5 receivers you should leave your fantasy draft with

It’s fantasy football draft season and it is beautiful. The wide receiver position is as deep as it has ever been, but there are still some must draft players this year. These are the five guys I am trying to make sure I leave my draft with, as the value is outstanding and the upside is league-winning. I wouldn’t even be mad if you built your entire receiving core around these five guys. Without further ado, I present my five must-draft receivers of 2020.

(All ADPs come from the FTN Fantasy ADP tool.)

D.J. Moore, Carolina Panthers

(ADP: 35.9, WR11)

I’m taking Moore in the third round on every team I can in the third round. The young stud receiver is on the brink of destroying the NFL. Both PointsBet and FoxBet have his yardage over/under is at 1,249.5 yards; this is absurd value for a third-round receiver — most receivers in that range have yardage props nearly 200 yards lower. Moore dominated the Panthers air yards last year seeing 32.3% of the air yards and 22.9% of the team's targets. The Panthers have brought in a more aggressive coaching staff, led by new offensive coordinator Joe Brady, who was the mastermind behind the best offense in the country in LSU last season.

More than the coaching staff, the lack of any defensive talent has me even higher on Moore. The Panthers come in with one of the lowest win totals in the win totals in football at just 5.5. This is going to be a bad football team that has to play catchup in nearly every game. That is good news for Moore — who, per FTN’s NFL splits tool averaged 12.7 more yards and 0.9 more receptions in games the Panthers lost last year. He also gets a massive improvement in Teddy Bridgewater, who may not take shots down the field, but is one of the more accurate quarterbacks in the league, coming off least-accurate-QB-in-football-last-season Kyle Allen. This will be huge for Moore. Moore finished eighth in the NFL last year in yards after catch, so more catchable targets is going to lead in a surge in production. Moore may be a fringe Round 1 guy in 2021, so enjoy getting this league-winner on your roster in Round 3 while you can. 

Terry McLaurin, Washington Football Team

(ADP: 68.5, WR24)

Round 5 for McLaurin, yes please, thank you and no takebacks. I would feel very comfortable securing McLaurin in Round 4 to ensure he is on my roster, but regardless the second-year receiver is a must for me this year. McLaurin is the second-highest graded rookie at the wide receiver position since 2010 per PFF and managed to finish top 20 in yards per route run, yards per target and yards per reception. His efficiency was off the charts as he put up nearly 1,000 yards despite playing just 14 games and seeing just 93 targets. Per Hayden Winks of Rotoworld, McLaurin “had the 24th-most PPR points among rookie WRs in NFL history despite Washington finishing 28th in passing touchdowns and 32nd in passing yards.” On the worst team in football, I expect this team to have to throw more, and Dwayne Haskins can’t get any worse. Look for McLaurin to replicate his efficiency but increase his workload. If that happens, he should shatter his current price tag. 

Will Fuller, Houston Texans

(ADP: 95.7, WR34)

Whether to take Fuller will come down to your level of risk aversion. You will have many pundits say he just can’t stay healthy, and it is hard to argue that based on his history. However, he doesn’t need to play the whole season to pay off his current price tag, and he will have WR1 overall upside in the games he is good to go for. You win leagues by hitting on ceilings, not running away from them. While Fuller’s ADP is 95.7 per our ADP tool, he is frequently off the board in the fifth round in high stakes leagues. That should be an indication of how he should be valued.

Gone is DeAndre Hopkins to Arizona, replaced by also-frail Brandin Cooks and new slot receiver Randall Cobb. With a new starting running back in David Johnson, Fuller is one of only two players still on the roster who saw over 60 targets last season (Duke Johnson is the other). With Hopkins gone, 35% of the air yards and 30.5% of the targets are up for grabs. It’s fair to expect Fuller to soak some of that up. If he takes 20% of the workload Hopkins left behind, that would put him at 26% of the targets and 34.5% of the air yards, numbers only four total receivers put up last year. We have seen his ceiling games, now without Hopkins we could be looking at his ceiling season. 

Jamison Crowder, New York Jets

(ADP: 127.7, WR46)

The opposite of Fuller, you don’t get much less sexy than Crowder. What you do get is someone who is the last of the teams’ WR1s at a fantasy WR4 price tag. In games Sam Darnold played last year, Crowder averaged 8.31 targets and 14.02 PPR points per game. He scored all of his touchdowns with Darnold at a pace that would have him score eight times in 16 games in 2020. Gone is Darnold’s second target in Robby Anderson, replaced by journeyman Breshad Perriman and rookie Denzel Mims. Darnold will continue to rely on the man he has chemistry with and pepper him with targets. Crowder is the perfect guy to balance a high-upside team with, as he will never let you down and will pop for a few big games this season due to his high-volume role on the Jets offense. 

Preston Williams, Miami Dolphins

(ADP: 150.7, WR53)

Williams is coming off an ACL tear last season. There was concern a couple months back he might not be ready, but according to reports from camp he has put those to rest. According to multiple reports, not only is Williams a full participant, he’s dominating his reps. Last season, Williams did not have a single game without at least five targets, and he finished his rookie year with a 13.6-yard aDOT. He was competing on a weekly basis for targets with DeVante Parker — Parker did emerge last season, but it took a Williams injury for him to fully break out. In fact, with both players on the field, Williams out-targeted Parker, finished with only 19 fewer yards and had a greater share of the team's air yards. He is a big-bodied, talented, downfield playmaker with skills to be a guy capable of seven-plus touchdowns. He is going six rounds later than Parker but produced similarly. Give me the discount and the buy-low opportunity on a team whose Nos. 3 and 4 receivers already opted out. Once you hit the double-digit rounds, make sure you hit the draft button on Williams’ name.