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Value. It is one of the essential ways to win a fantasy football championship. Maximizing late-round picks into productive players will be more important than ever in 2021 thanks to the COVID pandemic that is still currently gripping the world, and the fact that there will be one extra week of production for every player to squeeze some more fantasy points.
One of the best ways to capture fantasy value involves taking running backs early in your fantasy draft and getting high upside wide receivers later. Since so many teams utilize three-wide receiver sets or spread personnel, it makes perfect sense to prioritize running backs (most teams only use one or two a game) and take shots on wide receivers later.
The purpose of this article is to help you identify the late-round wide receivers that have league-winning upside so you can build the most effective fantasy team possible.
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Sterling Shepard, New York Giants
ADP 211, WR78
Since he joined the Giants as a rookie all the way back in 2016, Shepard's ADP has only dropped below 143rd-overall once (last season) in those five summers. That came down to injury concerns, as Shepard missed six games in 2019 and had actually alternated healthy with banged-up seasons since his debut, playing 16, then 11, then 16, then 10, and ultimately 12 games last season in his career.
Last year was Shepard's best in terms of efficiency with a 9.94 YPR mark to go with a career-high 73.3% Catch Rate while putting up a 90/66/656/3 receiving yard line to go with 49 yards and a single touchdown on the ground to put the cherry on top of a WR43 season (162.5 PPR points). Had he played the full 16-game schedule at that pace (13.5 FPPG), he would have seen his final rank go all the way up to WR23 and a WR2 finish, more than good for those in either shallow or deeper formats.
The Giants have loaded their offense this offseason, adding WR Kenny Golladay, John Ross, and rookie Kadarius Toney. Add RB Saquon Barkley coming back healthy, and it's obvious that Shepard will lose opportunities no matter what. It's just mind-blowing to find Shepard with a 210+ ADP at the time of this writing, even though that value has gone up a bit of late.
Shepard projects to 190+ PPR points (via PFF) in 2021, which is the most by far by a WR with such ADP (and lower). In fact, for players projected to finish in the 180-200 FP clip over the season, the average ADP comes out at a rather high 108 compared to Shepard's 210+. This is one of the biggest bargains you can find late in fantasy drafts, so you know what to do--yes, don't hesitate on using an earlier pick on Shepard if you don't want to get snipped, which is very probable!
Cole Beasley, Buffalo Bills
ADP 140, WR50
It was bizarre to read about Beasley discussing his COVID/vaccine position and how he'd rather not play football before getting vaccinated. Anyways, Beasley's football abilities are not related to his opinions on those other matters, so we should still be good in drafting him and making him part of our fantasy rosters. Not bad for our interests. Even with the addition of Emmanuel Sanders and with Gabriel Davis seemingly taking on a heavier role, PFF still projects Beasley to rack up the second-most PPR points in Buffalo, only behind Stefon Diggs with a 198+ FP projection.
Beasley has always been a little bit underrated if you ask me. Since he debuted all the way back in 2012, he's never boasted an ADP above 145, and he's been drafted outside of the top-200 overall positions in six of his nine pro seasons. That's stupid considering he's always outperformed his draft position with the exception of his rookie season (expected) and 2017 (he only featured in 57% of the Cowboys snaps, though).
It's been two years in a row--both of them already as a Bill--in which Beasley has finished inside the WR3 realm, WR34 and lastly WR27 to be precise. He's scored at least 150 PPR points in three consecutive seasons, his average FPPG is up to 13.1 fantasy points in the last couple of years playing under QB Josh Allen, and he's one of the most reliable pass-catchers a quarterback can dream of having around. Last season, Beasley led the league in Contested Catch Rate, was an 81st-percentile player in Yds/Route Run, and also finished with top-11 marks in both YAC/Target and Fewest Runs b/w Targets.
Marvin Jones, Jacksonville Jaguars
ADP 159, WR59
It might be a little bit of a stretch to label Trevor Lawrence as a league-winning player this early in his career, much less as a rookie quarterback playing his first pro snaps. He can truly be the real deal, but it's not that he will finish as a QB1 off his last year in Clemson. Even then, though, he should make everyone around him better in 2021, and in a receiving corps that clearly lacks true/proved talent in Jacksonville, free-agency acquisition Marvin Jones looks like the best bet to rack up fantasy points.
Jones, believe it or not, has been around since 2012 when he played for the Bengals. He moved to Detroit after that span, and that's where he found his tastiest mojo. Barring his nine-game 2018 season, the other four campaigns he played (min. 13 games in each of them) saw Jones reach at least 172 FP, and his FPPG average is all the way up to around 14 PPR points per game in the last three full-seasons he's played. Jones is coming off his best season after scoring a career-high 227+ PPR points last year.
As ridiculous as it sounds, and although he's outperformed his ADP constantly throughout his career, Jones is currently sitting at around 160 ADP. That would be his cheapest price since 2015, his final year in Cincy. Jones has finished as a WR3 in four of the last five seasons (again, he missed seven games the year he didn't accomplish that feat), one as a WR2 (2020) and another one as a WR1 (2017). Even if he has to face competition when it comes to targets in Jacksonville, that would most probably only mean that he would be related to a WR2 role slightly below D.J. Chark Jr. Other than that, the path is very clear for Jones to put up numbers weekly and fulfill PFF's projection of a WR37 (borderline WR3) finish.
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