2023 Fantasy Football – WR Leaders, Recap, and Data

The 2023 NFL season is officially behind us and the Kansas City Chiefs have been recrowned as Super Bowl Champions. Patrick Mahomes has been named Super Bowl MVP and is already being talked about as one of the greatest NFL quarterbacks of all time. Before becoming fully immersed in the upcoming 2024 season, let’s take a moment to reflect on the fantasy season that was. As Winston Churchill said, “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.” 

This is the wide receiver portion of the series. You can check out the quarterback review here. Additionally, be sure to keep an eye out for the running back and tight end reviews coming soon! 

Before diving in, a word of caution. With any attempt to look back, we will be met with hindsight bias. Once we know Puka Nacua had a phenomenal season, it is difficult not to look back and see the clues while what you were seeing in the moment gets ever more foggy. Sprinkle in a little confirmation bias – “I knew it! See, here are all the ‘definitive’ clues I’m finding now that I’m looking back.” I will attempt to expose my own biases through this exploration and highly encourage anyone reading to think through their biases as well. 

Fantasy Football Top-15 Wide Receivers (2023)

Yes, I know people love their standard 12-team leagues and want an easy QB1 label. However, that’s rarely the case and I enjoy the additional context of total fantasy points in conjunction with mean and median values. More on the QB1 and other labels in the Data Notes section at the end. For now, enjoy the top 15 players with at least 8 games (50% of the season played)!

Overperformers

This section is dedicated to the guys who outproduced their ADP most significantly. 

CeeDee Lamb & Tyreek Hill – It’s hard to be “overperformers” when you’re drafted in the first round but Lamb and Hill put in work during the 2024 season. They finished in first or second place in almost all fantasy scoring metrics (Total points, mean points per game, weekly top-6 WR finishes to name a few). A healthy Justin Jefferson should still be the 1.01 in redraft leagues but arguments can be made for Lamb or Hill. 

Micheal Pittman Jr. – For the low cost of a sixth-round pick, you could have had one of the most consistent wideouts of the fantasy regular season. Pittman had the 8th best floor (25th percentile score is what is used for “floor” since 75% of his games would be over that mark) at 11.4 PPR. Before his concussion during Week 15, he had only a single game with less than 10 PPR. Despite a good but not stellar ceiling (75th percentile score – 19.6 PPR), he still had five games at or above the WR12 threshold. And this was with Gardner Minshew slinging the rock for most of the season. 

Mike Evans – Another sixth-round pick, Evans proved once again that he can be a very consistent pass catcher. He eclipsed 1000 yards receiving for the tenth straight year (every year he has been in the league!) and posted more than 10 touchdowns for the fifth season. Evans tied for the third most weeks as the WR6 or better with five. Baker Mayfield took a huge step forward this season and it will be worth monitoring whether Mayfield and Evans’ chemistry can continue into 2025.

Tank Dell – Rookies were all the rage in fantasy for 2024, leading off with Tank Dell. The 165lbs receiver had his season cut short after breaking his fibula on a head-scratcher of a play that included the slender WR lead blocking at the goal line. In his ten games before Week 13’s injury, Dell posted six games above the WR18 threshold including one week leading all wideouts. A return to health and a full season with fellow rookie phenom CJ Stroud could lead to fireworks galore in Houston.  

Rashee Rice – Of all the great rookies of 2024, only one can add Super Bowl Champion to their resume. It took until Week 7 before Rice would see significant snaps. For the next ten games, Rice had five games over the WR18 threshold. The best part was being able to pair Rice with Pat Mahomes for a pick near the very end of typical redraft leagues. 

Puka Nacua – Saving the best rookie for last, Nacua jumped on the scene with a historic first game and kept the hits coming throughout the season. If you’re not familiar with Nacua, you haven’t been paying attention! Essentially free in drafts or off the waiver wire, before Week 1, Nacua would go on to tie for the sixth most (7 games) and sixth best rate (41%)  of WR12 finishes. Through the fantasy season (Weeks 1 – 17) he wouldn’t go less than 7 targets ever! The only thing frightening about Nacua in 2024 will be the sticker shock of his new ADP.  

Underperformers 

Typically labeled “busts”, these are the players that underproduced their ADP. 

Garrett Wilson – Yes, Wilson is a very good football player and I’m sure especially dynasty players will be upset with his name here. However, he was drafted as the 10th WR off the board in 2023 redrafts and finished 16 spots below that. He only finished one week with a score above the WR12 threshold. His saving grace was that over half of his games crossed the WR24 threshold. A healthy Aaron Rodgers could allow Wilson to live up to his second-round ADP but there is almost no hope for Zach Wilson, or any other of the rag-tag bunch of QBs the Jets trotted out through the 2023 season, to get a return on Garrett Wilson’s ADP. 

Jayleen Waddle – Waddle is another very good football player who just didn’t live up to fantasy expectations in 2023. Waddle cost drafters a second-round pick as the 11th WR off of draft boards but he finished just inside of WR36.  Over half of his games were outside of the WR24 range. If not for the steep price, Waddle would have been a decent play with three WR1 finishes. Next year a more reasonable APD could make Waddle a value.

