Fantasy Football Week 5 Wide Receiver Preview: Waiver adds, starts, sits, numbers to know, and more
Everything you need to know about wide receiver for Fantasy Football in Week 5
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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.
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
Week 5 Adds (WR Preview)
We normally limit the waiver wire to guys rostered in 65% of leagues or less, but I am making an exception for Robinson. He led the Giants with a 25% target share in Week 4 and I would expect him to lead the team in targets rest of season. His yards per reception and yards per target are both well above his career averages and his catch rate is still at 66%. This will be a low-volume pass attack but Robinson could still be a solid flex most weeks. This week, with all the injuries and byes, Robinson is a solid WR3.
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Malik Nabers missed two games last year and Darius Slayton caught 14 passes for 179 yards and a touchdown in those two games. He saw 11 targets in both games. The Giants threw 75 passes in those two games, and I don't expect anything close to that from Dart, but Slayton could still be useful, if not as awesome as he was last year.
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Calvin Ridley is banged up and Ayomanor has been better than him this year. For a Titans team looking towards the future, we may just see more opportunities for the rookie moving forward. He has scored at least 13 Fantasy points in two of his first four games and at the very least is a good bye week replacement in Week 5. The upside is much higher than that, especially if the Titans can start protecting Cam Ward better.
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Franklin has still only topped 10 PPR Fantasy points once this year, but he has at least eight targets in two of his last three games. Quinyon Mitchell could take Courtland Sutton away in this game which could open up more volume for Franklin.
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Stashes (WR Preview)
Coker may still be a couple of weeks away, but this Panthers offense is desperate for another wide receiver to step up alongside Tetairoa McMillan. In the last seven games of his rookie season Coker averaged 10.4 PPR FPPG. The way this position looks right now, that could be very helpful.
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WR Preview
DFS Plays
Top DFS Play
Projections powered by
Sportsline
JSN and Puka Nacua have been the two best receivers in the league this year. Nacua is playing on Thursday night, so that leaves a pretty clear top dog at the position in my projections. There is enough value to prioritize the guy who has a 35% target share and is averaging 4.19 yards per route run.
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Contrarian DFS Play
Projections powered by
Sportsline
Godwin's stat line in his debut wasn't pretty and Seattle has been great against receivers. That keeps both Godwin's price and his projected roster rate in check. But he had 10 targets in that debut and over 150 air yards. That implies big upside and makes it worth betting that last week's struggles were just him shaking off the rust. With Mike Evans out I expect Baker Mayfield to go back to Godwin early and often.
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WR Preview
Heath's Projections
My full set of Week 5 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.
