The Wide Receivers I'm Drafting Everywhere Right Now

If you have a fantasy draft coming up, you are in the right place because today we are talking about the seven wide receivers that I cannot stop drafting. I'm drafting them everywhere right now in fantasy football. And I believe you should too. If you're not familiar, I'm Salvetri. I've helped over 10,000 people win their fantasy leagues the last few years alone. And I plan to do the same for you with this video.

And let's start with AJ Brown, who I find myself, especially these past few days in the last couple of weeks in mock drafts and best drafts. I'm taking so much of him. This guy is coming off of the worst season of his career since like his rookie year. And now he gets a quarterback upgrade, a target share upgrade. Everything starts to look good for AJ Brown. And you can see that down season right here. For many wide receivers, as a second round pick last year in fantasy, this wouldn't be a down season. But if you rostered him, 121 targets, missed a couple of games, 78 catches, 1,000 yards. Like, it's not the worst season ever, but you know that there were stretches of four or five weeks where he wouldn't do anything and then he would have a monster year for you. He ends up finishing as the wide receiver 10 in fantasy points per game. Again, if you're watching this and you had AJ Brown last year as a second or a third round pick in your fantasy drafts, you're telling me it did not feel like the wide receiver 10 points per game because it didn't. It was a couple of massive games that skewed that upwards. But for the most part, when we look at this guy's past success since joining the Eagles in 2022, so we have four straight seasons here of a thousand plus yards. And this is factoring in that like two of these seasons, the last two weren't the greatest by any means in terms of changing coordinators, Jaylen Herz regressing a little bit, uh some injuries as well for Herz. But despite this, every single one of the last four years, he's averaging a top 10 wide receiver finish in fantasy points per game. The worst season was a wide receiver 12 finish at 16.7 fantasy points per game.

Now, look, I get it. Is the past going to predict the future, especially for an aging wide receiver who's now 29 years old on a brand new offense? No, not necessarily. But everything else for the situation will help us get at least some confidence in believing in Brown again as a second round pick. I mean, the first piece, and I would say it's a pretty big piece, this is the Eagles projected depth chart for this year. You have Devonte Smith there. Okay, we know that he's a stud. He's arguably the best number two wide receiver in the entire NFL. I know some other guys, T. Higgins, Dvonte Adams, would say something about that. That's why it's arguably, but I would say probably is the best number two wide receiver when you factor in age. You have a first round pick in Mai Lemon, who some people believe is the best wide receiver in this year's draft class. And then you have Dallas who's been a steady, reliable. He'll probably get you six to eight touchdowns a year. So, there's some competition here. The reason why I bring that up is the situation that you're seeing AJ Brown go through now is nowhere near the competition. You're saying that the wide receiver too on this team is going to be Romeo Dobs. So you go from Devonte Smith the best number two receiver in the NFL to Romeo Dobs who I would say is not in the top 10, not in the top 15. Probably not even in the top 20. He's right around there for the best number two. Okay. Now your third option is Hunter Henry. If you want to say he's similar to Dallas, fine. I think Dallas Goddard I would rather take um in just multiple dimensions, real life and fantasy football. And then Mai Lemon, who's comparing to a first round wide receiver on this team? M. Collins as the other starting wide receiver, a glorified tight end on the outside. It is AJ Brown and nobody else. A little bit of Romeo Dobs in this passing attack, maybe a tiny bit of Hunter Henry, but it's the AJ Brown show. He should clear a 25% target share easily with a better quarterback situation.

It's also worth mentioning when we bring up the team changes tracker part of the fantasy blueprint if you have a league coming up in a draft. Be sure to check it out. Join the blueprint.com. Over 10,000 people have used it to win more of their leagues. But you can see this is the Patriots offseason moves. Their key moves on offense only. Team changes tracker. It's in the blueprint. Stefon Diggs is gone, right? I get it. He was an aging wide receiver. So is AJ Brown. Stefon Diggs who was nowhere near the type of wide receiver that AJ Brown will be entering this year with the Patriots because of age, because of just knee injuries Stefon Diggs has had. He was mostly like a slot underneath target. And Stefon Diggs was able to go off last year and have a nice season, thousand yards, these 100 plus targets, right? All they did was bring in Romeo Dos, AJ Brown, like we talked about. No other wide receivers or target competition in the draft. So you're getting just an upgrade from Stefon Diggs for Drake May to AJ Brown. Like it is so clear-cut that AJ Brown last year, you're talking about Jaylen Herz doing nothing and Brown produced 100,000 plus yards and 78 catches. Now you get a guy who was one vote away from being the MVP in Drake May. It's going to be better.

