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It is wide receiver week here at Fake Teams! For my small part, I chose to highlight a handful of guys that I am would use to round out my final couple of bench spots in a standard 12-team league. All of these guys have some form of upside and can be drafted after pick 132.
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If you are counting at home, that means you can most likely snag any of these guys after Round 11. So without further ado, find out why you should consider the following receivers in Round 12 and beyond. You’ll see each player's overall ADP as well as their positional ranking.
Marvin Jones (133 ADP, WR51)
After six weeks of last season Marvin Jones was the third-best wide receiver in fantasy football. He flamed out, though, finishing 39th among wideouts with 930 yards and only four touchdowns. Last year he was drafted inside the Top 30 at his position, but this year he is being taken after the WR50. Kenny Golladay has drawn tons of hype this summer, but Jones is still the starting receiver in an offense that is going to sling it nearly 600 times this year. #NarrativeStreetAlert: Jones worked out with Randy Moss this offseason in an effort to get back into his groove. That is enough for me to take a chance on a guy who has been productive in the past—especially one tied to the most underrated quarterback of 2017.
Ted Ginn (136 ADP, WR52)
He leaves the strong-armed Cam Newton for the cushy confines of the Superdome and the golden arm of Drew Brees. Ginn won’t be a reliable source of points each week, but as a boom-or-bust flex option or bye-week or fill-in you could do far worse. Yours truly is not a best ball player, but the potential for Ginn to explode any given week (coupled with his affordable ADP) seems very appealing to me. Still, I will own Ginn in some leagues where I have a deeper bench, for sure.
Kevin White (149 ADP, WR57)
Kevin White might be Chicago’s number one receiver and we just don’t know it yet. Consider that he had more targets than supposed top option Alshon Jeffery through four games last season (36 to 25) prior to becoming injured, and it starts to look interesting. And for what it’s worth, Jeffery out-targeted upstart Cam Meredith in six of the seven games they played together without White last year, and in the one game he didn’t, they tied. So the Bears targeted White over Alshon, and then Alshon over Meredith. White is a former seventh OVERALL pick and Meredith is an undrafted free agent who converted from quarterback to play wide receiver. White is a shade faster and a shade heavier than Meredith. I’m just saying...we may all look back on this and say that it was only health that stood in the way of White being the number one receiver on this team. This is a low-risk, high-reward situation.
Robby Anderson (180 ADP, WR67)
With the loss of Quincy Enunwa to a neck injury, Robby Anderson is now the de facto number one option in the passing game in New York. And while I like my shares of Bilal Powell and my dart throws on Austin Seferian-Jenkins, I am also buying Anderson at this basement-level price while I can. Opportunity is still king in the fake game, and Anderson should have as much as he can handle in 2017. I am not suggesting you bank on him as an every week WR3 option, but as the 67th wideout off the board you are investing almost nothing for a guy that could offer WR3/WR4 value in return. Anderson is small (he has said he wants to play at 185 pounds this year) but he does offer 4.36 speed. I’ll take a shot.
Devin Funchess (207 ADP, WR74)
In the Panthers’ first preseason game, Funchess played nine plays with the starters, just like Kelvin Benjamin. Shouts to Nathan Jahnke on my Twitter feed for the information (I love that guy). Anyway, Funchess is still young (just 23) and has a big 6’4” frame that could play well for the Panthers this year as defenses are forced to pay attention to Kelvin Benjamin, Greg Olsen, and Christian McCaffrey. A quicker passing game should be beneficial for every skill player in Carolina, and you can get the second wide receiver in that offense for almost nothing.
Braxton Miller (257 ADP, WR91)
Last but certainly not least is the most likely candidate to win the Texans’ WR2 role. Again with the Jahnke love (go follow that guy), Nathan tweeted that Miller had 11 snaps with the starters (out of 11) while his competition (Jaelen Strong) only mustered 3 snaps. Miller did exit with an injury but is expected to be fine. I listened to expert ranker Jake Ciely on a recent FantasyPros podcast and agree with his idea that Miller is following the same path as Terrelle Pryor (converting from QB to WR). Pryor gave us a pretty epic season on a bad team in Cleveland last year, and while Miller probably doesn’t have that upside as the second option on a run-first team, you can get him for almost nothing. Grabbing a starting wide receiver this late is fun times, especially if they offer any sort of intrigue.
That’s all for me, ladies and gents. Feel free to haggle in the comments and/or share your own depth plays this season. I’d love to chat.