickings because really what it came down to is in that Ryan Heath article the most common breakout for wide receivers is actually year three but the year three guys this year are Chris La Garrett Wilson Drake London all of them super super obvious I'm not going to mention them in this video but if there was going to be a dark horse I think it would be George Pickins I think you guys are going to be shocked when we look at this data here when we look at PPR point leaders from that 2022 wide receiver class he's actually ahead of Drake London and behind Garrett Wilson in raw total PPR points then we look at per route he's really efficient in terms of yards per out run last season his 2.11 yards per out run led the entire class over Chris olve over Rasheed Shahed over Christian Watson Garrett Wilson Drake London all of those guys and he had garbage quarterback play he had Kenny Piet and Mason Rudolph with a Matt Canada calling place which is awful now when we look at just the still down to man coverage he crushed that as well from David gari here he was behind just CD Lam Nico Collins Tyreek kill DJ Moore Brandon auk and Justin Jefferson a star studded list in terms of yards Prout run versus Man coverage so when you just isolate it versus Man coverage he's beating that I believe on reception perception he had a 70th percentile or better win rate versus press he is a really good perimeter wide receiver and we even saw last year in games without Deontay Johnson he was really good 16.6 points per game in that four game sample and again with brutal quarterback play and that should take a little bit of a step forward this year nothing crazy because we're going from you know Kenny picket and Mason Rudolph to Russell Wilson and Justin Fields but to me if anyone was going to have that DJ Moore top 12 finish in a bad passing environment where he just gets there on talent and efficiency I'm going to play my flag and say my my my candidate for that would be George Pickins and somebody I'm very much fine taking at this 56 turn I think Kev breaks it down pretty decently here of like Kenny picket was brutal now of course the quarterback situation isn't much better but it's decently better where Kenny picket threw 13 touchdowns on 713 pass attempts that is awful a wash Russell Wilson threw 26 on 447 last year and then we're going to get some better yards per attempt here some better per pass efficiency and we also saw Justin Fields do it last year with DJ Moore in terms of supporting a wide receiver one and there's nothing else in this offense right you have the running backs I guess you have Fri Muth and then the wide receiver two is Van Jefferson so you could just see them build this passing offense out of George Pickins and when that happens that could very easily be like a 16 17 point per game like lowend wide receiver one at his ceiling and again in the fifth sixth round I'm very much fine with taking that bet then we have the chiefs wide Rashee Rice & Xavier Worthy receivers who I've been pumping up all offseason the prices are still not high enough you have Rashi rice who the 610 is the wide receiver 33 over on sleeper Xavier worthy who is the 704 is the wide receiver 37 over on sleeper and we look at their Underdog adps it's just not caught up enough right rash again wide receiver 33 on sleeper he's the wide receiver 27 on Underdog zavier W is the wide receiv receiver 37 on sleeper he is the wide receiver 33 on Underdog so Underdog is way higher on these players I will say as well make sure you check out Underdog fantasy it's the best way to get ready for your home leue because you can be in the draft you see rashes flying off the board you see Xavier worthy flying off the board and you get to your home home league and you see oh my God rash R is here in the sixth round he's an absolute smash I have to take him same thing with Le neighbors who's going like the late second right now he's going to be there in the fourth you be like oh my God I need to take Malik neighbors it's just a great way to get practice against Real players who aren't autod Drafting and taking a kicker in the fifth round or you know putting their phone down after three picks it's a good way to get some skin in the game and just see what a draft should look like in a sharp league and you can take that and apply it to the league settings in the format of your home league so if you want to check that out make sure you use promo code Ron they'll match your first deposit up to $1,000 is the word on the street right now not 250 I'm going to get an updated graphic soon but use promo code Ron the master deposit up to $1,000 you can find a link to that in the description down below or in the comments pinned at the top but when we talk about Rashi ice in particular the biggest thing with these wide receivers is they're attached to Patrick Mahomes so I think is going to have a really really good season last year was a down year his wide receivers sucked they invested in the wide receivers and everything should be much better this year but almond Rous or Al R Brown is actually the comp for Rashi R where Alan R Brown in his rookie year everyone said the same thing well Alan Rin Brown he produced that at the end of the year because he was the only wide receiver in this offense here's the thing wide receiver production and targets are earned not given if they weren't earned then we would see guys who were all alone in their in their offense like we saw Quenton Johnston last year the only guy there in Los Angeles for stretches of time he did nothing going out here and giving you 18.5 points per game from weeks 12 on is massive that that is not by mistake that is him being a talented player if it was that easy we would see guys like mvs do that and we haven't if we go across the board as well low ADOT slot type of receiver but Rashi R had a really good yards per out run really good targets per out run 85 PFF receiving grade which is massive uh huge huge boost in points per game after week 12 and then his year 280p 60.4 that's like a that's actually like not even where he's going in hom Le he's actually going still going later than that again prices in these default rankings which is what this Rashi rice is is still not up to par to where it needs to be for Rashi rice Xavier Worthy is probably a little bit more fair though and I will say Xavier Worthy is not a guy that I'm expecting