And one thing I want to compare is when AJ Brown had his monster seasons in 2022 and 2023, right? You had different play callers there, much better play caller. Shane Stiken was involved, right? And we've seen what he's gone on to do with the Colts. What this is what uh uh Jaylen Herz was doing during those seasons. He was throwing four career highs. 3,700 passing yards, 3,800 passing yards, completing 65 and 66% of his passes, threw a career-high 538 times. Why do I bring this up? Well, last year, Drake May in his MVP season, and really a coming out party didn't even seem like it was anything crazy. He topped those numbers. He completed 72% of his passes. He had 439 or four 4,300 passing yards, so like 600 more than the careerhigh of Jaylen Herz. And there's no target competition. So, I think we're probably going to get this season again out of Drake May. 4,000 plus yards, completes 67 to 70% of his passes, averages around eight yards per attempt. Numbers that Jaylen Herz has never done in his career. You're going to get those types of numbers with less competition for AJ Brown. It just feels like a no-brainer. Right now, the betting markets have AJ Brown projected for about an overunder of,00 receiving yards. When you factor in 1100 receiving yards and 7 to eight touchdowns, that pays off alone right there. Doesn't even factor in if he goes above that number above and beyond and actually stays healthy and has 12,300 receiving yards. So, where AJ Brown currently goes as the 21st pick in fantasy drafts, by the way, this is the exact spot. He went 21st or 22nd overall last year. And in my opinion, a worst offense with the worst quarterback in more target competition. AJ Brown in the second round is a wide receiver. I cannot stop drafting right now.

And another guy who's not in the second round, he goes way later. So, you can actually get both of these guys in your leagues is Ricky Pearl, who was the league leader in receiving yards last year through the first month of the season. Yes, believe it or not, Ricky Pierce, if you look at his numbers overall, they don't look that great because of an injury riddled season where he only plays nine games. She only catches 36 balls, only has 526 receiving yards, nothing's looking good, zero touchdowns, like nothing looks good on the end. But when you actually look at those first four games of the season, we'll pull up here on we'll pull it up here on Rotoiz. That first four weeks, first month of the season, you don't even have Brock party healthy for this entire stretch by the way. 13 fantasy points per game, was a borderline top 15 wide receiver, seven and a half targets per game, 82 receiving yards per game, was leading the NFL during this stretch. Um, so Ricky Pierce to me is a guy that if he just stays healthy, we know what to expect from him. all the small glimpses at the end of his rookie year where he dealt with a gunshot wound and a hamstring injury. At the end of his rookie year, he popped off for 100 yards a game. Last year, he was averaging a league high 83 yards per game. And even despite the games where he played injured, the final five games of his season last year, only played nine total, he still was very efficient. 1.97 yards per route run, top 24 amongst wide receivers, 105 first downs per route run, 18th overall amongst receivers. He was very efficient last year. You're getting a guy in Ricky Pierce, as you can see right here, Dro on Twitter, Dro FF, be sure to follow him. Because what if this is the biggest breakout season for Ricky Pearl? I think there's a real chance of that. Last year amongst 109 qualified receivers, like we just said, 23rd in yards per run, eighth in separation, third in route running win rate, 20th in yards per hour run inverse man coverage, second in route win rate against zone. Again, it was a limited sample of just nine games. Uh even in that limited sample though of just nine games, he was dominant just like he was at the end of his 2024 rookie season. And let's not forget in a loaded offense in college at Florida, he was solid. 23% target share, 65 catches, 965 yards, had like the play of the season with his one-handed grab. At every single point, this guy has been good.

