Top 5 Best Wide Receivers to Draft in 2024 Fantasy Football

These are the five best wide receivers you need to be drafting in fantasy football for 2024.

Seattle Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf (14) pulls in a touchdown past Tennessee Titans cornerback Tre Avery (23) during the fourth quarter at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, Dec. 24, 2023. / Andrew Nelles / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK

By now, you have poured through all the rankings and checked all of the sleeper lists in the SI Fantasy draft kit. 

There are plenty of wide receivers that will be great for your fantasy team, but who are the absolute best?  Obviously, Tyreek Hill and Amon-Ra St. Brown will be near top your list, but you probably can't get Amon-Ra and Tyreek on the same team in a snake draft.

So, who are the best receivers you could assemble on the same team? If you play your cards right, you could get four of these five receivers on the same squad, and that prospect is tantalizing!

Here are the five best receivers to draft in fantasy football this year. Read till the end for five honorable mentions in case you miss one of these five featured players, too. 

Best Overall: CeeDee Lamb, Dallas Cowboys

No, I'm not worried he will pull a hammy the first week of practice. Why? Lamb has missed only one game across four NFL seasons.

The 34-million dollar Lamb should continue to be the focal point of this offense. Cee Dee Lamb led the league in targets in 2023, accumulating a whopping 181 and playing a full 17 games. He finished as the WR1 in the PPR leagues and has the chance to repeat in 2024 with no real competition for targets in Dallas.

In addition to leading the NFL in catches and targets, Lamb also tied for third among wideouts with 14 carries. Those carries went for 114 yards and two touchdowns. Lamb finished with 14 total touchdowns on the season.

Dak Prescott passed for a league-leading 36 touchdowns last season. With a limited run game in Dallas (no, Dalvin Cook doesn't move the needle that much), we should expect this passing offense to remain explosive. Don't let the idea that Lamb will be double-teamed scare you off unless you also faded Davante Adams with Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes with Tyreek Hill. Lamb is in that elite company. In 2023, Lamb was targeted on a career-high 28.3 percent of his routes and caught nearly 75% of those targets even though defenses knew what was coming.

Best Value Pick: DK Metcalf, Seattle Seahawks

Metcalf has fallen too far in drafts, and that's because it's hard for fantasy managers to get the idea of a Pete Carroll offense off their minds. But this Seahawks offense should look entirely different under new OC Ryan Grubb. This team will push the ball downfield in what should be an Air Raid offense. Expect to see plenty of three and four-wide-receiver sets, and Metcalf will be the alpha.

If you missed this highlight reel in the final preseason game vs. the Browns, enjoy Geno Smith connecting with Metcalf for a 21-yard touchdown. 

DK Metcalf touchdown 🏈
pic.twitter.com/NkflyvTk7p

— NFL on ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsNFL) August 25, 2024

DK Metcalf is tied for the most red zone targets since 2022 (54) but has suffered a 3.98 expected touchdown shortfall, the seventh-biggest at his position.

He's a significant threat to return to 10 scores in 2024. DK Metcalf needs 900 receiving yards and five touchdowns to join Randy Moss as the only players in NFL history to do so in each of their first six seasons. 

Metcalf is going on the 3/ 4 round turn, but he could easily finish the season with first-round value. Last year, Metcalf finished with 1,114 receiving yards and eight touchdowns while commanding 38% of the team's air yards and 22% of the targets.

Best Sleeper Pick: Curtis Samuel, Buffalo Bills

We were worried about Samuel's toe for a while, but the newest reports say he should be ready to start Week 1. 

There are 240 targets up for grabs in Buffalo after the Bills lost both Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis in the off-season. Khalil Shakir remains, and Dalton Kincaid should soak up quite a few targets. Rookie Keon Coleman should get a few targets, too, but he has not been especially impressive in preseason (though I understand Macy's may want him to do their commercials). Samuel could quickly end up being the most reliable of the bunch for fantasy. 

Samuel is a versatile player who can be used for his mobility in certain packages—rather like the "other" Samuel in San Francisco. Curtis Samuel was successful in the Joe Brady offense previously in Carolina. In their last season together for the Panthers, Samuel saw 97 targets for 851 yards while also adding another 200 yards on the ground and tallying five touchdowns.

Now Samuel will get the benefit of playing with the best quarterback of his career, Josh Allen. 

Best Late-Round Deep Sleeper: Greg Dortch, Arizona Cardinals

WR Greg Dortch 

Dortch, the "human torch," has been turning heads in the preseason, and with Zay Jones sidelined for at least the first five games of the season, Dortch should be the full-time slot receiver to start the year. Dortch has always been effective when deployed. When the Cardinals chose to play him across the last two seasons, he saw seven or more targets in eight games and had double-digit targets four times. Head coach Jonathan Gannon has expressed optimism about Dortch this season saying, "He's going to have a big year, guys" to Darren Urban on the Cardinal's official team site. If you're high on Kyler Murray this season (I am), Dortch is one of the best late values in the draft. 

Best Breakout Pick: Garrett Wilson, New York Jets

Yes, I am buying into Wilson's breakout. You can read the complete reasons here, but here is the summary:

Wilson will finally be getting the best QB play of his career. Yes, Aaron Rodgers may be older, but he's still an MVP. Last season, Wilson logged 1,042 receiving yards despite poor quarterback play. Wilson saw the fourth-most targets in the NFL in the Jets Nathaniel Hackett offense (168). However, only 103 of those were deemed "catchable." To show you how much these numbers matter, Cee Dee Lamb saw 181, while 143 were considered "catchable." The Jets ranked 30th in adjusted completion rate and 27th in catchable target rate in 2023.

Despite only three receiving touchdowns and 1,042 receiving yards due to poor quarterback play, Garrett Wilson also owned the largest share of air yards for a team in the NFL (45.63%). 

Aaron Rodgers has often peppered his number one receiver with 10+ targets per game, and he has a career 6.2% touchdown rate. That's higher than Patrick Mahomes (6.1%), Dak Prescott (5.2%), and Tom Brady (5.4%). Wilson has the potential to finish Top 3 at the position.

Wilson caught only three touchdown passes in 2023, and that is bound to improve. Betting markets back that sentiment, as DraftKings has his touchdown prop set at 7.5 with the over juiced to -130. 

If you don't have an early first-round pick, Wilson is the upside add at the end of the first round. 

Honorable mention value wideouts: Terry McLaurin, George Pickens, Christian Kirk, Michael Wilson, and DJ Chark.