Fantasy Football: The 12 candidates who could be the overall WR1 of 2024

Over the past several seasons, I’ve discussed the “three pillars” a player must have in his outlook to become the fantasy WR1 overall. All of this made it easy to see that CeeDee Lamb was a near-perfect candidate for the honor, even if he wasn’t universally viewed as that type of player prior to last season.

Those three pillars are:

• Must own a dominant target share in his offense

• Must be tethered to an efficient quarterback/offense

• Must be verifiably great at football

Time to spin forward to 2024.

Using those pillars, let’s take a look at my top-12 ranked receivers to examine how clean their paths are to push for the WR1 overall title in 2024.

Target share: Yes

CeeDee Lamb owned a 29.2% share of the targets in Dallas last year and was targeted on 30% of his routes run, both among the top at his position. The Cowboys didn’t add much in the way of threats to Lamb’s target projection. In fact, you could argue they got worse around him. Nothing stands in the way of him averaging 10-plus targets per game.

Efficient offense/QB: Yes

I have concerns about the Cowboys reaching the same top-five heights on offense that we’re used to seeing, given my issues with the skill-position players beyond Lamb and turnover on the offensive line. Still, you’re only going to fall so far with a guy like Dak Prescott at quarterback. Lamb led the NFL in yards gained on slant routes with 324 in 2023, per Fantasy Points Data, while no other receiver cracked 200. This was the most automatic connection in the game last year.

Verifiably great at football: Yes

Lamb graduated to the elite tier of NFL receiver last year after holding down a spot at the top of Tier 2 for several years. He wins at all three receiver positions and is a chore to cover in one-on-one man coverage.

Target share: Yes

Despite playing across from another great wide receiver, Tyreek Hill led the NFL with a 31.1% share of the Dolphins’ passing targets. His 44.2% air yard share ranked second among all pass-catchers. Miami’s offense is so highly concentrated it pushes elite volume to Hill as the top threat.

Efficient offense/QB: Yes

You can have all the concerns you want about Tua Tagovailoa as a cold-weather passer and how much the system props him up. But the fact remains that he’s been a top-five quarterback in EPA per play and completion percentage over expected the last two seasons while ranking eighth in air yards per attempt. This remains a dream fit for all players involved.

Verifiably great at football: Yes

Hill remains as devastating a full-field threat as ever while playing Miami. He led the NFL with a ridiculous 4.05 yards per route run last season. He’s such a great all-around wideout he would still be a dominant force even if he lost a bit of speed.

Target share: Yes

Ja’Marr Chase turned in a 25% target share last year, a top-15 mark among pass-catchers, and owned 37% of the team’s air yards. You can’t even chalk that up to Tee Higgins’ health in 2023, as Chase was close to those marks in the previous season at 27.1% and 37.5%, respectively. Chase has long since sealed himself as the alpha of this receiver room.

Efficient offense/QB: Yes

The Bengals were 11th in offensive success rate last season, despite Joe Burrow playing compromised to start the year and missing the back half. There’s no doubt this will be one of the most dangerous offensive attacks in the league as long as No. 9 is behind center.

Verifiably great at football: Yes

Chase is a big play waiting to happen, both in the vertical game and with the ball in his hands. He’s also an extremely underrated technician and thrives in defeating press and man coverage as an ISO route runner. There’s certainly some doubt hanging over his status at the moment as he continues to lobby for a contract extension but it won’t take him long to get up to speed once he’s fully integrated with the team.

Target share: Yes

Justin Jefferson owned a 40.6% share of the team’s air yards when he played last season and was targeted on 28% of his routes. With a shaky quarterback situation for 2024, I expect Jefferson to push to lead the NFL in target share this season. We saw a similar situation play out when an aggressive but sub-par quarterback in Nick Mullens started three games last year and Jefferson averaged over 11 targets per contest.

Efficient offense/QB: Probably not

There are plenty of football sickos out there who are excited about the prospect of what Sam Darnold will look like in this offensive ecosystem. However, let’s be realistic about where he stands at this point in his career.

Since 2018, Darnold ranks 58th out of 67 quarterbacks in EPA per play among QBs with at least 500 dropbacks. He ranks 53rd in success rate. He’s played far more than anyone ranked lower. We’ve seen a lot of Darnold and almost none of it has been positive.

Can quarterbacks, especially young players be a product of their environment? Absolutely. Does that mean that Darnold is suddenly going to be an above-average player in Year 7? At the very least, we have to be skeptical, if not outright distrustful. I’m concerned the Vikings season could have a “lost at sea” type of feeling quite early now that there is no Round 1 rookie to hand the keys to after Darnold inevitably struggles.