Now, you look at what the 49ers have done in the team changes tracker. Okay, they lose Kendrick Bourne, they lose Jawan Jennings. They're most likely, as of this recording, very close to losing Brandon Iuk. At worst case scenario, he'll be cut from this team. What do they add? They add Christian Kirk, they add Mike Evans, and they add a rookie Deshawn Stribbling. So, the way that this starting offense is going to look like on at the wide receiver position in my opinion is Evans on the outside, Pearl on the outside, and Christian Kirk in the slot. You're going to have backup players like Demarcus Robinson, a veteran, the second round rookie, Dejan Stribbling. So, if you're telling me that this year Pieraw has to compete with Christian Kirk, I would say a worse version or a lesser player in this offense than what Joan Jennings had, and a 33-year-old Mike Evans, which is totally different in my opinion than a prime brand than I. Yeah, I think Ricky Piol set up nicely. Also, George KD coming off of an Achilles tear expected to be ready week one. We'll see. He's coming off of an Achilles hair. Even if he's ready, will he be 100% aging tight end? It has to. It's yet to be seen. So, the target competition, if anything, is aging out. It's not as strong. So, if Ricky Pierce entering year three, a a former first round pick, by the way, is paired up with Brock Perie and a Kyle Shanahan system and a Brock Py who was highly efficient last year when he was actually healthy, averaging four deep attempts per game, averaging 250 yards per game. Right? This is a guy that I can see a lot of success from. Um, overall, the biggest weakness for aol is what we already kind of alluded to, the injuries, right? Last year he ends up suffering the ankle injury and the knee injury um in week 15 ends his season he ends up suffering the knee injury early on ends his season. The good thing last year though we didn't have any hamstring injuries throughout the season. Were there some knee injuries? Sure. But hopefully we could avoid those hamstring injuries like we saw that derailed his rookie year because I feel like those injuries are baked into the price point. Ricky Pierol currently goes outside the top 100 players in fantasy football. We can all agree that the 49ers offense is one of the boss best offenses in the NFL. They'll probably be a playoff team and there's a chance that Ricky Pierce is their number one target this year if he stays healthy. We know Mike Evans has missed about four plus games per season on average the past three years. We know George KD's coming off of a torn Achilles. Christian McAffrey is solid, but he's not a wide receiver and now he's 30 years old. Rick Ricky Pierce is the guy who should take the next step forward in this offense. 101st overall in drafts right now is criminal in my opinion.

Now, before we keep going, your fantasy drafts are either like right now, today, tomorrow, this week at least. They're coming in the next couple of weeks to days. I just want to let you know the fantasy blueprint is currently available. Uh it is a proven system for winning your fantasy football league. What does that mean? Well, it's helped over 10,000 people win their fantasy football leagues the last few years alone, including myself, 75% of my home leagues last year, which means I won the Flock League, a $10,000 to first experts league, the most watched league in the entire world. You can check it out at the Flock League YouTube channel. Anyways, the Fantasy Blueprint is what I brought into those drafts, is what I used every single week during the season to win my league. And it's very important that I point that out. If you want more information, you can check it out. Link down below at jointhebloopprint.com. Again, it's linked down below at joinbooprint.com. It'll take you to this page on screen for the YouTube version. There'll be testimonials. Everything that you potentially could want answered, what you get, frequently asked questions are all down here at jointhebloopprint.com. But I have to point this out right now. It is not just a draft guide. It's going to help you prepare for your draft, dominate your draft night, but then it helps you from draft day all the way to championship week. Every single week of the season, there will be tools in there, uh, rankings, waiverwire tiers, uh, trade, uh, trade tools, everything you could possibly need for your fantasy league and a whole lot more. That's just a sprinkle, including one-on-one access to me. Check it out now. There are limited spots available. join theblooppprint.com. If you want to win your league this year, get the blueprint. Join theblooppprint.com.

