With dust accumulating, nfl free agentA number of big fantasy wide receivers are expected to join new teams in 2024. Matt Harmon talks early on what he expects from each team this season.
The Titans have moved aggressively to sign Calvin Ridley, smashing previously envisioned contract numbers to take the veteran receiver away from Jacksonville. People were surprised by the annual and guaranteed amount, but it's understandable why the Titans targeted this player.
The Titans were as light as you can see on the wide receiver depth chart. Outside of DeAndre Hopkins, who has been a stalwart on the back nine of his career, they didn't have a single player they relied on. Segregation was a serious concern for the group as a whole. A receiver corps like that is no way to see how young quarterback Will Revis will develop. Especially if this coaching staff wants to remotely operate something similar to isolated routes from Cincinnati's passing game.
Ridley was obviously a little rusty last season, but he still proved to be a great route runner. The Titans now have a tried-and-tested separator in place, so it stands to reason that they could get more out of Ridley than Jacksonville from a deployment standpoint.
Ridley also just said, “Run the whole route.''
It sounded like JAX was restricting it by only allowing it to travel on certain routes. He said he is a route runner and creative.
“Run the field. Even across the field, I'm a 4.1 guy. Run all the routes.”
Okay, he got me fired up, haha.
— TicTacTitans (@TicTacTitans) March 15, 2024
Putting Hopkins in the X-receiver position allows Ridley to move off the ball. This allows you to run more diverse root trees. That's a good fit for his skills at this stage of his career.
Early Fantasy Perspectives: I like his fit with the Titans as a player and a team, but it would be hard to rank Ridley too high in my fantasy rankings. He will share the field with another production wideout in DeAndre Hopkins, but it remains to be seen exactly where Levi's ceiling is. Ridley isn't a player I can completely avoid, but he will probably fall outside of my top 35 receivers. He has some young players like Jaden Reed and Zay Flowers that he wants to take a chance on.
We all know the Chiefs need help at wide receiver, and they were able to land Marquise Brown on a hefty deal (one year, up to $11 million). Brown is not a perfect player, but he is a strong route runner against zone coverage and provides speed.
I disagree with the common view that he is the successor to Marquez Valdes-Scantling. His trees never line up in the same place or come with the same root. Despite his speed, Brown isn't as much of a threat as deep and is more of a volume sponge on in-break routes.
Brown can get open in the middle area, something no Chiefs player could do consistently last season. His addition won't prevent the Chiefs from adding a wideout early in the draft, but it will remove the urgency to make sure the play is an impact option on Day One.
Early Fantasy Perspectives: The fantasy community has been too aggressive with the Chiefs' wide receivers almost every season since Tyreek Hill was traded. Despite the high demand for pass-catchers, there is a bit of a deadlock between Brown, Kelce and Rice in acquiring targets at the top of the pecking order. Brown certainly digs Rice's targeting upside, as he is an overall underrated target acquirer. However, his weekly production is bound to fluctuate. I feel like he has the best chance of becoming a WR4 in my ranks with a lot of upside and a low weekly floor.
Keenan Allen and the Chargers were unable to agree on a pay cut, so the franchise legend was quickly traded to a team willing to carry his high cap number. The Bears would slide Allen as a slot receiver, giving Caleb Williams one of the best and most established wide receiver duos a rookie quarterback has played with in recent memory.
I love how DJ Moore and Allen's skills complement each other at this point in their respective careers. Allen is one of the best technicians in the league and still thrives on short and intermediate routes. He's incredibly quarterback-friendly with great hands and ideal timing as a route runner. But he wasn't separated on the field anymore, and the Chargers' offense stalled without a vertical X receiver to run alongside him. The Bears have just that player in Moore.
Early Fantasy Perspectives: There is almost a 0% chance that Keenan Allen will come close to the 11.5 targets per game he recorded with the Chargers last season. DJ Moore is a strong option as the No. 1 outside receiver, and Chicago will likely be more conservative in terms of run/pass ratio with their rookie quarterback than Los Angeles, led by Justin Herbert. That doesn't mean Allen can't catch 80-plus passes and be a useful player in fantasy football. Unless Caleb Williams becomes a superstar soon, he's just a back-end WR2 considering the change in environment.
The Panthers had limited resources to acquire a difference-maker at wide receiver this offseason, and acquiring Diontae Johnson was a smart and inexpensive way to do so. Johnson is a mistake-prone player who seemed to lose his popularity in Pittsburgh, but there is no doubt that he has the ability to be a top-level receiver.
It's hard to find a man who breaks up like him. Just ask the 2022 Carolina Panthers, who didn't make the hire. single external receiver Someone who can open it regularly.
Johnson will be a huge factor in Bryce Young's development. This was a huge win for the Carolina Panthers, even if his time in Pittsburgh is over. Dave Canales did a great job designing wideout route concepts and variable trees in Tampa Bay last year. This should help address some of the inefficiencies of Johnson's previous target-by-target metrics. His addition doesn't preclude the team from seeking more outside receiver help in the draft.