Verifiably great at football: Yes

Without question; Jefferson is the best wide receiver in football and that’s the only reason he remains a Tier 1 fantasy wide receiver despite his troubling quarterback situation. Jefferson is elite at all facets of playing the wide receiver position and can turn bad throws into positive plays. We saw this down the stretch last year.

Target share: Yes

Amon-Ra St. Brown had the sixth-highest target share among pass-catchers last season at 27.9%. He has the lowest average depth of target (7.9) among the top wideouts but he more than makes up for it with his overall volume in the offense. I’d like to see his aDOT climb before pushing him into Tier 1 but considering he’s a player who has improved incrementally through each of his first three seasons, I won’t be against him doing it.

Efficient offense/QB: Yes

Similar to the Tua Tagovailoa discussion above — though I think Jared Goff is a more talented thrower of the football — no matter your personal evaluation of the Lions starter, there is no doubt he’s been excellent in this offense. Goff has hovered around a 5% touchdown rate and 7.8 adjusted yards per attempt over the last two years. He’s been a hyper-efficient passer.

Verifiably great at football: Yes

St. Brown gets slammed as “just a slot” receiver in some circles but he turned in a 78th percentile success rate vs. press coverage in Reception Perception last season while maintaining an 86th percentile success rate vs. zone. That doesn’t fit the slot-only or possession receiver profile. He does need to be used a bit more downfield to garner Tier 1 status, as mentioned above, but he’s still one of the best in the game at what he does.

Target share: Yes

Last season made it clear that while DeVonta Smith is a great wide receiver, A.J. Brown is one of the elite players at the position and is the alpha of the room. His 27.4% target share ranked eighth among pass-catchers in 2023. While Kellen Moore’s offense could get Smith some more slot reps, Brown will remain the primary read on the vast majority of concepts.

Efficient offense/QB: Probably yes

I wrote extensively about the Eagles’ offensive turnover to Kellen Moore as the play-caller and how some aspects of Jalen Hurts’ game are a dubious fit. That said, I generally view this Eagles offense as “too big to fail” considering the talent on the roster. As for Hurts, even if there are some issues in true dropback situations and he doesn’t operate as well under center, he’s still more than good enough to get a wideout to a supernova season.

Verifiably great at football: Yes

Speaking of which, Brown was on his way to a supernova season last year in the first half and never lost a step as an individual player. The structure of the offense and some of the hideous design concepts just crumbled under their own weight. Nothing about Brown’s play changed. He’s capable of having an 1,800-yard season.

Target share: Yes

Even in games where Cooper Kupp played and finished, Puka Nacua led the team with a 26% target share and 32% air yard share. Kupp can still be a good player for the Rams and a good fantasy pick at ADP but I think the torch has officially been passed to Nacua as the team’s top receiver.

Efficient offense/QB: Yes

Matthew Stafford remains one of the best passers in the NFL. As long as he’s healthy and protected, this is a great ecosystem. The Rams were ninth in both EPA per play and success rate on offense in 2023.

Verifiably great at football: Yes

Believe what your eyes told you last season: Puka Nacua is great at football. He’s a rugged receiver who wins at an extremely high clip when working the middle of the field. The rookie was excellent at getting open against man coverage from a variety of alignments. As long as he stays healthy — worth noting since he comes into the season after an injured camp — we can have faith in his play as a top receiver.

Target share: Yes

Garrett Wilson should be absolutely pummeled with opportunities yet again this year. Last season, he led the NFL with a 45.8% share of his team’s air yards and was targeted on 26% of his routes run. The only significant name added to the Jets’ passing-game pecking order is an aging and banged-up Mike Williams. If anything, having Williams around to take some vertical X-receiver work away from Wilson will free the youngster up for more efficient targets.

Efficient offense/QB: Maybe

I’d like to say yes here but the reality is we just don’t know what Aaron Rodgers is at this stage of his career coming off an Achilles injury. Odds are good that whatever version we get will be better than what Wilson has endured to this point. It just remains to be seen if Rodgers can give us something close to top-12 quarterback play considering we haven’t seen him do that since 2021.

Verifiably great at football: Yes

Definitively, yes. Anyone who uses stats to argue against Wilson is nothing short of ridiculous.

Wilson joined truly elite company in Reception Perception last season. He’s an outstanding player who separates with extreme efficiency. He just needs quarterback play to cooperate and to tighten up just a bit at the catch point to join the ranks of Tier 1 receivers.

Target share: Yes

The Cardinals have better players on offense than they’re credited. Trey McBride is an ascending tight end, Michael Wilson was much better as a rookie than you remember and Greg Dortch is a viable slot option. However, there is a surprising amount of targets up for grabs here beyond those three with the departures of Marquise Brown, Zach Ertz and Rondale Moore out the door. Marvin Harrison Jr. should step into the X-receiver role from Day 1 and easily push for a 25% target share.

