Over the past several seasons, I’ve discussed the “three pillars” a player must have in his outlook to become the fantasy WR1 overall. All of this made it easy to see that CeeDee Lamb was a near-perfect candidate for the honor, even if he wasn’t universally viewed as that type of player prior to last season.
Those three pillars are:
Must own a dominant target share in his offense
Must be tethered to an efficient quarterback/offense
Must be verifiably great at football
Time to spin forward to 2024.
Using those pillars, let’s take a look at my top-12 ranked receivers to examine how clean their paths are to push for the WR1 overall title in 2024.
Target share: Yes
CeeDee Lamb owned a 29.2% share of the targets in Dallas last year and was targeted on 30% of his routes run, both among the top at his position. The Cowboys didn’t add much in the way of threats to Lamb’s target projection. In fact, you could argue they got worse around him. Nothing stands in the way of him averaging 10-plus targets per game.
Efficient offense/QB: Yes
I have concerns about the Cowboys reaching the same top-five heights on offense that we’re used to seeing, given my issues with the skill-position players beyond Lamb and turnover on the offensive line. Still, you’re only going to fall so far with a guy like Dak Prescott at quarterback. Lamb led the NFL in yards gained on slant routes with 324 in 2023, per Fantasy Points Data, while no other receiver cracked 200. This was the most automatic connection in the game last year.
Verifiably great at football: Yes
Lamb graduated to the elite tier of NFL receiver last year after holding down a spot at the top of Tier 2 for several years. He wins at all three receiver positions and is a chore to cover in one-on-one man coverage.
Target share: Yes
Despite playing across from another great wide receiver, Tyreek Hill led the NFL with a 31.1% share of the Dolphins’ passing targets. His 44.2% air yard share ranked second among all pass-catchers….
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/fantasy-football-the-12-candidates-who-could-be-the-overall-wr1-of-2024-175422966.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2024-08-29 17:54:22
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