Road to WR1: Drake London

Although he finished as just the WR39 in 2023, Drake London projects as one of the top receivers in fantasy football in 2024.

London has yet to put together a 1,000-yard season through the first two acts of his professional career but is still consistently regarded as one of the most talented young wideouts in the league. In his second season, London improved his yard total to 905 receiving yards but saw his targets, receptions and touchdowns all decrease as he dropped three spots in the final fantasy rankings due to missing one game.

Much like teammate Bijan Robinson, many have chosen to believe in London even with his lack of statistical production, chalking up his shortcomings to faulty quarterback play and coaching. Former head coach Arthur Smith has run a notoriously run-heavy offense in Atlanta for the last three seasons, leading to neither Marcus Mariota nor Desmond Ridder topping 3,000 passing yards in that time.

Even with the lack of a reliable passing game, London has comfortably led the Falcons in receiving for the past two seasons. The 23-year-old has accounted for 25 percent of the team's total target share and 26 percent of the receiving yards since 2022.

With his usage history and stake in the offense, London projects to see a substantial increase in fantasy impact in 2024 with Raheem Morris supplanting Smith as head coach and Kirk Cousins taking over at quarterback. Before an Achilles injury sidelined Cousins in 2023, the gunslinger notched three straight 4,000-yard seasons, bringing the most optimism to the Atlanta passing game since Matt Ryan was traded to Indianapolis.

How Drake London can become the fantasy WR1 in 2024

In his last two full seasons, Cousins led Justin Jefferson to a WR1 finish in 2022 and a WR4 finish in 2021 while additionally navigating Adam Thielen to two fantasy-relevant seasons. Jefferson was the WR1 for the first four weeks of 2023 before getting injured as well while rookie Jordan Addison was the WR12 up until Cousins went down in Week 8.

Though Cousins is now 35 and coming off an Achilles injury, the stability and hope he brings to the quarterback position cannot be understated in comparison to how ineffective Marcus Mariota and Desmond Ridder were. While receiving a desirable 23 percent target share in 2023, only 73.4 percent of London's targets were deemed catchable by Player Profiler.

Atlanta will hope to see Cousins return to his full capabilities but was enjoying a career year in 2023 and was on track for nearly 5,000 yards on the year before going down. If he can return to being even 80 percent of himself, another 4,000-yard season from Cousins will be crucial to London's fantasy value. Of the 10 quarterbacks to reach the mark in 2023, seven of them — 70 percent — had at least one receiver finish in the top 15 in fantasy.

Relying on an aging quarterback to carry the value of a receiver is unideal but even if he had just one leg Cousins would elevate London's fantasy outlook to a level Ridder seemed unable to reach. Adding former defensive coordinator Raheem Morris as head coach does not provide offensive enthusiasm on paper but Atlanta will be counting on new offensive coordinator Zac Robinson to be the next Sean McVay pupil to bring a lift.

Assuming Cousins can safely make it through another full season without injury or rookie Michael Penix Jr. being a thorn in his side, London should on all accounts have the best year of his career. Consider him as the brightest dark horse WR1 candidate with immense upside should all the cards fall into place.