All right, now back to the video. Let's talk about Carell Tate here. He was the first wide receiver off the board in this year's draft class. This is a 6'2, 192 lb wide receiver out of Ohio State. He's somebody that at the NFL combine nobody has anything to do in March, but go crazy when wide receivers don't run in the fours or 4-3s. He ran a 45340 time based on his film, based on his size, based on the way that he plays. That is completely fine in my opinion. The speed is not something that you actually see show up on tape. In real game speed, sure he has enough to actually win at this level. That's why he's a top five pick. But he doesn't just win with his speed. He wins with route running. He wins with football IQ. That is exactly why last year in college football, he had 875 yards, a 16% target share, which doesn't sound flashy. Most of the time, this doesn't look good. This doesn't match the profile of a first round pick, let alone a top five overall pick. But then, oh yeah, you remember that he was competing with Jeremiah Smith, who will probably be a top three pick in next year's NFL draft, and will arguably most likely be the best prospect since Jamar Chase, if not even better than that. People are saying he's already the best prospects in Tulio Jones. So, that's the type of talent that Cardinal Tate was operating next to. and succeeding against last year. So much so that he scored a touchdown in eight of 11 games. And in six games where he had at least five catches, he averaged 111 receiving yards per game. According to Matt Harmon of reception, perception, and also of Yahoo, you can see right here, he said Carninal Tate 77% success rate verse man coverage is the seventh best mark for a prospect since 2021. He also dropped zero passes and posted an all-time contested catch rate. So this guy has reliable hands, contested catch point, football IQ, can beat a man coverage. What can he route running, what could he not do? That's why he went fourth overall to the Tennessee Titans where his current competition is a 30 plus year old Calvin Ridley coming off of a season ending injury. They're saying he looks good in training camp. We'll see when the bolts start flying. And Wondell Robinson who they acquired this off seasonason from the Giants or in free agency. Wand Robinson in this offense like he succeeded last year with the Giants because he had an outside wide receiver role. He's going to be a slot wide receiver in this offense. He's not going to push Calvin in my opinion. He's not going to push Cardinal Tate. Heck, KJ Osborne or Eliminor would probably get outside wide receiver snaps be uh before a Wanda Robinson. It would have to take some injuries for Wanda Robinson to move to the outside and Shamir DK to move into the slot. So, what I'm trying to say is Carninal Tate is the clear proven best outside receiver on this team. And he'll be paired up with Cam Ward who down the stretch last year was starting to have some hopes, right? The number one overall pick from last season out of Miami, final year of college, throws for 4,300 yards, 39 touchdowns, seven interceptions. He did struggle to start his rookie year as many do, especially when you have arguably and probably the worst skill positions on paper for those first four to six weeks, especially with Calvin Ridley getting hurt and the middle round rookies not stepping up until mid-season. It's pretty hard when that's what you're working with. And now things should be better for Cam Ward, especially when Brian Dable comes in. Say what you want to say about Brian Dable in terms of getting fired from the Giants. But whether it was with the Buffalo Bills is their play caller, the Giants head coach and play caller, he knows how to call friendly fantasy f friendly offenses with the personnel that he has. Last year he had rookies controlling that offense and and Cam Scatter when he was healthy and Jackson Dart, right? He made Wondell Robinson an outside receiver after he was only a slot merchant the year before. He made do with the guys that he had, especially after the Malik Neighbors injury. So, the way that I see this right now, like Carl Tate to me, well, you can get him 68th overall. Are there other wide receivers in this range I I like? Yes. Um, I would say that there are some other wide receivers in other positions that I like in this range like Christian Watson goes slightly before him. But, let's just say those guys are off the board or you have a turn pick and you could take a Christian Watson and a Cardinal Tate because you need a double tap wide receiver. I feel very good about that. Rarely do we get the first wide receiver, a top 10 pick in an NFL draft going in the sixth or seventh rounds of fantasy drafts. Those guys are almost always locked in fifth, if not fourth round picks from seasons past. Make sure you get yourself some Cardinal Tate this year.

