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What a disastrous start to the year for the wide receiver position. Malik Nabers and Tyreek Hill are done for the year. CeeDee Lamb could miss the next month with a high ankle sprain. Terry McLaurin, Mike Evans, Ricky Pearsall, and Jauan Jennings are all projected out for Week 5 as of Tuesday. Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins lost their quarterback. Brian Thomas Jr. and A.J. Brown have seen their efficiency fall off a cliff. And Ladd McConkey is now the WR3 on his own team.
Not bad enough? Four of the top 24 WRs in Fantasy points this season are on bye in Week 5. That all adds up to just 22 wide receivers projected to score double-digit Fantasy points in half PPR this week. For reference, 36 wide receivers averaged that many FPPG in 2024.
One of those 22 is Jaylen Waddle. He’s WR17 in this week’s projections, and that may be too low. For the season, 24% of Tua Tagovailoa’s passes have gone to Hill and I would expect Waddle to see at least that rate for as long as he’s healthy. That should work out to seven or eight targets per game. Waddle has averaged 9.2 yards per target for his career and he owns a 4.7% career touchdown rate. I wouldn’t be surprised if the yards per target drops a little without Hill and the touchdown rate increases.Since the start of 2023 there have been 12 games where Waddle saw at least seven targets and Waddle has averaged 17 FPPG in those 12 games.Â
Because the Dolphins offense has been kind of a disaster this year and because Waddle didn’t pop on Monday night after Hill left the game, there may still be an opportunity to buy low on this wide receiver. There are certainly plenty of teams in each league who could use him.
Here is the rest of the Week 5 WR Preview:
Week 5 WR Preview
WR Preview
Numbers to Know
2.77 — Xavier Worthy averaged 2.77 yards per route run in his Week 4 return. Puka Nacua and Jaxon Smith-Njigba are the only starting WRs with a better averaged this year.36.5% — Garrett Wilson’s 36.5% target share is second only to, you guessed it, Nacua.90% — Davante Adams has 90% of the Rams end zone targets this year.22.1% — Elic Ayomanor leads the Titans with a 22% target share. If you have to start a Titans wide receiver, he is the best one to start.4 — DeVonta Smith only has one game this season with more than four catches.63.3% — Stefon Diggs played a season-high 63% of the offensive snaps in Week 4.45.7% — A.J. Brown has a 45.7% air yards share this year. Hopefully production starts to follow the opportunity.70% — Only 70% of Jameson Williams‘ targets have been catchable this year. That’s at least partially because of his extremely high average route depth of 13.3.
WR Preview
Waiver Wire Targets
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Projections powered by
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WR Preview
Heath’s Projections
My full set of Week 5Â Fantasy football projections for every position are now available on SportsLine. Find out which of my favorite plays are projected to score higher than consensus rankings and which don’t live up to their draft hype, at least in Week 5. Projected stats for all starting wide receivers are available, so be sure to check out the full set of projections at SportsLine.