2018 Fantasy Football WR Rankings: Will Antonio Brown Reclaim his Throne?
- See the top 50 wide receivers for the 2018 NFL Fantasy Football season
- Will OBJ bounce back from his IR-shortened season?
- Could DeAndre Hopkins finish as fantasy’s top wide receiver again in 2018?
Three cheers for training camps! With a few teams’ rookies already beginning to report, and the rest of the league following suit within the next week or so, training camp signifies the start of the 2018 Fantasy Football season.
With camp battles to shake up depth charts, cuts to be made, and new opportunities to be seized, we will all have a better idea of how the 2018 fantasy season should set up in the weeks to come.
A Dez Bryant signing will certainly affect one team’s pecking order for targets. But with no rookies set to make an immediate assault on the ranks, the Dez signing and injuries should play the biggest role on rank changes from now to the beginning of the season
With so many different leagues and scoring formats out there we will keep it simple with a standard scoring format.
- 1pt for every 10 receiving yards
- 1pt for every 10 rushing yards
- 6 points for a rushing/receiving TD
- -2 for a fumble lost
Lets get to it! Below you will find my top 50 WRs for the 2018 fantasy season along with their 2017 point totals.
| Rank | Player/Team | 2017 pts | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Antonio Brown (PIT) | 209.3 | The future gold jacket owner is the only wide receiver that can be considered with the 1st-overall pick. His consistency sets him apart from his peers. |
| 2 | Odell Beckham Jr (NYG) | 49 | Beckham has plenty to play for in 2018. Proof he has fully recovered from his season-ending injury and earning a shiny new contract are first and foremost. We will see the best out of the ultra-talented receiver this year. |
| 3 | DeAndre Hopkins (HOU) | 213.8 | A healthy Deshaun Watson would go a long way for Hopkins in realizing his ceiling. But he has proven he can make it work with a mixture of mediocre QBs over the years, too. |
| 4 | Michael Thomas (NO) | 154.5 | With 196 catches for 2,382 yards and 14 TDs over his first two seasons, Thomas has quickly become a top fantasy option. As long as Drew Brees is the one chucking him the pigskin, he will remain one. |
| 5 | Keenan Allen (LAC) | 182.2 | After two injury plagued seasons, Allen took it to NFL corners by beating them with his physicality and superior route running. Although his TD total was a modest 6, opportunity to improve that number will be there with teammate/redzone threat Hunter Henry out for the season. |
| 6 | Julio Jones (ATL) | 163.9 | Julio is still one of the elite talents in the NFL, but it has never been reflected in his TD production. With an average of just under 6 TDs per year over his last 4 seasons, and a QB who has never been a big TD accumulator (with the exclusion of 2016), give me the younger options in Allen and Thomas with the more potent QBs. |
| 7 | AJ Green (CIN) | 151.8 | With an elite QB, Green could rival Brown as the top option at the position. But with the Red Rocket at the helm, Green remains a middling WR1 with week-winning upside. |
| 8 | Davante Adams (GB) | 148.5 | Adams is an elite redzone threat. With 22 TDs over his last 2 seasons, Adams has earned his place in the top 10. And a healthy Aaron Rodgers for the start of the 2018 season, and Jordy Nelson out of the way, the sky is the limit for Adams. |
| 9 | Tyreek Hill (KC) | 164.2 | With free agent addition Sammy Watkins keeping safeties honest on the opposite side of the field, and a first-year starter at QB (who happens to have a rocket for an arm), Hill will do more with less targets than just about every receiver in the league. |
| 10 | Doug Baldwin (SEA) | 150.3 | I could spew out a stat or two, or go on about his talent, but let’s just be honest: with Jimmy Graham gone, who else is Russell Wilson planning to throw the ball to? |
| Rank | Player/Team | 2017 pts | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Mike Evans (TB) | 132.1 | If his on-off trend continues, Evans owners will be a happy bunch this year. But 2018 sees the Bucs with a healthy group of options in the passing game, and a three-game suspension for Jameis Winston to start the season. |