And make sure you get yourself some Josh DS who goes even later than Cardinal Tate in drafts. Earlier this summer, he was a 10th round pick. Unfortunately, you don't get that value anymore. Now he goes in the eighth or ninth round of drafts. But if I'm being completely honest with you, like based on him going in the eighth or ninth round, if you or your friends or people who don't pay attention to fantasy football, just look at what he did last year, you're going to be obviously disappointed and say, "How am I even going to draft this guy?" 566 yards, a career low, uh 58 catches. Like, we got nothing out of him last year. four receiving touchdowns. The wide receiver 51 according to player profile, eight and a half fantasy points per game. S, why the heck do I even want to draft this guy? Well, there's a lot that goes into that. A quarterback got hurt at one point last year. They were mixing matching. He was not in on two wide receiver sets. But most importantly, when Josh Downs actually gets playing time, he is a very good wide receiver. Let's look at this right here. When he gets 75 plus% of the routes, he averages 13 fantasy points per game. That's an 11 game sample. 13 fantasy points per game is a top 24 wide receiver in fantasy. when he's below 75% of the routes, he goes down to a 9.3 fantasy points per game. That's like the wide receiver 40 in fantasy. So basically, if when this guy plays 75% of the routes and he's actually out there as a contributing piece in two wide receiver sets, he's a top 24 wide receiver in his career the last two seasons. And there's a better chance that happens this year that he's going to play on the outside because Michael Pitman is now gone from this offense. He was traded away. The only wide receivers they added were a Nick Westbrook, not going to be much of a threat, a seventh round wide receiver, and Deion Burks, not going to be much of a threat. Michael Pitman, who's had 111 targets in this offense each of the past two seasons. Well, he's now gone. And what does that leave in this wide receiver room? Honestly, not much to nothing at all. It's going to leave Alec Pierce, who signed a big contract this offseason, but he himself is dealing with an injury that he had surgery in March. It's in a it's a four to six month recovery. Who knows if he's even healthy week one. It's Nick Westbrook. Hasn't done much outside of a fluke touchdown season in the past in his career. And then it's Josh Downs. The depth is Ashton Doulan. Deion Burks a seventh rounder. Anthony Gold. Like, it's basically just Alec Pierce downfield if he's even healthy. Josh DS and Tyler Warren controlling the middle of the field. Like there is not much target competition at all here. And the big thing is you're getting Daniel Jones back. Even if Alec Pierce is healthy week one and he somehow is 100% and he's good to go and there's no rust on him after having a four to six month surgery recovery. Daniel Jones last year was throwing the ball downfield a decent amount of the time. If you pull it up right here in terms of his air yards per attempt right here, adjusted yards per attempt, seventh in the NFL in terms of how often he was throwing the ball downfield, 8.0 airs per attempt, 15th in the NFL. So above average for a starting quarterback. And in terms of his deep passes, if we pull it up, 37 deep passes. This is going to rank low because he missed the final five games of the year. But 2.8 deep passes per game is above average. The problem with that now, and where Alec Pierce did a lot of his explosive damage downfield, was those deep attempts. He's coming off of a torn Achilles. Daniel Jones, we've seen with quarterbacks in the past, albeit older guys Kirk Cousins, Aaron Rogers, that the torn Achilles limit your power, especially as the season goes on downfield. Who does that play into? That plays right into Tyler Warren, who we like this year in fantasy drafts, and who will definitely be a real threat to take targets and overall fantasy points away from Josh Towns. But it's also going to play into Josh Downs, who we already know can dominate the short to middle parts of the field like he has so far throughout his entire career. But based on all the reports from his head coach, Shane Stken this offseason, Josh Down is expected to see more targets and a larger role. Stiken plans to give DS more opportunities on the outside after primarily using him in the slot throughout the first three seasons. So, what we're getting is an Alec Pierce, a Josh Downs on the outside, and two wide receiver sets with Tyler Warren on the field. And I think we're going to see a lot more Josh D success, probably a career year. So, where DS currently goes as the 113th overall player, he's currently a ninth round pick right now. I think he's great. Like, I think you can plug and play this guy as a flex option right away from week one. Heck, if Alec Pierce misses the first couple of weeks of the season, even better. He's going to be seeing a 20 plus percent target share uh during that stretch, if not the entire season. Josh Downs.

