5 non-rookie receivers ready to break out

As dynasty managers, it is tough to stay patient with a player who isn’t an immediate contributor to our fantasy squads, even though it's not realistic to expect all of our draft picks to be hits. Managing our expectations from these players is almost as important as making the picks themselves.

Sometimes we get so blinded by the constant rookie hype that we forget that some of the second and third-year players were just as good or even better prospects than the incoming rookies, even if they didn’t prove it on the field their first season or two.

Now we’re going to take a look at some receivers in their second and third years who have a chance to break out and make a bigger impact this year than they have so far for fantasy. As ESPN's Mike Clay laid out, it is important that these receivers become fantasy contributors, especially those entering their third year,

Per Clay's analysis, the odds of a player past their third year in the league ever evolving into fantasy relevance are extremely low. While there are certainly players who can break that mold, it helps us to narrow down players we should look at to contribute to our fantasy teams and which assets we should look to trade away.

We will take a deeper dive into some of the wide receivers from the 2022 and 2023 draft classes to see who has a chance of breaking out and becoming even greater assets to our fantasy teams.

Drake London, Atlanta Falcons

Probably the most obvious candidate, as he is already being valued as a top-12 dynasty wide receiver despite never posting a top-30 season in his first two years. The problem has not been London though, as he has had some of the worst quarterback play from Marcus Mariota, Desmond Ridder, and Taylor Heinicke over that time.

Despite this his advanced metrics border on elite, and the king of wide receivers Matt Harmon loves his tape and now his situation. The Falcons only threw for 17 touchdowns last season, which is why his 2 touchdowns in 2023 make a little more sense, and why there is such optimism that London can increase significantly in 2024. With Arthur Smith out of the way and new quarterback Kirk Cousins and his nearly 30 touchdowns per year in town, London is poised to make a huge leap in production that should match his new value.

Zay Flowers, Baltimore Ravens

The last time we saw Flowers likely left a bittersweet taste in your mouth — unless you’re a Chiefs fan — as he recorded 156 yards and a touchdown, but a devastating taunting penalty and costly fumble shifted the momentum of the AFC Title game. It was a tough scene, but the talent there is undeniable as he led the Ravens in targets, receptions, and yards as a rookie.

Being paired with a two-time MVP is helpful as well, and they are passing the ball more than at any other time in the Lamar Jackson era, The volume will definitely be there for Flowers with room for his touchdown numbers to increase as well. Jackson has an incredible career 5.9 touchdown percentage and we could easily see Flowers benefit from another efficient season by the quarterback, particularly with an even further increase in passing volume.

He is currently projected as the WR29, which is minimal considering he is the best receiver on one of the league’s top offenses.

George Pickens, Pittsburgh Steelers

Pickens almost literally jumps off the tape when you see him, and his body control is absolutely elite. Unfortunately, he has been paired with Kenny Pickett for the first two years of his career but still was able to post 1140 yards and 5 touchdowns last year. Pickens is going to be saddled again with questionable quarterback play with this iteration of Russell Wilson, but he still should be able to produce better numbers than the two previous years.

In Denver, Wilson was able to help Courtland Sutton produce nine straight games with either 60 or more receiving yards or a touchdown. Now in Pittsburgh, we should see similar results with Pickens, who is arguably a better receiver than Sutton. The Steelers certainly want to be contenders in the toughest division in football and will need to throw the ball to be competitive, so they will have to improve on the 13 passing touchdowns they had in 2023 and Pickens is just the guy to lead the charge now that Diontae Johnson and his 8.3 targets per game landed in Carolina.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Seattle Seahawks

JSN was the next big thing out of Ohio State before Marvin Harrison Jr. made him seem obsolete. He was a consensus top-15 wide receiver coming out of college and was typically one of the top 3 players drafted in the rookie draft last year. In fact, while they were both in Columbus it was Smith-Njigba who led the Buckeyes in receiving yards over Harrison Jr. Now Smith-Njigba is ranked as a top-30 wide receiver, almost completely forgotten after a rookie year where he started injured and only caught 63 passes for 638 yards and four touchdowns.

We should expect that to pick up for a few reasons. Not only should Smith-Njigba be healthier entering 2024, but the Seahawks should also throw more now than before. Seattle will debut new offensive coordinator Ben Grubb in 2024, who was the architect of the Washington Huskies offense that ended the year with 36 points per game and over 340 passing yards per game in 2023.

We have to hope that Smith-Njigba will be used differently under Grubb than he was last year, as he was 42nd out of 43 receivers with 90+ targets with an average depth of target of just 6.1. After seeing what he did at Ohio State we know he can play all over the field and do more than just catch screen passes. His stock is likely as low as it will be this early in his career and he is likely to outperform it as soon as they hit the field in 2024.

Jameson Williams, Detroit Lions

With the rise in popularity of the two-deep zone we’ve seen from defenses over the last two years, players like Amon-Ra St. Brown have benefitted greatly. St. Brown parlayed that into a massive contract, along with quarterback Jared Goff this past offseason. What will happen when defenses begin to shift to take that away from this offense? Enter deep threat Jameson Williams.

The numbers don’t really jump off the screen yet, partially because his first season was essentially a redshirt as he recovered from ACL surgery, and in his second season, he was suspended six games for gambling while on team premises. As long as he has a relatively normal offseason, we have reason for optimism from Williams. His opportunity does not necessarily need to come at the expense of St. Brown or tight end Sam LaPorta, as Josh Reynolds and his 64 targets from last year need to be replaced.

Williams seemed to grow into his role as the deep threat towards the end of last year and is well situated to have a breakout year in 2024 if he can command more targets.