10 PPR WR Sleepers

By Matt Schauf 8:07am EDT 7/28/21

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Check last year’s WR rankings for PPR leagues, and you’ll find the top 2 spots occupied by the TD leaders (Davante Adams, 18 TDs; Tyreek Hill 15).

The season before, however, found TD leader Kenny Golladay 9th at the position in fantasy points. 2018 TD champ Antonio Brown checked in 5th. DeAndre Hopkins led that group in fantasy points while scoring 4 fewer TDs (4th among WRs).

Adams delivered 10+ TDs in both 2017 and 2016 -- ranking 2nd and tied for 2nd in that category -- but finished just 13th and 11th among WRs in total PPR points those 2 years.

What’s my point? Touchdowns are certainly important to fantasy scoring at any position, but targets, receptions and yards have each proved more tied to final PPR rankings at WR perennially than TDs. That’s good, because those categories have also proved easier to predict year to year.

In trying to uncover later-round “sleepers” at this position, we’re looking for players who could/should garner more targets than their current draft position would lead you to expect.

I used BestBall10s July ADP (in 12-team drafts) for this exercise, because it’s a full-PPR format with 3 starting WR spots. This sample included 386 drafts, with somewhere around 380 of them completed.

Robby Anderson, Panthers

BB10s ADP: 33
Draft Sharks Rank: 23

It’s a little surprising that Anderson remains available low in WR3 range. He finished his 1st Panthers season 21st in PPR points at the position, despite scoring only 3 TDs. Anderson drew the 8th most targets among all wideouts, leading teammate D.J. Moore by roughly 0.7 targets per game. Carolina has since let #3 WR Curtis Samuel walk in free agency and traded for the QB that threw passes to Anderson over his final 2 seasons with the Jets. The switch from Teddy Bridgewater to Sam Darnold should deepen Anderson average target depth, which could increase the WR’s fantasy-scoring efficiency -- as long as his catch rate doesn’t take too big a hit. Even our well-ahead-of-ADP ranking for Anderson falls well short of his 2021 ceiling.