One way to gain an edge over your fantasy football leaguemates? Draft players ahead of their breakout seasons! Here, the team at Yahoo Fantasy highlights five of their favorite WR breakout candidates to consider in drafts.
Drake London, Atlanta Falcons
At this point, when I write about Drake London, I feel like a proud mom talking up my son’s role as Tree Number 5 in the school play because the first two years of London’s career have been underwhelming and unproductive. London’s early career has been hampered by poor quarterback play from Marcus Mariota, Desmond Ridder and Taylor Heinicke and the result has been less than 1,000 receiving yards each season with a total of six touchdowns.
However, with the addition of Kirk Cousins, London has true breakout potential. The Falcons have one of the easiest strengths of schedules this year, and while his Round 3 ADP is aggressive given the lack of previous production, London is the clear WR1 and will lead the team in targets. If he can be Cousins’ go-to option in the red zone, the upside is legitimately top-five. — Tera Roberts
Zay Flowers, Baltimore Ravens
Zay Flowers is coming off a 77-catch rookie season in which he only showcased a sliver of his game. He was a serious vertical threat at the college level, but functioned mostly as a short-range target last year (8.8 ADOT).
Flowers has been a buzzy player throughout training camp, for what it’s worth, and there’s reason to believe his portfolio of responsibilities will expand in his second season. Let’s feed him two or three of these targets each week and just see what happens. Flowers is pretty clearly in line for 120-plus targets in the year ahead and he’s tied to a two-time league MVP. His situation is excellent and his talent is obvious. — Andy Behrens
Rashee Rice, Kansas City Chiefs
I know what you’re thinking, he already broke out. But I want you to realize that Rice has a level to climb with his 2024 return. It took a while for Kansas City to truly trust the rookie last year, but look what he did in the last 10 games, including the playoffs: 69 catches, 822 yards, four touchdowns. Good lord, that’s the Sun God’s music.
It also seems like Rice’s suspension risk is essentially nil for 2024, either he won’t get suspended or the Chiefs can kick the can down the road. Please draft this guy this year. His current ADP is a screaming value. — Scott Pianowski
Xavier Worthy, Kansas City Chiefs
It’s hard to ignore Worthy in Round 8 of fantasy football drafts this season. Patrick Mahomes is coming off his worst season as a downfield passer; he didn’t have the personnel to win downfield, and it showed as he posted the lowest air yards per attempt of his career. However, the Chiefs addressed this issue in the offseason by signing Marquise Brown and trading up in Round 1 to draft Worthy. The news out of camp is that these fellas are winning downfield often.
We saw Worthy produce all three years in college with an elite ability to earn targets. I get a bit giddy thinking about how Andy Reid and Mahomes will use him. Will we once again see those long-developing routes like Tyreek Hill had? Kansas City has the offensive line to do it, they’ll give Mahomes time on those developing concepts.
I’m all in on Worthy in this offense as not only a breakout candidate but potential league winner. — Sal Vetri
Tank Dell, Houston Texans
Tank Dell is coming off a highly impressive rookie season cut short by injuries. He had a slightly higher target share (22.6%) compared to Nico Collins (22.1), but a big advantage in air yards share (36.0% vs. 25.4%) during the seven games in which they both played at least 50% of the snaps. Dell is a legit route runner who averaged 10.8 targets, 6.3 catches and 92.3 receiving yards with five touchdowns over his final four games as a rookie. He was WR5 over eight games when given a full route participation.
Meanwhile, newcomer Stefon Diggs showed real signs of decline last season, and he’ll be entering a new offense in Year 10. Khalil Shakir had more receiving yards than Diggs over Buffalo’s final 10 games despite seeing fewer than half the number of targets.
C.J. Stroud is the real deal (and his rookie numbers would’ve looked even more impressive if not for suffering multiple concussions), and there’s no chance the Texans finish 19th in pass rate over expectation again as they did in 2023. Dell should be fully recovered from last season’s injury, which didn’t require TightRope surgery like Tony Pollard did.
Dell looks poised to break out fully in 2024. — Dalton Del Don
