Fantasy Football Wide Receiver Breakouts: Will Fuller, Marquise Brown, Calvin Ridley ready for stardom
Finding league-winning upside is how you separate yourself, and our breakout picks have plenty of it.
By
Chris Towers
•
2 min read
Nobody can really agree on the definition of a "breakout" in Fantasy football, but here's one that should be your guiding light as you prepare for Draft Day: It's someone who can go a long way to carrying your team to a championship. Whether that comes from a late-round pick stepping up as a reliable starter with big weekly upside or a reliable starter making the leap to superstardom, it's all about picking players to maximize your chances to win. And I'm aiming for upside at wide receiver with my breakout picks. You can always find a reasonable option on waivers at the position, so you should be shooting for those players who can essentially give you multiple first-round picks at a discount.
Take JuJu Smith-Schuster. There seems to be an awful lot of skepticism around Smith-Schuster coming off his tough 2019, with many questioning whether he's truly cut out to be a No. 1 receiver in the NFL, but it's hard to argue he doesn't have obvious first-round upside. Consider that only Larry Fitzgerald, Randy Moss, Josh Gordon and Allen Robinson are the only other receivers to top 1,400 yards by their age-22 season. It seems pretty unlikely that what he's done at his best was a fluke.
Plus, I'm not sure we properly appreciate just how bad the QB situation in Pittsburgh was for Fantasy last season: In the first four games after Roethlisberger's injury, they had one game where they attempted just 20 passes and another where 55% of the 31 pass attempts went to running backs, with almost no downfield attempts. Outside of those two games, Smith-Schuster had at least seven targets in each of his first seven games, before injuries of his own slowed him down. Given the circumstances, he was still being treated like the No. 1 guy in Pittsburgh.
Smith-Schuster has his quarterback back. He's healthy. And he has a historically great track record of production at a young age — even with his down 2019, only seven players in NFL history have more receiving yards before turning 24. Smith-Schuster still looks like an elite Fantasy wide receiver to me, and he's a key part of why I'm willing to take wide receivers with three of my first four picks if that's how the draft falls. He'll be back in the first-round discussion this time next year.
That's the kind of breakout you should be looking for. Someone who can be a legitimate star; someone who can single-handedly carry you for weeks at a time. Smith-Schuster has that kind of potential, and so do the rest of the Fantasy Football Today team's breakout picks, which you can find below. And, if you want more on the wide receiver position, check out Part One of our wide receiver preview podcast, and subscribe to Fantasy Football Today for all the help you need during draft season:
Jamey Eisenberg's WR Breakouts
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The last time we saw Brown play, he put on a show in the divisional-round playoff loss to the Titans. Brown had seven catches for 126 yards on 11 targets, and he gave us a glimpse of how good he can be if he was heavily targeted on a consistent basis. Now, as we know, the Ravens don't want any of their receivers getting double digits in targets on a consistent basis because that doesn't fit their offense. Baltimore was chasing points against Tennessee, and Lamar Jackson was forced to throw, which helped Brown. But hopefully he'll be fully healthy this year after playing through a foot injury in 2019. And keep in mind in the first five games of 2019, before missing two games with injury, Brown averaged 13.8 PPR points per game on 7.8 targets per outing. He should continue to improve in his second season, and he's got the potential to become a starting Fantasy receiver in all leagues. I'm excited to draft Brown as early as Round 5 in all leagues.
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Fuller might be one of my favorite players to target this year. His ADP is currently in Round 9, but I could see him climbing to as high as Round 6, and I'm fine with that because he has the potential to be a league winner this season and finish as a top 20 Fantasy receiver in all leagues. With DeAndre Hopkins gone, the Texans have 150 targets to replace, and Deshaun Watson needs a new No. 1 receiver. Brandin Cooks will take on a bunch of those targets, and he could prove to be better than Fuller. But Fuller already has an established rapport with Watson. And you've seen his ceiling in this offense when he scored 53 PPR points last year against Atlanta. He's obviously an injury risk after missing 14 games over the past two seasons and never playing 16 games in a year in his career. But he's also in a contract year, and I expect Fuller to get paid after a big performance in 2020.
