Time is a flat circle. Season after season, we’ve seen certain players shockingly produce record-setting numbers in career years while others surprisingly disappoint due to one reason or another. The NFL is chaotic, and consequently, so is fantasy football.
Below, I’ve listed three wide receivers with historical comps to a counterpart from a previous season for each player. To be clear, these are not exact historical comps based on projected 2024 stats but rather general excitement or concerns based on similar offseason trends by those players or their respective teams.
2024 Fantasy Football: Wide Receiver Sleepers and Busts with Historical Comps
2024 Malik Nabers → 2021 Ja’Marr Chase
Ja’Marr Chase logged 1,780 receiving yards and 20 touchdowns in his final college season at LSU in 2019. In 2021, the Bengals drafted Chase fifth overall as their new No. 1 wide receiver for Joe Burrow, who was coming off a torn ACL suffered in Week 11 of the prior season. In spite of some drops, Chase quickly became a “focal point” of Cincinnati’s offense in training camp, and that momentum carried into his rookie season.
Heading into the regular season, there were concerns about his ability to produce with an unproven quarterback (Burrow had only played half a season total at that point), especially with Burrow coming off an ACL tear. But it didn’t end up mattering. As a rookie, Chase led the team in targets (128), receptions (81), receiving yards (1,455), and receiving touchdowns (13). His production was enough for him to finish the 2021 season as the No. 5 wide receiver in PPR scoring as well as in PPR points per game (PPG), vastly outperforming his preseason ADP as a fantasy WR2 (WR29, 74.4 overall).
Malik Nabers logged 1,569 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns in his final college season at LSU in 2023. This past offseason, the Giants drafted Nabers at sixth overall as their new No. 1 wide receiver for Daniel Jones, who’s coming off a torn ACL suffered in Week 9 of last year. Nabers has already become the “focal point” of New York’s offense in training camp, and Brian Daboll is even giving the rookie rest days usually reserved for veteran superstars.
Heading into the regular season, there are concerns about Nabers’s ability to produce as a rookie with lackluster quarterback play, especially with Jones coming off an ACL tear. No one is arguing that Jones is remotely in the same tier of quarterback as Burrow, but the Jones hate is going a bit too far. It wasn’t that long ago that he managed to support multiple fantasy-relevant wide receivers. In Daboll’s first year as the Giants’ head coach in 2022, Darius Slayton, Richie James, and Isaiah Hodgins all had multiple weeks with WR2 fantasy finishes. James and Hodgins also each had one weekly finish as a fantasy WR1. That might not sound very impressive, but the fact that these journeyman wide receivers were able to produce with Jones under center in Daboll’s offense bodes well for Nabers.
The offense projects to revolve around Nabers, and some Giants beat writers have already speculated that the rookie could see over 150 targets this coming season. It’s even better news that New York’s offense projects to be more aggressive downfield with Daboll taking over play-calling duties in 2024. High projected target volume, with many of those targets potentially coming deep downfield, gives Nabers a high fantasy floor and ceiling. He’s arguably being drafted at his floor right now as a back-end WR2 with a current ADP of WR20, 27.0 overall on Underdog and WR24, 52.0 overall on FantasyPros. Nabers should be a high-end WR2 option in the second round of fantasy drafts and even has league-winning elite WR1 upside if things click quickly for a revamped Giants offense.
2024 Michael Pittman → 2021 Allen Robinson
In 2021, Allen Robinson was coming off back-to-back seasons of over 1,100 receiving yards and six touchdowns despite subpar quarterback play from a combination of Mitchell Trubisky and Nick Foles the year before. There was a lot of excitement for Robinson heading into 2021 with Justin Fields taking over in Chicago, who most expected to be a major upgrade from Trubisky and Foles. However, the quarterback change actually ended up being a detriment for Robinson’s production.
After Fields took over as the starter, he and Robinson played seven games together from Weeks 3 to 9 that year prior to Robinson suffering a hamstring injury. In those seven games, Robinson averaged just 3.1 receptions for 40 yards on 5.0 targets. Part of his lack of production was due to accuracy woes from the rookie quarterback, but more importantly, Fields averaged only 24.6 pass attempts per game over that span. That was down from 38.4 pass attempts per game the year prior from the Bears’ quarterbacks combined. Fields’s rushing production helped propel him to some lofty fantasy finishes, but it detracted greatly from his receiver’s fantasy production.
