Outlook: With 211 receptions for 2,950 yards and 24 touchdowns over his last two seasons, Hopkins has been a consistent stud worthy of a first-round draft pick. The former Clemson Tigers is arguably the most talented wide receiver in the league, with exceptional body control and elite ball skills.

Fantasy owners who miss out on the top tier running backs will find Hopkins a more than adequate fallback option. Hopkins is an elite producer based on consistency scores and a favorite red zone target for Deshaun Watson.

One negative facing Hopkins is the possibility of a reduction in target volume should Keke Coutee, and Will Fuller each play a full 16-game season. Regardless, Hopkins is a top-three WR in all formats and one of the safest picks in the first round.

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Outlook: Jones continues to be the model of consistency with regards to volume, catches, and receiving yards. The talented wide receiver has no fewer than 1409 receiving yards in each of his previous five seasons and continues to be one of the most heavily targeted players in the league.

His immense size and skill, rapport with Matt Ryan, and ability to dominate in PPR formats makes Jones a player worthy of a first-round pick year in and year out.

A lack of touchdowns, with just one double-digit touchdown season on his resume, has always been a knock on Jones and something that will keep some owners away on draft day. Foot injuries in the past have also been a knock against Jones, but the reality is the former Alabama star has missed just three games dating back to 2015.

Despite his lack of touchdown production, Jones should be considered an elite option in the first or early second rounds. He has the ability to lead the league in both receptions and yards, and any touchdown production on top of that will be gravy.

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Outlook: Welcome to the rarified air of elite fantasy receivers Davante Adams! His ascension to stardom was easy to see coming, as it's been building for several seasons. Despite being on a struggling offense that had a gimpy quarterback, Adams was No.2 in the NFL with 169 targets, 5th in receptions, 7th in yards, and 2nd in touchdowns with 13.

A true complete fantasy receiver, Adams enters the prime of his career as the apple of Rodgers' eye and the clear alpha in a fresh, modern offensive passing scheme. With the improved development of the young receivers around him, and a more emphasis on the run game, duplicating the 169 targets and 13 touchdowns is going to be a challenge, but with Rodgers healthier the two should be even more deadly and efficient. Hopkins, Julio Jones and Adams should be vying for the top fantasy finishes at this position, so don't hesitate to grab the budding star.

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Outlook: JuJu put an end to anyone who thought his 2017 rookie year was a fluke, as the former USC Trojan finished 6th in the NFL with 111 receptions, 5th in yardage with 1,426, and tacked on 7 touchdowns for good measure. Smith-Schuster has made a living during his first two seasons feasting on single coverage as the defense focused on Antonio Brown. JuJu emerged as a go-to receiver for the Steelers last year, and has had a historical start to his career. He's been as consistent as they come, and now slides into the lead dog role in this passing game with the departure of Brown. His current mid-2nd round ADP reflects this, but there is a big question mark to consider before making JuJu an automatic selection.

He's played exactly one game in the NFL as the focal point of the passing game, and that came in Week 17 last season when Brown was "out with an injury". It didn't go well. He caught only half of his ten targets, and while he did score, he only tallied 37 unexciting yards. The big unanswered question here is whether the third year receiver has the route running discipline to get open against the double coverages once reserved for his temperamental former teammate. He's got a good rapport with Big Ben, but I still believe this offense will spread the ball out more than they have in the past. Young, highly picked receivers James Washington and Dionte Johnson figure to be in the mix, and the Steelers also added veteran Donte Moncrief in the offseason. JuJu's role and two-year production makes him an easy WR1 candidate; I'm just not sure he slots into an automatic replacement for Browns numbers.

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Outlook: The biggest fantasy football question mark throughout the entire league was answered last week when the NFL released a statement, announcing that Kansas City wide receiver Tyreek Hill would not be suspended for off-field issues involving his son and his son's mother. There are other places that you can go to learn more about this story, but we're going to focus here about the fantasy impact this has for 2019.

Love him or hate him Tyreek Hill has now proven to be an elite fantasy asset in back to back seasons, both with Alex Smith and a first-year starter in Patrick Mahomes. Hill's unbelievable combination of strength, speed and explosiveness makes him practically uncontainable for even the best NFL defenses. He finished as the No.4 fantasy wide receiver in 2017 and many believed that his crazy efficiency would almost certainly mean that he'd drop down a bit in 2018. That didn't happen, though, as Hill increased his target total while maintaining his efficiency, which led to him finishing as the top-scoring wide receiver in non-PPR fantasy scoring.