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Dave Richard's WR Breakouts
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Only Slayton has the field-stretching speed to make splash plays for the Giants. And he flashed it as a rookie, gaining 740 yards and eight (!) touchdowns in just 14 games. That seems predictive of a talented player. Here's something predictive of his new play caller: Jason Garrett had a downfield wide receiver land 1,000 yards in 5 of 6 seasons when he called plays in Dallas, and also had a receiver (sometimes the same guy) catch at least eight scores in 5 of 6 seasons. Slayton looks most like the receiver on the Giants to hit one or both of those marks, and he should see plenty of targets in an offense that figures to at the very least play in a bunch of high-scoring games or at least play from behind most weeks.
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For the second year in a row, Miller shapes up as a breakout player with 1,000-yard, seven-score upside. Offensively, the Bears prefer to throw a little more than run. Miller has the slot role locked up in Chi-town and was equally efficient in terms of catch rate and yards per target year over year. With a larger dose of targets, be it from Mitch Trubisky or Nick Foles, Miller should contend for career-best numbers across the board. He's a gift in Round 9 or later.
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Heath Cummings's WR Breakouts
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The Falcons figure to be one of the best bets in the NFL to throw at least 600 passes in 2020, and lucky for Calvin Ridley they also look like one of the most consolidated attacks. Julio Jones, Ridley and Hayden Hurst should dominate targets, and Ridley stands to take a big leap — something we got a glimpse of after the team dealt Mohamed Sanu last season. Ridley averaged 8.2 targets and 82.2 receiving yards in five and a half games without Sanu. There's legitimate top-10 upside even if Hurst sees 100 targets and Jones plays 16 games.
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Terry McLaurin showed us he could be a star even without adequate quarterback play last year. In the first four games he had 408 receiving yards and five touchdowns. After a midseason slump he finished strong with Dwayne Haskins, and the expectation should be that Haskins improves in his second year. Washington didn't add anyone who should impact McLaurin's target share, and his new offensive coordinator was a part of the second-most pass happy attack in the league in 2019. There's top-12 upside here, and you don't even have to squint to see it.
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Ben Gretch's WR Breakouts
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You cannot regress A.J. Brown's efficiency and not regress the Titans offense as a whole. From Week 10 on, the only games Brown played at least 70% of the snaps last season, Brown carried a ridiculous 14.5 yards per target. Brown was the Titans' clear No. 1 receiver during that stretch, and easily the biggest reason for their would-be-record 7.3 yards per play — I know this sounds wrong, but Derrick Henry's equally ridiculous 6.5 yards per carry during that stretch actually pulled down their per-play average. Everyone wants to talk about A.J. Brown's efficiency, and I do expect him to be less efficient this season. But as a full-time player during that stretch, Brown was the WR6 in PPR points per game, and he'll be a full-time player from Week 1 in 2020 in an offense almost certain to throw more than the 448 they totaled last year. Don't let team concerns keep you away from a potential superstar in the making.
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Fuller reminds me a great deal of Keenan Allen through the same point in his career. They aren't similar players stylistically, but were strong producers in college who struggled to stay healthy through their first four years, specifically missing more time in their third and fourth years than their first two. We expect young players to get better over time, but Fuller has played just 18 games over the past two seasons, and while his efficiency has indeed improved, his largest pro sample is still from his rookie season. In other words, injuries may have robbed us of potential breakout seasons already. But now he's cheap in drafts, presumably in his physical prime, and easily the Texans receiver with the most experience in the offense and with Deshaun Watson. The track record back to college has always suggested good things, and I expect a 2020 explosion without DeAndre Hopkins on the roster, assuming Fuller can finally stay healthy.
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So which Fantasy football busts should you completely avoid? And which running back going off the board early should you fade? Visit SportsLine now to get cheat sheets from the model that called Baker Mayfield's disappointing season, and find out.