And another guy who will definitely see a 20%, if not 30% target share this year, is going to be Garrett Wilson. Because last year through the first five weeks of the season, despite some of the worst, if not worse, quarterback play in football, Garrett Wilson was a top five fantasy receiver. During that stretch, he averaged 15.7 fantasy points per game, 9.6 targets per game, the second best target share in the NFL, and seven receptions per game. He literally only had 395 yards last year because he only started and completed five games. And despite that, he still led the team in receiving yards. That's how bad the Jets were. They were that bad because once again of their quarterback situation. And when you lose your number one wide receiver, that's not going to help. But this was their quarterback situation in terms of yard like Brady Cook, Justin Fields, and Tyron Taylor in the year 2026 were starting games. In terms of yards per game, Brady Cook was number one with 147 passing yards per game, would rank second worst in the NFL last year. Justin Fields was at 139 yards per game, would rank dead last in the NFL last year. And Tyler Taylor was at 129, would rank dead last in the NFL last year. So you literally had a quarterback room that combined to be the 31st to 32nd ranked depending on the week last season. It was atrocious. And because their quarterback room was so bad, they only ended up throwing 494 total times on the season. One of only, I think, eight teams to throw less than 500 times. They were tied for a bottom six rate in the NFL in terms of how much they passed. This makes a lot of sense. You lose your number one wide receiver, your quarterback stink. Why would you ever pass the ball? But I'm here to say that I wouldn't be shocked if this year the New York Jets are throwing 550 times per game because they have a quarterback in Gino Smith who knows how to throw the ball. Last year with the Raiders, I don't want to completely say it's a wash, but look, he had no offensive line. Brock Bowers was hurt right away. They traded away Jacobe Myers. He had nobody there. The coaching staff all got fired for a reason. Rookie RB in the backfield, right? Colton Miller gets hurt. Like everything an offensive lineman, their best offensive lineman, everything stunk. But before last year season year's terrible season, three previous seasons, 578 attempts, 499, 572. I think Gino Smith, if he stays healthy this year, is throwing 500 plus times. And if that's the case, we're going to see yet again another 150 target season from Garrett Wilson. And although the target competition is a little bit more difficult, it's nothing crazy. It's a rookie in Omar Cooper a first round pick. It's Adani Mitchell once again. And it's a rookie tight end in Kenyan Sadi. if he even starts right away over second round pick last year who had success Mason Taylor. So, you're just telling me it's a slot rookie wide receiver in Omar Cooper. I'm not going to be scared about that. Especially when in 2024 when he was competing with Devonte Adams, who was still a monster, we saw Garrett Wilson was fine. He had 150 targets. Once again, this is an interesting tweet from Fantasy Points data. They say, "Is this the year Garrett Wilson finally breaks out?" Over the last five seasons, only two quarterbacks have completed a pass on fewer than 50% of their dropbacks. Those quarterbacks, Justin Fields, only 47% and Zack Wilson 48%. Both of them were just Garrett Wilson's quarterbacks. And now you're getting Gino Smith to come in who ranks top 12 in completion percentage on their drop backs at 60% the last five years. So last five years, Gino Smith is easily the best quarterback that we have seen Garrett Wilson ever be paired up with and that factors in Aaron Rogers off of his torn Achilles. So right now Garrett Wilson goes at the end of the fourth round of fantasy draft. Sometimes you can get him in the fifth round. I love this. Like if you're at this end of the fourth round and you like double tap and you're able to get Lad Mani and then Garrett Wilson at the turn, those are two number one receivers for a team who I wouldn't be shocked if they both ranked top 10 in target share this year and you're getting them in like the fourth fifth round turn. That's great.

Now before we keep going, I just want to let you know that you can get my top 50 overall rankings to help you dominate those first five rounds of your fantasy drafts when you where you cannot afford to make mistakes. You can get these completely free right now at fantasyrankingsfree.com. Just type that in or there'll be a link in the description below. You just put your email in right here. You click get the top 50. It'll take you to a confirmation page and it'll send it to your email. So just check your email. It's a video of me explaining what happens next. And then they'll be right in your inbox. There'll be a link and it'll be updated all throughout the offseason. That gets you completely free. No catch my top 50 rankings updated across all positions throughout the offseason. That will help you with those first five rounds of your draft. Dominate them. And then if you want even more your entire draft every week of the season. That's where the fantasy blueprint helps you. But for now, check out the free rankings at fantasyrankingsfree.com.