Michael Pittman is coming off a career year with 109 receptions for 1,152 receiving yards last season in spite of subpar quarterback play from Gardner Minshew for most of last season. The Colts gave Pittman a three-year, $70 million extension this past offseason as a result, and fantasy GMs are excited to see what Pittman can do with a healthy Anthony Richardson. However, there was a stark difference in Pittman’s splits with Richardson under center compared to his games with Minshew in 2023.
In the three games where Richardson was healthy and played the majority of the snaps, Pittman averaged 4.7 receptions for 55 yards on 7.7 targets with Richardson averaging 24.7 pass attempts. In the 12 games where Minshew played the majority of the snaps, Pittman averaged 7.3 receptions for 78 yards on 10.1 targets with Minshew averaging 33.6 pass attempts. Even with Pittman as the clear No. 1 wide receiver in Indianapolis, Richardson’s 7.3 rush attempts per game in his three mostly healthy starts negatively impacted volume and production through the air. Richardson will need to better protect himself as a runner, but head coach Shane Steichen has already indicated that he doesn’t plan to limit or discourage Richardson from rushing.
Expect fewer receptions and target volume for Pittman in 2024 assuming Richardson stays healthy, although perhaps Pittman could score more touchdowns if the Colts’ offense is more efficient overall. But even then, Richardson also projects for quite a few red-zone rushing attempts from his small three-game sample size as a rookie, so there’s no guarantee for more passing touchdowns to go around. Pittman’s current ADP of WR24, 34.4 overall on Underdog is probably about right, but he’s being drafted at his absolute ceiling as the WR15, 33.5 overall on FantasyPros. The hype for Richardson in fantasy has carried over to Pittman, but realize that a lot of the Richardson hype is due to his rushing production, which won’t benefit Pittman.
2024 Xavier Worthy → 2008 DeSean Jackson
Back in 2008, Andy Reid was entering his 11th year as the head coach in Philadelphia. He had a long-tenured quarterback in Donovan McNabb, and Reid had a reputation for putting players with speed into space in his West Coast offense to help them score. Heading into the 2008 season, McNabb was a well-regarded quarterback but had exceeded 3,400 passing yards in a season just once to that point in his career. That offseason, the Eagles drafted DeSean Jackson in the second round of the NFL Draft at 49th overall.
Jackson had been productive in college and ran a blistering 4.35 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine, but some teams were concerned about his lack of size and small frame, measuring in at only 5’9 and 170 lbs. However, Jackson was a perfect fit for Reid’s offense and luckily fell to the Eagles as the seventh wide receiver selected that year. The rest is history. That season, McNabb had a career-high 3,916 passing yards, and Jackson led the team in targets (120), receptions (62), and receiving yards (912) even as a rookie with an incredible mark of 14.7 yards per reception.
Heading into the 2024 season, Reid will be in his 12th year as the head coach in Kansas City. He has a long-tenured quarterback in Patrick Mahomes, who’s already regarded as a top-three quarterback in NFL history. Reid’s offense has been refined and even more dangerous with Mahomes under center, but even so, Mahomes had a down year by his standards last season with “only” 4,183 passing yards, his lowest total since 2019. This past offseason, the Chiefs traded up to draft Xavier Worthy in the first round of the NFL Draft at 28th overall.
Worthy was productive in college and ran a record-breaking 4.21 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine, but some teams were concerned about his lack of size and small frame, measuring in at only 5’11 and 165 lbs. However, Worthy seems to be a perfect fit for Reid’s offense, and Kansas City certainly thought so, even having traded up to select him. Yes, Hollywood Brown should play a major role, and Travis Kelce and Rashee Rice are sure to see targets as well. Worthy will have far more target competition as a rookie than Jackson did back in 2008. However, Worthy also has the best quarterback in the league who can support multiple wide receivers in fantasy.
The return of the Chiefs’ deep passing game has been an emphasis throughout the offseason training program, and Mahomes has continuously targeted Worthy downfield in training camp thus far. Yes, Worthy will struggle against press coverage at times. That would be worrisome on any other team other than the Chiefs, but Reid has a long history of knowing how to utilize smaller, speedy wide receivers and get them into space to create big plays. The historical comp for Mahomes this year in the quarterback edition of this article series was 2007 Tom Brady, and if Mahomes does have another historic season in 2024, Worthy is sure to be a big factor. The rookie is currently being drafted at his floor as the WR38, 64.1 overall on Underdog and WR42, 94.8 overall on FantasyPros. Worthy is sure to be boom or bust in fantasy from week to week, but he should be drafted as a high-end WR3 who has week-winning potential in each and every game.
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