Issue #293: You're Late
By Derrick Ernst
July 19, 2026
Late-Round WRs
I said it on Thursday, our Draft Guide is in need of some late-round WRs. Before giving you some that catch my eye, I wanted to point out something that you’re likely to run into. I do my best to litter our Draft Guide with talent that mirrors a bell curve distribution where RB/WR have a higher concentration (the middle) and all other positions fade to the sides. Said another way, our Draft Guide will always have more RBs and WRs because that’s where the meat is. You should be hoarding RBs and WRs as a fantasy manager. Our Draft Guide reflects that. There will be times, however, when virtually every player in our guide is exhausted and you’re left to your own devices. Times like these can cause a bit of panic, especially if it catches you off guard. I do recommend that you print out the Draft Guide at the time of your draft and physically cross out players who have been selected. Not only does it keep you engaged, but it allows you to plan accordingly.
All this to say, you’re going to need to have some players of your own you’re targeting as well. I’ve heard of subscribers writing in their own on the sheet itself. That’s actually not a bad idea — I encourage you all to be doing the same. Your thoughts should not mirror mine 1:1. That might sound like a weird thing to say as the newsletter guy, but I’m not a know it all. Nobody is. Humility goes a long way and at this point in the year, there’s not a lot of that going around. Every fantasy personality is looking for clicks, watch out! Before I get any more heated, let’s move on.
When it comes to having thoughts on players it’s one thing to have instinct/gut feeling, it’s another to actually lean into what the numbers are telling us. Projections can be all over the place, which is why I try leaning into the aggregate. That’s easier said than done which is why I again leaned into my friend, Claude, to help. Before doing so, I had four WRs lined up that I had good instincts about:
Xavier Worthy, KC
Wan’Dale Robinson, TEN
Darius Slayton, NYG
Jalen Nailor, LV
Let’s just say I have changed my thoughts. I asked Claude to pull projected targets (and attempts) across as many relevant sources as possible, as well as projected ADP via Fantasy Guys, the same source reference for our Draft Guide. I then asked it to rank players based on projected targets and compared that to where they are being ranked via ADP at their position. I captured the difference between the two and those that had the highest positive variance (meaning they’re projected more targets than their ADP rank) were those that I honed in on.
I implemented a few filters to weed through the noise:
ADP needed to be 97 or higher (R9+)
Targets needed to be 85+ (5 tgt/gm)
Their “value” (targets rank vs. ADP rank calc) needed to be positive
Here’s what resulted (sorted by value):
102 tgt is 6/gm and 119 tgt is 7/gm. Five players hit the former and only one met the latter. We’ve already recommended some of these guys and we’ve faded some too. My quick and dirty thoughts:
I just can’t get over Jeudy’s catch rate
Kirk has only exceeded 92 tgt in three of eight seasons in the league
We still haven’t seen what Dell can do
Ridley and Robinson feel underrated in TEN’s offense while Tate feels overrated?
Why would anyone draft Thomas over Meyers for JAX WR exposure when Meyers is going for this cheap and is as effective?
Not sure I’d touch Pearsall, that experiment doesn’t seem to have worked out
Shakir and Tucker are the same player: 70 rep, 700 yds, 4 TD = WR30-40
Did you know that W. Robinson has had back-to-back seasons with 140 tgts? In those seasons he also had 93 and 92 catches. Nobody talked about this! Ward is going to need an outlet and Robinson will be that. Meyers could very well emerge as JAX’s WR1. We’ll monitor Dell’s situation as he’s coming off injury (missed all of ’25), but when he was on the field, especially as a rookie, he showed flashes of being better than Nico. He’s a stretch, but comes with opportunity.
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