We keep going here with maybe my most drafted player as of this time in the summer. He's up there. He's not my most drafted, but he's definitely up there. And it is Terry McLaren who in my opinion he is in for a massive year as a fourth or a fifth round fantasy pick. Now I get it. He's turning 31 years old this season. He's coming off of a bad year. Usually these are not the guys that you want to invest a fourth or a fifth round fantasy pick in. However, this situation is great. We got to break it down first. We must understand what happened last year for Terry McLaren. He was injured, right? So he only plays 10 games last year. He had the contract dispute. So he didn't really get into camp at full speed, full fitness. So he only plays 10 games last year. But if we actually look at this, his quarterback got hurt in week two and wasn't healthy the rest of the season, right? So Terry McLaren only played one full game healthy last year with Jaden Daniels. In that game, he had just two catches, 27 yards, 4.7 fantasy points. Then Jaden Daniels gets hurt. Then by the time Jayen Daniels is starting to get healthy, Terry McLaren gets hurt. And then by the time Terry McLaren comes back for the end of the year, Jaden Daniels season ends with a season ending injury. But even on that limited sample of 10 games with a backup quarterback for basically the entire time or an injured, Jaden Daniels, we still saw McLaren be efficient. 23% target share was uh 21st in the NFL. If you scroll down to what he was doing in terms of yards per route run, still highly efficient for a 30-year-old wide receiver, 13th in the NFL at 2.29, fifth overall in first downs per route run. Like nothing in terms of the production per route, the efficiency per route, nothing tells me that even though he's 30 plus years old, that this guy is starting to break down. And the beautiful thing is as of right now, Jaden Daniels is fully healthy. Terry McLaren is fully healthy. He's not in a contract dispute that's not letting him practice with the team and be at organized team events. So, he should be healthy and fit entering this year. And that's important because the last time we had these guys healthy was the only time we had them healthy. in 2024 when McLaren had arguably the best season of his career. 82 catches of 1100 receiving yards, a career-high 13 touchdowns that ranked second in the NFL while getting the ball thrown to him by rookie Jaden Daniels at that time who Jaden Daniels at that time was an MVP candidate down the stretch. Like if we know we're getting a Jaden Daniels healthy to start this year and let's just say he stays healthy the entire season. Terry McLaren in the fourth or fifth round is going to pay that off. He's going to pay it off at least with a fourth round value if not a second or a third round value.

But wait, it continues to get better. If we pull up the team changes tracker in the fantasy blueprint at jointheb blueprint.com you could see that dbo Samuels gone who was actually good in the first half of last year. Zack Herz is gone who Jaden Daniels has loved the last few seasons. That's 171 targets walking out the door right now in this offense. 122 catches over,200 receiving yards, nine combined touchdowns last year. And coming in is Chika. One for one you could say since he's younger a better replacement than Zack Z even though Jayen Daniels really trusted Z especially in the red zone. And then Diami Brown, Van Jefferson are replacing Debo Samuel. Those are downgrades. third round rookie Antonio Williams right now. Even if they were to sign Brandon Iayuk, I'm not concerned about that. If they sign Stefon Diggs, that's definitely the clear-cut number two option on this team. But that hurts Trigger Konu in my opinion more than it hurts Terry McLaren. This just shows you even more a chart from 4 for 4. Uh 52% 52.4% of the Commanders targets from last year. Most most of that being Debo Samuel and Zack Hurt Z are now gone. Second most in the NFL. That comes out to 222 total targets for the offense last year need to be replaced. And they're being replaced with obviously Terry McLaren. But then after that, Trayon Burks that might be a starter. Antonio Williams might be a starter. Oh, if it's not those guys, it's Luke McAffrey. It's Diami Brown. It's Van Jefferson. Gross. They kind of need to sign Stephon Digs. Otherwise, it's going to be the Terry McLaren show all year long. And new offensive coordinator David Blau, former NFL quarterback, says he wants to feed Terry McLaren eight targets per game this year. His previous career high or his current career high is 8.9. Even if we just get the eight targets per game, maybe nine targets per game, it's a slam dunk for Terry McLaren this year where he currently goes as the 57th overall player, meaning he's a locked in fifth round, if not a lot of the time, sixth round pick, slam dunk.