Now without a potential suspension looming, Hill is free to return to the Chiefs with a clear mind and a fresh slate. That should be terrifying to NFL defenses but extremely exciting for fantasy players.

There will of course be extra scrutiny on anything that Hill does off the field for the foreseeable future and any sort of transgression could certainly lead to a significant suspension, so there is some added risk with Hill, but it's also worth noting that everything coming out of Chiefs camp seems to be that he's been a model citizen as of late.

Some fantasy owners will simply refuse to draft Hill based on the accusations about his misconduct, but those who do take a chance on him will almost certainly be showered with fantasy points this season. Hill's ADP is back on the rise and it won't be long before he's being selected near the top five at the position again.

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Outlook: Fresh off of signing a new $100 million contract, Thomas looks to follow up his 125-catch performance last year with another elite year in 2019.

Thomas' 321 receptions and 77% catch rate since joining the league in 2016 are the most at the wide receiver position, better than Antonio Brown (311) and DeAndre Hopkins (289). His 80.6 yard per game average ranks sixth over that period, and his 3787 receiving yards places him fifth behind Julio Jones, Brown, Hopkins, and Mike Evans.

The main knock against Thomas is his lack of touchdown production relative to the other elite wide receivers taken in the first two rounds of fantasy drafts. As a direct result of Drew Brees spreading the ball around in the red zone and a hyper-efficient run game, Thomas has yet to post a season of double-digit receiving touchdowns in the NFL.

A closer examination of Thomas' production from last season may indicate positive touchdown regression in 2019. Not only did Thomas lead the league in total catches with 125, but he also led the league with 24 red zone receptions. The fact that he caught 24 passes inside the 20-yard line and only seven of those passes resulted in a touchdown is somewhat of an anomaly. If just three more of those receptions resulted in a touchdown, Thomas would be considered the No.1 ranked WR heading into 2019.

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Outlook: Evans enters 2018 on the heels of arguably his best season as a professional, with personal bests for receiving yards and yards-per-receptions in 2018. The former first-round pick of the 2014 NFL draft posted eight 100-yard games, with six games of at least ten targets.

With DeSean Jackson moving on via free agency to Philly and Adam Humphries leaving to join the Titans, there are plenty of vacant targets in the Tampa passing game to be distributed between Evans, Chris Godwin, and the other WRs and tight ends on the roster.

Look for Evans to get back closer to his 2016 season when he notched 171 targets and 12 touchdowns. As the No.7 ranked WR, a return to than volume level could make Evans a massive value as a player currently going at the back-end of the second round in most formats.

If there is a knock on Evans, it is his curiously low usage in the red zone. With 13 targets last season in the red zone, Evans ranks 29th among qualified receivers, behind Zay Jones, John Brown, Corey Davis, and even Josh Reynolds.

If new head coach Bruce Arians corrects this egregious lack of volume for Evans in the red zone, look for Evans to compete with DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones, Davante Adams, and Michael Thomas for the WR1 title in 2019.

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Outlook: And now we get to the biggest fantasy quandary in perhaps all of the sport, just how to value OBJ. We've known for years that when Beckham is on the field, he's the most dynamic wide receiver in the league. But this quickly brings us to problem No.1, he's missed 17 games over the past two seasons due to injury, and only once in his 5-year career has he played a full season. The quickness, and "twitch" he plays with means he's a soft tissue injury waiting to happen, and doesn't have the size to be effective when his speed is sapped. The other problem is his mercurial nature. It's impossible to gauge his mental health half the time. Even after getting paid and being the focal point of the offense for years, he was perpetually grouchy on the Giants. Will a move to a franchise mired in a decades long funk work, even though the arrow is pointing up? I said earlier in Mayfield's piece that this Cleveland team is going to explode, one way or the other, and Beckham is going to be a big part of it. He's playing with the most naturally gifted quarterback he's ever had, but there are also a few more mouths to feed in Cleveland than there ever was during his time in New York. Based on talent and previous production alone, he's a shoo-in WR1, but the position is super deep this year, so you'll have a tough time getting real value if you draft him too early.