to finish as a top 12 wide receiver this year that I think has a chance to do so although like maybe you know we don't know how good these rookie wide receivers are but when we talk about the rookie wide receivers in this video it's really more of the idea of rookie wide receivers giving you more points per game down the stretch of a season versus veterans kind of falling off and not giving you much kind of like last year the the comparison is Adam thielen who set the world on fire for the first like five or six weeks and then kind of tailed off Rashi rice was unst startable and then from weeks 10 11 12 on he was a monster I think that's what you're seeing for a lot of these rookie wide receivers and you can see here as well if we look at the top 24 PPR scores at wide receiver from weeks 10 on four of them were rookies two of them in the top 12 in puka nakua Jaden Reed you also had rashy rice and you also had Z flower so just something to think about with these rookie wide receivers in your drafts and then we have Xavier worthy just in terms of his player breakdown we have Dwayne McFarland over on Fantasy Life saying he could be this year's tank Dell and that gets me excited this is somebody who had a 25% Target show with Patrick Mahomes in two preseason games the rookie speed Speedster is working opposite areas of the field for mashi rice with a 20.8 yard ad do and he had an 89% rout participation of course Hollywood Brown wasn't healthy but Hollywood Brown is always banged up he's out there making less money than Gabe Davis and Darnell Mooney I'm personally not projecting him to be the focal point of this offense I think he's going to be more of a decoy and kind of sacrificial X in this offense we'll see how it goes but Xavier worthy look explosive he's beating the defense deep and he's already getting huge rout participation shares which we haven't seen historically from Andy Reid and these rookie receivers I don't want to get too crazy but it wouldn't be all that wild for Andy Reid to use Xavier worthy in a similar way to what he saw on Deshawn Jackson in Philly I'll just leave you with that our next player we're going to talk about as a breakout Rome Odunze receiver here is Rome adun he is the 612 is the wide receiver 4 on sleeper sleeper's like the only platform that that that's like that high on him on ESPN and Yahoo you can get him much later than that but this is another Talent bet uh Matt Haron over at reception perception absolutely loves him he had a full green route tree as a prospect and he said I don't like like to often compare prospects to one of the top whiteout to play the game but he compared him to Devonte Adams and then at the bottom here he says o dun will get an extremely high classification from me on the Stacked wide receiver Prospect rankings Marvin Harrison Jr Jamar Chase and roma Dunes are the top three prospects I have chared for reception perception between the 2021 and 2024 classes he is that high on Rome he has him in the same breath as Marvin Harrison Jr and Jamar Chase then we talk about just his environment and we're going to see this Bears offense be much different where right now Connor Allen has them projected in terms of their Vegas projections 16th most points in the NFL that is huge we're going to have touchdowns here and then we also have Shane Waldren a new play caller who last year or from 2021 to 2023 was top 10 in per play efficiency was uh 10th in neutral pass rate and was tied for fifth in neutral pace so he's going to pass the ball score points and run uptempo that's what we're looking for now people are very scared of Keenan Allen and potentially uh Roman dun being this like jsn kind of sacrificial slot guy there's just no way when we look at the stats from last year right Roman dun in college had a 15.5 yard ad and a 17.4% slot percentage he is not going to work of the slot and get these like dump offs if anyone's going to do it it's Keenan Allen who looks a lot more like 2023 jsn where jsn had a 6.4 yard ad do 69% of his snaps or his routes came from the slot Keenan Allen under 10 yards in terms of his ADOT 59% of his routes came from the slot and a lot of his production last year came from being the motion guy in a kellmore offense we're not going to get that year with Shane this year with Shane Waldren he's another year older he's already getting reports of like being fat even though I don't really believe that a ton um I know Hayden Winks has been watching watching him on film and says he doesn't look the same he's a 31 32y Old wide receiver he gets banged up all the time I will say thises not me saying that like right out the gate Roman D is going to be the guy with these rookie wide receiv receivers again we're playing for late season I think Keenan Allen will be out there in two wide receiver sets early but if he tweaks something or if he's not that good we could see Roman dunesday just be undeniable to the point where by week seven eight nine he's out there two wide receiver sets as a full-time wide receiver and is a League winner this season and that's what I foresee for Roman Dunes then speaking of Shane Waldren as much as we like Shane Jaxon Smith-Njigba Waldren for the environment we don't like him for the role he gave jsn right jsn had that really bad role last year of 6.4 yard ad 69% of his routes came from the slot really bad stuff where it's impossible to be efficient on a 6.4 yard ad unless if your name is Debo Samuel but he gets a new offensive coordinator he gets Ryan grub and I'm very high on what this offense can be in Seattle this is a tweet from Hayden wins when we look at his pass rate and his deep pass rate he's up and to the right meaning that he's throwing the ball and he's throwing the ball deep so we're not going to get super low ad do stuff for jsn and you can get him right now on sleeper at the 904 as the wide receiver 45 I would take him as high as like the early 7eventh late 6th jsn and when we look at Ryan Grub's offenses they were really good now of course they had Roman dun they had Michael penck but we look at EPA uh EPA per play EPA per game success rate crushed across the board so this is a really good offense this is a modern College style offense that wants to push the ball downfield and pass the ball ton that is huge for jsn who can kind of be this like vertical slot type of guy for this offense of course lockett's there meaf is there