And another slam dunk, and I think the guy who is definitely my most drafted wide receiver as of right now this summer, especially when he was going in the seventh round, is 27year-old, still in his prime, Christian Watson of the Green Bay Packers. Christian Watson is somebody that I just can't get enough of. Last year, he was obviously returning, well, maybe not obvious, most people might not know this, he was returning from a torn ACL, so he only played 10 games. Um, but if you see this right here, despite only playing 10 games, coming off of a torn ACL where it took him some time to get ramped up, 13.2 fantasy points per game, was 15th in the NFL. But the piece that really matters is he was kind of being ramped up for one or two of those games. Didn't see his full snaps in the final seven games of the season when he was playing his normal wide receiver snaps was kind of over this torn ACL as much as he could be. 15.1 fantasy points per game, top 12 wide receiver, 6.1 targets per game, 60 receiving yards per game. During that stretch, not only was he a top 12 wide receiver in fantasy football, but he was literally number four in yards per route run on the season, 2.64. He became, I would say, a top 10 real life wide receiver. You might not think that because it's Christian Watson and he's always injured with the hamstrings, with the torn ACLs, he's never reliable. All of that is true, but for that sample last year, of the 10 games that he played, three of them, he was actually limited. In those games, he was a top 10 wide receiver real life in the NFL. That's exactly why they gave him a massive contract extension this off seasonason, despite him still having one year on the deal. They wanted to lock him up with a 4-year $110 million contract. People said this is crazy. It's crazy. The cap's going to go up. If he has another decent season, he would have gotten an extra $30 million. So, it makes sense for the Packers to do this. And what's also pretty nice for at least Christian Watson's sake. Right now, the Green Bay Packers, no new wide receiver is really going to be threat. Skyore the only wide receiver brought in this off seasonason. Meanwhile, they lose old reliable, probably their best red zone and third down wide receiver the last three to four years in Romeo Dobs. They lose Dantavian Wix, who was a very solid number four. Don't replace these guys with anybody other than Sky Moore, which is not much. So, if we pull back up that 4 for4 chart right here, you could see the Green Bay Packers are top four in the NFL in terms of targets up for grabs. 37% of their targets, that's 167 targets last year. Up for grabs, need to be replaced. Who are those being replaced with? Because nobody knew is coming in. Sure, Tucker Craft's coming off of an injury. Matthew Golden, the first round rookie from last year, is going to have to step up. Jaden Reed, who they gave a contract extension to if he could finally stay healthy, he's gonna have to step up. But I think it's going to be all on the shoulders of Christian Watson to be the guy who sees a 25 plus% target share in this offense and is the clear-cut number one. The obvious concerns are the injuries, the torn ACL in 2025 and recovering from that. Um, in 2024 he had the knee strain, he had the ankle injury in 2023 and 2022 was just all these hamstring injuries that obviously limited him. But we haven't had a hamstring injury, knock on wood, now in over three years for Christian Watson. Let's hope that that continues. And if it does and if he stays healthy, he's going to be one of the best wide receivers in fantasy. And you get him in round six. Specifically right now, you get him as the 63rd overall pick, which means that two of my favorite wide receivers, veteran wide receivers, and Terry McLaren and Christian Watson, you can get in round five and round six this year at the turn. Maybe you get even lucky enough that one falls to round seven. These guys are great in this range of the draft. I really, similar to last year, like rounds four through seven of the wide receiver position are great and these guys are a big reason why.

So these are the wide receivers I'm drafting everywhere right now. I just cannot stop drafting them. Now, if you want to see the running back version of this video, five wide receivers I am drafting in every single possible league I can right now. I can't stop drafting them. These five running backs, be sure to check it out. I think it's going to help you out a ton.