Early Fantasy Perspectives: It will be interesting to see where Johnson ranks on draft boards. He is in a position where he can suck in a lot of air, and his separation skills have made him a target. Still, it's clear there are concerns about the quarterback and the ecosystem. He is not immune to such problems. If he hangs around beyond the seventh round, he'll be interested.
Jeudy is a volatile player, but he has yet to live up to his promise since entering the league. He's not the route runner many expect him to be, but he can outrun man coverage, especially on entry routes. That makes him an intriguing fit for a Browns offense that likes to take big shots from play-action.
mentioned in his #reception perception I mentioned in my profile that one area where I think Jeudy would be a good fit for the Browns is in vertical play-action on critical downs against man coverage. This also supports that idea. https://t.co/E3Xg6Jzpj9
— Matt Harmon (@MattHarmon_BYB) March 20, 2024
These looks could help cover up some of the instability of Jeudy's work against zone coverage and bring out the strengths of his game. The Browns took quite a risk by giving him a sizable contract extension before seeing him work with the team. However, the team needed more wide receiver depth as they wanted to spread the field with an offense centered around Deshaun Watson.
Early Fantasy Perspectives: My general rule of thumb is that in offenses where quarterback play is ambiguous, you want to avoid pass catchers with dense target trees. The Browns have Amari Cooper, David Njoku, Elijah Moore and Jeudy lurking. It's unlikely he'll move beyond No. 3 in that rotation. That's a tough sell when there's been no concrete evidence since arriving in Cleveland that Watson can anymore be a consistent quality starting quarterback. Jeudy will serve as an unstable bench receiver.
I have been a Curtis Samuel truth teller for quite some time. So you could say I was a little excited about this landing spot.
Samuel is a woefully underrated player. He can outrun man coverage, has blazing speed, and offers flexibility at the inside position. He can provide the same deep game turnaround that the Bills had with Gabe Davis, but with much more separation chops in the middle area. I expect Samuel to contribute at both flanker and slot, and he will likely replace Khalil Shakir. We should also expect him to serve as the primary motion man and rusher in Joe Brady's offense. The two played in that role during the 2020 season in Carolina.
Early Fantasy Perspectives: There's a good chance we'll put Samuel in the “better real world addition than someone who moves the fantasy needle” category. But given his skill set to achieve the goals he presents and his closeness with the coaching staff, he may be much more involved than most realize. Once his ADP settles into double-digit rounds, I'll almost always draft him. However, Buffalo can and should target long-term X receiver prospects early in the draft, so we can't get too carried away.
The Jets made a smart bet by acquiring Mike Williams on a one-year deal with plenty of incentives. The depth chart beyond Garrett Wilson was very problematic. Even the smaller versions of Williams give them a dimension they wouldn't have gotten anywhere else.
His biggest impact may be that he gives the Jets something to do with young players. He will make safeties think twice about stacking the box against Brees Hall, as he has proven to be a vertical threat. He should take most of the snaps off at the X receiver, allowing Wilson to move around the formation and run vertical routes from the slot.
Early Fantasy Perspectives: That being said, I don't expect Williams to be a high-volume player in New York. The Jets should be a run-heavy team, throwing to Garrett Wilson on nearly a third of their pass plays. Williams should have a strong connection with Aaron Rodgers in shot play, so he's good at best ball dart throws. His presence is more exciting for what he offers the younger players on the roster than his own fantasy impact.
The Jaguars' free agency plans for wide receiver never fully materialized as he was followed by Calvin Ridley at Tennessee. Well, they basically just downgraded at the X receiver spot by trading Ridley and Gabe Davis. The former Bills receiver has shown over the past two seasons that he works best in a low-volume lid-lifting role.
If Jacksonville doesn't add another receiver at the top of the draft — which certainly feels like a lock — they're in danger of asking too much from Davis. He could be part of a quality core and should clean up the underfield for players like Christian Kirk and Evan Engram. The Jaguars can't do it at this position.
Early Fantasy Perspectives: The best place for Gabe Davis to reach the limits of his productivity is in a vertical attack with an aggressive quarterback willing to test tight windows and able to connect with him on broken plays. is. It's very similar to the situation he just left. Maybe Trevor Lawrence could be a co-owner version of Josh Allen, but we're not there yet. Davis probably won't be in my top 50 receivers.
The Falcons needed to strengthen their depth chart at wide receiver behind rising star Drake Rondon. Mooney earned a higher salary than most observers expected, but he was a perfect fit for an offense that needed an injection of speed. As an off-ball flanker and vertical slot player, he is the prime candidate to tackle the full-speed pre-snap motion play that Zach Robinson brings to the Rams' offense.
Mooney is a solid player, but ideally would be a No. 3 receiver. The Falcons also traded Rondale Moore, a pure gadget and created touch player. Atlanta still needs another true outside receiver to complete this group. Kyle Pitts and Rondon are the targets for this team, but there should be another addition in the draft.
Early Fantasy Perspectives: Mooney likely won't be selected in a traditional draft format. However, he could end up on the waiver list after playing a bigger role than expected early in the season.
