Outlook: Kendrick Bourne had a quiet but reasonably productive first season for the Patriots in 2023. The veteran led all New England wide receivers with six touchdown receptions, catching 37 passes for 406 yards. While these numbers weren't bad considering the terrible situation he was in on one of the league's worst offenses, Bourne didn't bring enough to the table to be a viable fantasy option in anything but the deepest leagues.

Unfortunately, we should expect more of the same in 2024, as teammate Demario Douglas is probably the odds-on favorite to lead the team in receptions and yards. Even if Bourne sees more playing time, he has almost zero potential to finish as a WR2 or even a WR3 in fantasy.

Fantasy managers often make mistakes with players like Bourne. Late in drafts, the focus should be on upside, not floor. Instead of looking at his season-long projections next to the "draft" button, consider the best-case scenario for this player. Even if Bourne delivers WR36 numbers for the season, which would exceed expectations, it won't significantly help you win your fantasy league. Instead, target young players with the potential to breakout and drastically exceed their expectations with your late-round picks. While the chances are high that you might cut them from your roster, Bourne will seldom make your lineup anyway, so it's better to shoot for the moon with a player who offers more breakout potential.

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Outlook: The 2024 rookie class saw seven receivers selected in the first round. The eighth receiver taken, as the first pick of the second round, was Florida State's Keon Coleman, who immediately steps into a situation where he might actually end up leading all rookies in pass-catching opportunities this season. The Coleman selection was significant for fantasy purposes because he becomes perhaps the top target in one of the league's most pass-heavy offenses, led by a quarterback who's averaged nearly 4,400 passing yards and over 34 passing touchdowns per season over his past four years.

What's interesting about Coleman is that he lacks the speed that most teams have typically been looking for in early-round draft picks, but he makes up for it with prototypical "X" receiver size at 6'3" and 213 lbs. He enters a team that lost 241 targets with the departures of Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis, and a roster that really does not have any other consistent, proven producers on it. He was also, reportedly, a favorite prospect of Josh Allen's, who was part of the draft process according to GM Brandon Beane.

Coleman wasn't a big-time producer in college, but he seems to have the physical talent, and more importantly, the opportunity, to be a fantasy factor as early as Week 1 in 2024. It's not often that we have the chance to draft the projected WR1 in a Josh Allen offense with a pick outside the top 100, but that's looking like the trend as of now. He's practically free at that price and it's hard to argue that many of the other receivers going in that range possess anywhere near the upside that Coleman presents.

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Outlook: Newcomer to Buffalo, Curtis Samuel is expected to compete with Khalil Shakir to be the team's primary slot receiver here in 2023 - a position in an offense that once saw Cole Beasley ascend up the fantasy rankings and even make a Pro Bowl. Samuel is a veteran who has spent his past three years in Washington, including back-to-back 600-plus-yard, four-touchdown seasons on a team that had serious QB problems. A seven-year pro, Samuel has never reached 900 yards or exceeded six receiving touchdowns in a season. Of course, he's also never played with a quarterback who's anywhere near the caliber of Josh Allen.

Samuel has a history of delivering spike weeks and then completely falling on his face thereafter, making him one of the most frustrating players to manage in all of fantasy football. He does add some dimension to his game as a runner on end-arounds and straight even out of the backfield, but the Commanders chose to give him just seven carries on the season in 2023 after 38 in 2022, indicating that perhaps they saw a dip in his explosiveness. Nevertheless, his rushing upside isn't really something we can bank on with a new team, especially when the team has an established runner in James Cook and perhaps the league's most effective red zone rusher behind center with Josh Allen.

Samuel is an extremely cheap, perhaps even free option in fantasy drafts this season, so he really brings no risk. We don't know what's going to happen with this wide receiver group, but we do expect that the Bills will be among the league leaders in pass attempts this season, so keep an eye on Samuel's usage early in the year and be ready to pounce on the waiver wire if he's seeing significant playing time.

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Outlook: Demario Douglas was a late-round darling during many 2023 fantasy drafts, but the rookie failed to deliver on the somewhat unfairly ambitious expectations that some had for him. Douglas finished the season with 561 yards on 49 catches - great numbers for a sixth-round NFL draft pick - but he failed to score a single touchdown, which meant that he delivered absolutely no spike weeks and thus was fairly irrelevant for fantasy purposes.

Looking forward to the 2024 season, there are multiple reasons to be excited that the second-year wideout could ascend into becoming a viable fantasy option, at least in deeper leagues. While Jacoby Brissett is not a star and Drake Maye is a complete unknown as an NFL QB, it'd be tough for either of them to be worse than the quarterback play from Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe that Douglas had to deal with a season ago. The same goes for the coaching staff and offensive play calling which have both undergone an overhaul during the offseason and should lead to a more explosive offense if nothing else.

The Patriots' wide receiver room is still very much up in the air, but Douglas projects to lead the team in slot snaps and probably has the best chance of any New England pass catcher to emerge as a weekly WR3 fantasy option here in 2024.

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Outlook: Adam Thielen shocked the fantasy community and finished the season as a WR2 (WR25 in FPts/G). This included an absolute tear to start the season where he was a top-five fantasy option through a third of the year.

Thielen was a PPR cheat code as Carolina's first-read receiver and his fantasy volume was propped up by dominating targets. Thielen finished the year with 137 targets, 52 more than any other player in Carolina.

Unfortunately, a younger and more talented receiver in Diontae Johnson is coming to take these lay-up targets in 2024. Without a guarantee of triple-digit targets, I have a hard time drafting Thielen this season.

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