| 12 | TY Hilton (IND) | 118.6 | 2017 was Hilton’s least productive year since his rookie season back in 2012. It was also his first year without Andrew Luck under center. Even with the green Jacoby Brissett throwing to him, Hilton showed glimpses of his game-changing potential with two 170+ yard games. |
| 13 | Alshon Jeffery | 138.9 | If making plays with a bummed shoulder and out-battling lesser men for the ball isn’t for you, don’t draft Jeffery. A healthy Jeffery is one of my favorite players to watch, as he out-wills defenders at the high point. He even proved his willingness to play through injury last year, after missing 11 combined games the previous two seasons. |
| 14 | Adam Thielen (MIN) | 148.8 | Thielen may be the lesser talent of the top two receiving options residing in Minnesota, but he is certainly proving to be more reliable then teammate Stefon Diggs. Theilen has yet to miss a game in his four-year career, and after earning a starting role the last two season,s has put up 2,243 yards and 9 TDs. |
| 15 | Amari Cooper (OAK) | 110.4 | The extremely-talented-yet-to-put-it-all-together Amari Cooper gets a shot to learn from one of the game’s greats this year in free agent addition Jordy Nelson. We will see what happens with Chucky back manning the ship in Oakland, but either way I’m willing to take one last swing on Cooper and his immense talent. |
| 16 | Allen Robinson (CHI) | 1.7 | Robinson was on his way to becoming one of the game’s best way back in 2015. A change of scenery with a more pass-friendly offensive attack will be enough to see Robinson return to fantasy relevance. |
| 17 | Josh Gordon (CLE) | 39.5 | Hopefully we get to see what a clear-minded Gordon is capable of. After all, there are not too many receivers that could walk onto a field after missing almost three years and pace out a 1,000-yard season in their first five games back. |
| 18 | Stefon Diggs (MIN) | 134.2 | There is plenty of talent in Diggs’ 6-foot-1, 190-pound frame. But as mentioned, durability is a concern. In Diggs’ first three years, he has missed a combined eight games. It’s not alarming, but I’m beginning to doubt he will ever play 16 games in a season. |
| 19 | Demaryius Thomas (DEN) | 122.9 | Thomas found a way to squeeze out whatever production he could in 2017 with the mixed bag of below-average passers the Broncos fielded. This year should see a bit of a rise with the capable Case Keenum arriving in Mile High. |
| 20 | Larry Fitzgerald (ARI) | 152.4 | The 34-year-old vet continued to defy Father Time in 2017 with his third straight season of 100-plus receptions. He is a remarkable talent, but the return of running back David Johnson, and drafting of talented WR Christian Kirk, is enough for me to bet against Fitz making it four in a row. |
| Rank | Player/Team | 2017 pts | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21 | Brandin Cooks (LAR) | 156.2 | Joining his third team after only his fourth season, Cooks has yet to find a home in the NFL. With the fat new five-year deal he received from the Rams, he may have found that home. Cooks has proven he does not need to be the #1 option in an offense to be a solid fantasy contributor. This is good because he won’t be in LA. |
| 22 | JuJu Smith-Schuster (PIT) | 133.7 | He proved he is tough. He proved he can handle playing with the Steelers. And he proved he is a talented enough play-maker to exploit the one-on-ones he sees with defenses keying on teammates Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell. JuJu finished as a solid fantasy WR2 in his rookie season, and I expect his sophomore campaign will be more of the same. |
| 23 | Golden Tate (DET) | 132.5 | At this point we can call a spade a spade – or in Tate’s case a low-end WR2 a low-end WR2. With minimal ability to win a week for your team, his appeal is limited. But Tate will add stability to your roster. The last four years have seen Tate eclipse the 1,000-yard mark three times with a minimum of four TDs. Boring but decent. |
| 24 | Cooper Kupp (LAR) | 114.9 | In the last eight games of Kupp’s rookie season, he paced out for 78 catches 1,106 yards and 4 TDs. Even with Cooks arriving in Los Angeles, Kupp will continue to be a favorite target of QB Jared Goff. Don’t be surprised to see a slight improvement on his second half numbers. |