Efficient offense/QB: Maybe

I’m generally a Kyler Murray backer and would like to give a definitive “yes” to this one. Murray finished the season strong with three excellent games against the Bears, Eagles and Seahawks to end 2023 (108.3 passer rating). He’s not a locked-in top-10 quarterback but if he can get back to pre-injury form, we’ve seen him facilitate a WR1 season before when DeAndre Hopkins was the WR5 in 2020.

Verifiably great at football: Yes, with the obvious caveat

Look, we haven’t seen Marvin Harrison Jr. play at the NFL level yet, unlike everyone else on this list. I get that. However, he checks every box you want from a prospect and for me, he was my highest-ranked wideout of the last five classes combined. He was such an awesome college player despite seeing an enormous amount of defensive attention.

Every prospect is a projection but everything from Harrison’s film says he will be a superstar quite early in his NFL career.

Note: I’m still ranking and analyzing Brandon Aiyuk here as if he’s a member of the 49ers and will play Week 1. Obviously, that’s not a lock at this stage but I still believe, at some point, rational thought will win out in this saga.

Target share: No

As long as Aiyuk suits up with Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and George Kittle as a member of the 49ers, he doesn’t check this box. His 22.7% target share from last year is close to his ceiling. He can be a WR1 with that workload but the overall top finisher likely isn’t in his range of outcomes.

Efficient offense/QB: Yes

Brock Purdy has been the most efficient quarterback on a per-play basis since 2018. The 49ers were the No. 1-ranked offense in both EPA and success rate last year. You can try to untangle those two things from each other in hours of debates. When it comes to projecting the pass-catchers, Aiyuk chief among them, I do not care.

Verifiably great at football: Yes

Aiyuk is an absurdly good wide receiver. He’s one of the best route runners in the NFL, dominates at the X-receiver position and is a better ball-winner than you think. In isolation, he performs at an elite level.

Aiyuk has all the talent to produce like one of the best in the game; that isn’t and should not be in question. However, while I strongly believe he is their most important pass-catcher, the 49ers are just too loaded for him to get the volume commensurate with his talent. Having him this high despite the surrounding players is a deference to his ability as a player.

Target share: Yes

Davante Adams ranked third in the NFL with a 30.5% target share last year. He’s being paired up with a coordinator this year in Luke Getsy who was on staff for some of Adams’ most productive seasons as the first-read target in Green Bay. For all the other issues with his projection this year, opportunity won’t be a problem.

Efficient offense/QB: No

And here we arrive at said issues. I just can’t imagine a scenario where the Gardner Minshew/Aidan O’Connell duo equals out to above-average quarterback play. I’d like to see O’Connell eventually get a shot but only because he can push the ball to Adams downfield better than Minshew, who will start Week 1. While Getsy was on staff in Green Bay and should center the offense around Adams, nothing about his time in Chicago would lead you to believe he will be a needle-mover as the play-caller.

Verifiably great at football: Yes

When watching Adams on film and charting his routes, I didn’t see any significant drop-off in his play or ability to get open. I always say that analyzing wide receivers and their age curves/cliffs is the trickiest part of discussing the position. I don’t believe there are any hard and fast rules. So, it’s worth bringing up a possible decline for the 31-year-old Adams; we just haven’t seen evidence of it to this point.

Target share: Yes

We’ve seen evidence that Drake London can be a high-end target earner in a viable NFL offense. As a rookie, London ranked fourth among pass-catchers with a 27.7% target share for a Falcons offense that ranked 11th in success rate. We should have no concerns about his ability to command volume.

Efficient offense/QB: Maybe

Kirk Cousins has always been a streaky quarterback and is now coming off a major injury deep into his 30s. The last time we saw him play, he was in the middle of one of his heaters. That doesn’t automatically guarantee he carries that momentum over to 2024 on a completely new team with a first-time play-caller.

We’re all in agreement that Cousins will be an upgrade over Desmond Ridder — the lowest of low bars to clear — but we should still be realistic about some of the possible pitfalls of the gamble Atlanta is taking on the veteran.

If Cousins falters or is injured, the Falcons did spend a top-10 pick on a rookie quarterback, as you may have heard.

Verifiably great at football: Yes

I have long been a huge fan of London’s game. He’s painfully underrated as a separator and still wins as a bully downfield in contested situations. The new coaching staff coming over from the Rams should be much better positioned to alter London’s alignment to better express his gifts than what we’ve seen his first two seasons.

By the end of the season, London’s play should be at the level where we consider him a Tier 2 NFL receiver. Let’s just hope the fantasy stats follow, considering where he’s going in drafts.