but there should be enough to go around for two to three pass catchers in this offense to be every week fantasy starters and I think Tyler Lockett could be the odd man out he's getting old he's coming off pretty much his career worst year in terms of efficiency he didn't have 1,00 receiving yards he didn't look all that great and now we have jsn who's ascending going into year 2 and we look at his reception perception from last year not bad right 70th percentile versus Man 76 percentile versus Zone and Matt Haron said on reception perception uh the film tells a clear story from jsn in terms of his rookie season it's not one of Doom and Gloom at all he showed off the ability you want to see out of a good starting flanker and slot receiver carried over most of the positives from his college profile and even showed some growth that I wanted to see from him so he passes the in isolation test which is so critical for these year two receivers so he could improve this year kind of like what we talked about with tank Dell and then also when we his routes here from Jacob Gibbs his slot routes were bad but that's because he had that really crazy like low a. roll with Waldren but when he was actually used on the outside he had a 2.43 yards per out run that is really good like anything like remember we talked about George Pickins 2.11 yards per out run last year he runs pretty much all of his routes from the outside so if we're talking about jsn on the outside now of course he's not playing X and getting press like George Pickins but 2.43 yards per out run on the outside is crazy uh he's good against Zone he's good against man as well so he can do it all jsn and this year Ryan grub could unlock him in this offense and then our last player here is Brian Thomas Jr another rookie that we're kind of hoping breaks out down the stretch of the year but if anybody can just kind of hit the ground running it could be Brian Thomas Jr who the Jaguars absolutely love he's already out there in two wide receiver sets this is from the first preseason game when they had the starters out there Adam Levitan says here wide receivers routes on five Trevor Lawrence dropbacks Brian Thomas Jr ran a route on all all five then you have the two wide receiver sets and the Jags were in two wide receiver sets on two of those snaps Christian Kirk did not play in any of them it was Gabe Davis and it was Brian Thomas Jr so Brian Thomas Jr is in every snap every route rde Receiver right now A starting receiver in the NFL on a Trevor Lawrence offense who wants to push the ball downfield wants to score points and they love this kid they keep talking him up coach speak index says here uh this is an press Taylor uh he's the offensive coordinator he said you just see the progression you see a little bit more of him becoming who we knew he would be and again I think he's a long way from where he's going to be in two weeks let alone 18 weeks from now and this is what we kind of talk about with the rookie wide receivers blowing up down the stretch of the season this is why you draft wide receivers in fantasy that are rookies because you're not putting them in your Flex or you're starting wide receiver spot early on but as they get better and they get on the field and they earn more trust and more targets you could look at at a monster that is like a top 12 option from weeks 10 on and that's a huge huge difference making asset for your team because that is the weeks or the weeks that we are making money winning championships that is when these rookie wide receivers come out and are huge differenc makers and that's what I think Brian Thomas Jr can be as one of these LSU receivers that is no slouch in terms of like him and Malik neighbors and we talked about like all time with these LSU receivers of like Odell Beckham and jvis Landry he's right up there as someone that's really good man he had 68 catches for 1177 yards in 17 touchdowns and his physical like size speed is crazy now I'm not calling him the next Jefferson I'm just showing it as a comparison we're talking 63 209 lb 43 speed 38 and 1/2 inch vertical just an absolute monster and I love the way that he fits in this offense where the Jaguars are projected for the 15th most points by Vegas so they're going to score the ball or not score the ball you know they're going to score points and you also have Mike Clay who hasn't projected for the eighth most pass attempts so we're going to get pass attempts we're going to get scoring and then also Trevor Lawrence was one of five quarterbacks last year with 70 year more passes of 20 or more yards attempted right so 20 plus air yards so he's he's pushing the ball down the field and Brian Thomas Jr had the second most yards in college football on targets of 20 or more yards downfield I believe he was the highest graded receiver on those types of receptions so he operates downfield Trevor Lawrence is looking for a guy he can just bomb it deep to Brian Thomas Jr can be exactly that now that's going to do it for us today as always if you want to make sure you're targeting these breakouts in your drafts I have all of them pushed up in my rankings over on patreon patreon.com Ron Stewart I have my top 200 cheat sheet I update it like pretty much every morning I have my targets outlined my Fades outlined I have everything tiered so you kind of know how I see the tier breaks in your draft and I even have based on our consensus rankings the target rounds for each player of you know where you should be trying to draft these guys right Malik Neighbors in the fourth round is a guy that I have pushed back a little bit further so you can try and get him at value or you can just say you know what Ron has him in green and highlighted I'm going to take him here and get my guy so you can kind of use it how you'd like to and it does filter you down the draft strategies we talk about where it pushes up those legendary running backs early the wide receivers in the dead zone with the quarterbacks and tight ends and you're hammering the rb2 profiles later on in the draft I think that you'll really enjoy it I use it for all my home leagues I use it for all my high stakes drafts you guys watch every night um but if you're not interested there which you can find in the description in the comment section down below just leave a like subscribe if you're new and I will see y'all in the next one [Music] stes like