| 25 | Sammy Watkins (KC) | 107.3 | In what has been a injury riddled career, Watkins managed to stay on the field in 2017 as the third (or maybe even fourth option) for the Rams offense. The good news is he won’t be any higher in the pecking order in KC; the bad news is his stats once again will suffer for it. |
| 26 | Will Fuller (HOU) | 85.2 | Team’s no. 3 WRs normally don’t have the ability to win you a week. That’s certainly not the case with Will Fuller. The electric WR scored seven TDs in the four games he played with Deshaun Watson. Fuller has had some bad luck with injuries early in his career, but you just don’t find potential league-winners this far down the list very often. |
| 27 | Marvin Jones (DET) | 164.1 | Jones averaged a career-high 18 YPC in 2017. With even a slight regression, he will see his gaudy totals of 1,101 yards and 9 TDs decrease. With Golden Tate and the emerging Kenny Golladay around, Jones’s 2017 numbers are likely his ceiling. |
| 28 | Nelson Agholor (PHI) | 131.5 | After his first two seasons in Philly, it was looking like Agholor was going to be a bust. 2017 changed that with a move to the slot and a QB performing at an MVP level. The play-maker got into the endzone eight times on 62 catches in a mini breakout campaign, which will continue in 2018. |
| 29 | Devin Funchess (CAR) | 132 | The arrival of first-round rookie receiver DJ Moore, and return of a healthy Greg Olsen, should put a fairly low cap on Funchess’ ceiling for 2018. Personally not a big fan of his talent, but the opportunity is there for decent numbers. |
| 30 | Dez Bryant (FA) | 117.5 | It all depends on where he signs. If he goes to a team like the 49ers, 30th may be too low. But in so many scenarios, 30 is too high. Word out of Dallas is he has lost a step, but the right scenario could change things drastically. |
| 31 | Pierre Garcon (SF) | 50 | If the situation in San Francisco stays status quo, Garcon will provide a solid option. If someone like Dez Bryant is signed, Garcon may barely be usable. Jimmy G provides some hope for the entire receiver group, however it shakes out. |
| 32 | Julian Edelman (NE) | INJ | The four-game suspension to start the year hurts, and his injury history should not be ignored. But a top target in a Tom Brady offense to have as a WR3 (or flex) down the stretch is appealing enough for me to take a leap of faith with Edelman at this point. We know what he is capable of when healthy. |
| 33 | Jarvis Landry (CLE) | 148 | Landry’s 112 catches and 9 TDs in 2017 attest to his talent, but that was in Miami. He now calls Cleveland home and I’m willing to bet no matter the QB, he doesn’t come close to those numbers. Not to mention, Cleveland has accumulated a pretty full cupboard of offensive talent who will need to be fed as well. |
| 34 | Emmanuel Sanders (DEN) | 67.5 | Sanders is on the wrong side of 30 and the wear and tear may be catching up to him. He is a great player who may have enough in the tank for one or two more fantasy relevant seasons. Denver drafted two talented receivers this year so it might not be with the Broncos. |
| 35 | Robert Woods (LAR) | 107.3 | Woods seems like a “you’re good enough till we get someone better” kind of player. He will put up okay stats as the fourth option in a good offense, but offers fantasy owners little upside in 2018. |
| Rank | Player/Team | 2017 pts | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 36 | Corey Davis (TEN) | 35.5 | Davis missed five games as a rookie, but his flashes in the playoffs have fantasy owners pretty excited for his potential. I’m a fan of his talent, but after a 375-yard rookie year, with a QB looking to improve on a 12:15 TD to INT ratio, I guess I’m a little skeptical. |
| 37 | Jamison Crowder (WAS) | 94.3 | Crowder has proven to be a solid option for the Redskins offense over his first three years. He will never carry a fantasy offense to a title, but with Alex Smith replacing Kirk Cousins, I expect him to break the 70 catch mark for the first time in his career. |