Ja’Marr Chase – Impacted by the nagging injury and eventual placement on IR of QB Joe Burrow, Chase failed to return on the top pick needed to secure him.  Despite his 52.2 season-leading output in Week 4, Chase failed to finish above the WR36 threshold in 45% of games. His 5-point difference in Median and Mean points per game (second of all WRs) implies that his mean was overly influenced by Week 4 compared to his ‘typical’ output. 

Jameson Williams – A personal victory lap after the hate received for my take on Williams last offseason. Injury and suspension kept Williams sidelined until Week 5. For the next 12 games, he did not have a single game above the WR24 threshold. Luckily for most drafters, Williams only cost a late-round pick. 

2023 Wide Receiver Injuries for Fantasy Football

I set this category aside because I feel it’s unfair to label a guy that got injured a “bust”.

Cooper Kupp – When Kupp returned to the starting lineup after missing the first four games of the season, he popped two big games both above the WR12 threshold. Unfortunately for those who waited, his next five games were all less than 7 PPR points and saw him frequently on the injury report for an ankle issue for much of the remainder of the season. 

Tee Higgins – Higgins struggled to stay healthy, much like his quarterback, throughout the 2023 season. Not only did he miss four games, he also had seven of his 12 games with less than 10 PPR points. If you drafted Higgins in the third round (ADP 29), he failed to return even close to that value. You still saw his ceiling with his 75-percentile score just shy of 20 PPR points but his busts far outweighed his booms. Getting healthy and possibly a new team in 2024 will add a lot of excitement throughout the summer. 

Christian Watson – Watson’s season was bookended by hamstring injuries failing to suit up for the first three games or final five games. He also wasn’t stellar in his remaining games; only two of the nine were above 20 PPR points. With the rise of Jordan Love, it will be interesting to see how the Packers’ wide receiver room shakes out. Watson has the talent but needs healthy hamstrings to make an impact. 

Mike Williams – For those expecting a big season from the big man in Los Angeles, you’ll have to wait for another year. Williams cost drafters a fifth-round pick and returned only three games before tearing his ACL and ending his season. It looked like Williams and his QB Justin Herbert were building their chemistry with a 25-point game for Williams before the injury struck. Williams will remain a risky play in 2024. He should be healthy but the Chargers’ offense will need to improve for Williams to get consistent scoring. 

Justin Jefferson – Jefferson was off to the hot start you expected as the debated top pick overall in 2023 redraft leagues. He posted four straight 20+ point games before going down in Week 5. By the time he returned in Week 14, he was impacted by the quarterback carousel left in the wake of Kirk Cousins’ injury. Despite some shoddy quarterback play he still finished the last five games of the season with 93.1 points. JJetta will once again be at the top of draft boards in 2024. 

2024 Fantasy Football Outlook

Following Churchill’s lead, we will use this look back to help us see into the future. The 2024 season won’t start for a while, many things will change from this writing to your drafts. However, here are a few players to keep an eye on through these long football-less days.

Cooper Kupp – It might be hyperbole or it might be the beginning of the end of Kupp’s dominance as a fantasy WR. He will be 31 years old this summer entering the historical age of decline for receivers. Combine his age with a laundry list of lower body injuries over his career and the emergence of Puka Nacua, it’ll be tough to draft Kupp in the first few rounds of redraft leagues for 2024. 

Puka Nacua – There might not be another player even worth mentioning for 2024. Nacua will fly up draft boards and will most likely cost a second-round or third-round pick. If his rise continues and Kupp goes in the other direction Nacua could still be a value at that price. 

DJ Moore – For all of the debates that took place last off-season, it’s surprising to see so little attention paid to DJ Moore’s 2023 performance. Last year was easily Moore’s best in his six seasons. He finished in the top-15 in two of the three categories above and did so with one of the lowest percent of offense (12.32) of the other top-15 wideouts. This raises the question of whether he can post these types of numbers again if his usage remains or can his usage improve and his output be even greater. Unfortunately, the biggest question that will be answered this off-season will be who’ll throw the ball to Moore? 

In general wide receivers were one of the most valuable assets on fantasy teams in 2023. The top 20 wide outs combined to score 598 points more than the top 20 running backs. The pass catchers should once again thrive in 2024 but it looks like you won’t need to rush to get them as there were more than double the number of 200-point scorers as WRs than as RBs. If drafting a Superflex dynasty startup, you could leverage the wide-open QB field and hammer young stud WRs and still round out a very competitive team in the present and the future. 

2023 Fantasy Football Data and Stats

The data is compiled from various free and openly available sources and then used to calculate further data points. For instance, widely available general player stats are compiled and then used to calculate a player’s average or median points per game. For any questions concerning the underlying data, please reach out to me on X @fftheathomedad. 

When I use terms like QB12 or QB24 thresholds, I am referring to the average points of that particular player across the 2023 season. Using who was the twelfth-highest-scoring QB in any particular week creates a misrepresentation of what the score at that level typically is. For example, CJ Stroud scored 14.16 points in both Weeks 5 and 6, in Week 6 he was the QB12 however in Week 5 he was the QB17 more than 4 points less than the QB12 on the week.

The thresholds used along with the median and range of values are below for reference. 

2024 NFL Draft Quick Links

• Senior Bowl Standout Players
• 2024 NFL Draft Eligible Prospects Returning to School
• 2024 NFL Draft Tracker: Underclassman Who Have Declared

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