| 38 | Marquise Goodwin (SF) | 112.6 | With 2017 easily being Goodwin’s best year as a pro (962 yards at 17.2 ypc), he has earned the spot as a downfield receiver in the Niners offense. If he stays healthy, he’s capable of making plays. A full year with Jimmy G will help, too. |
| 39 | Chris Hogan (NE) | 75.6 | He could flourish in the Pats offense in 2018 as the primary deep threat if he can stay healthy. He has never put up more then 680 yards in a season, though, so I will pump the brakes on the WR2 talks. |
| 40 | Jordy Nelson (OAK) | 84.2 | His primary job in Oakland should be to rub off on Amari Cooper as much as possible. But Nelson still has enough tricks up his sleeve to be a bye week fill in. |
| 41 | Kelvin Benjamin (BUF) | 87.2 | The situation in Buffalo seems to be worsening by the day, as do my hopes of Benjamin becoming a viable fantasy option any time soon. He has shown he can lead a receiving group with little help around him, but his 2018 situation may be too tough to overcome. |
| 42 | Kenny Stills (MIA) | 116.7 | With target-hog Jarvis Landry moved on to browner pastures, someone will need to step up in Miami. Stills has shown touchdown ability with 15 over his past two seasons. This is more than I can say for teammate DeVante Parker, who is ten spots ahead in the “expert consensus”. |
| 43 | Robby Anderson (NYJ) | 137 | Anderson had a solid campaign in 2017, posting 941 yards and 7 TDs. But with potential league discipline looming and a mid-season change at QB more than a probability, Anderson’s chances of improving on those numbers seem slim to me. |
| 44 | Rishard Matthews (TEN) | 103.2 | With teammate Corey Davis expected to take over as the primary target out wide, Matthews will take a backseat this year. However, if the unproven Davis fails to live up to the hype, Matthews could provide some solid bye-week-fill-in play. |
| 45 | Randell Cobb (GB) | 93.4 | Cobb has never lived up to the contract he signed after his career year back in 2014. But he is a familiar target for one of the league’s best QBs. Having said that, if one of the many Packer rookie receivers step up this summer, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cobb in the market for a job. |
| 46 | Paul Richardson (WAS) | 106.3 | After parlaying his most successful year as a pro into a fat contract in free agency from the Skins, Richardson will attempt to provide some of the deep ball magic Alex Smith found last year with Tyreek Hill. |
| 47 | Allen Hurns (DAL) | 60.4 | The Cowboys passing game does not inspire much confidence, which is why you find their presumed no. 1 target this far down the list. Hurns has talent and some play-making ability, but this offense will revolve around the ground game. |
| 48 | DeVante Parker (MIA) | 73 | The talent has always been there for Parker. It’s something else that is missing. My guess is it continues to be missed in 2018. But where there is talent, there is hope. |
| 49 | Kenny Golladay | 66.6 | We will see Golladay continue to build upon a solid rookie campaign that saw him haul in 28 balls for 477 yards and 3 TDs. But it won’t be enough for fantasy relevance. Expect his breakout party to come in 2019, as he continues to earn a bigger piece of the pie in Detroit. |
| 50 | Marqise Lee (JAX) | 91.9 | The Jaguars boast a deep group at WR. Lee should be on the field as long as he is healthy, though, as he earned a four-year contract from the club this offseason. With the Jags ground and pound mentality, and plenty of options to pick from when they do have to pass, Lee offers little upside. |
As an added bonus, my favorite rookie to take a chance on has been 1st-round pick D.J. Moore of the Carolina Panthers. The Panthers don’t own a potent passing game, but with his play-making ability and the Panthers lack of talent at WR, he could end up being a solid WR3 or flex play.
Let us know who’s too high/low on the list in the comments section below. Enjoy the camp battles!
Looking for more Fantasy Football positional rankings for the 2018 NFL season?
Nick Ferris
Nick Ferris is a seasoned fantasy football vet of over 20 years. He's an expert in everything from best ball to daily fantasy sports. Although arm chair quarterback is as close he ever got to the field - or are we counting 7v7 touch? - he has been fortunate enough to coach some youth football.