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Outlook: Rumors of Antonio Brown's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Despite teammate JuJu Smith-Schuster's breakout season, Brown quietly led the NFL in touchdown receptions with 15 in 2018, including a near-1,300-yard season on 104 receptions. Brown caught over 100 passes for the sixth straight season, extending his own NFL record in that category. Simply put, Brown continues to be a monster producer and it's going to be jarring to see him suiting up for a new team this season as he heads across the country to Oakland.

Brown's huge season has been downplayed by some analysts and it's true that he was not nearly as efficient with his targets as he had been in the past, but he still managed to produce an elite fantasy season. It's also worth considering that Roethlisberger, despite leading the league in passing yards, wasn't particularly accurate with his passes.

The Raiders will almost certainly continue the trend that Brown saw in Pittsburgh where he was peppered with targets nearly every single week. Tyrell Williams is the only other receiver on the team who has any history of substantial production, and even he has failed to reach 70 targets in each of his past two seasons despite playing in all 16 games for the Chargers. Given the Raiders' lack of pass catching options, there's a realistic chance that Brown leads the league in targets. He's never quite achieved 200 targets, but that's not out of the realm of possibility here in 2019.

That massive target floor and ceiling makes Brown an extremely safe option despite the assumed quarterback downgrade from Roethlisberger to Carr. Sure, we know that it's often difficult for a player to produce his typical numbers on a new team, but Brown's not just any player. This is an all-time great player who will continue to be the focal point of his team's passing game and thus is likely being underrated for fantasy purposes even if the rest of his teammates are not particularly good.

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Outlook: With two straight top-10 finishes at the position, it's time to give Adam Thielen some serious respect. An expert route runner with a gigantic catch radius, Thielen was literally unstoppable during a historic first half of the 2018 season. He tied Calvin Johnson for the most consecutive 100-yard receiving games with 8, added 6 touchdowns, and recorded a mind boggling 89 targets during that span. While Thielen owners were rejoicing over the start to the season, fantasy seasons last longer than 8 weeks. And that's too bad, as Thielen's second half looked nothing like the first.

Over the final 8 games of the season, Thielen only had one more double digit game, and scored only three more touchdowns. The offensive inconsistency threw the Vikings into a tailspin from which they couldn't recover. Despite the amazing start, it's more than likely Thielen's poor second half cost those same teams fantasy titles.

All is not lost however! While I do think 2018 will likely go down as Thielen's career year, there is plenty of reason to believe he's still worthy of being a WR1 in fantasy. He's a format all-star, as he's sure to pace the Vikings in receptions for the third straight year, and is sure to push for 6+ touchdowns and 1200 yards. Thielen showed a great rapport with Cousins last season, and his technical and physical gifts make him impossible to completely shut out. He might not be exciting, but he is as reliable and productive as any receiver in the league, and you are still likely to nab him with great value in your draft.

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Outlook: He's not as flashy as many of the receivers going ahead of him in fantasy drafts, but the only real concern about Keenan Allen is his injury history. However, after playing in all 16 games in back-to-back seasons for the first time in his career, Allen may finally be shutting the doubters up in that regard.

Allen's 199 receptions over the past two seasons are obviously an elite number, along with his nearly 2,600 receiving yards over that time span. Unfortunately, the one area where he's never been an elite producer is in the touchdown department. Allen has scored just six touchdowns in each of his past two seasons and his career high is just eight scores on a season. While it's easy to write him off and say, "well he's just not a touchdown scorer," it's worth noting that statistically, Allen should actually be in line for a bit of a positive regression in the touchdown department.

There is some concern that Allen will see fewer targets in 2019 due to the emergence of wide receiver Mike Williams and the return of Hunter Henry does give Allen some competition that he didn't have in 2018, but the Chargers will also now be without their No.2 wide receiver from last year, Tyrell Williams, who left for Oakland this off season, as well as Antonio Gates who is unsigned as of the writing of this article.

Ultimately, Allen is still the alpha dog in this passing offense and should see his targets hover around the 130 to 150 mark this season, making him a solid, high-floor player. If he's able to get into the end zone even just a couple more times, Allen will almost certainly finish the season again as a borderline WR1.

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Outlook: Cooper played in nine games with the Cowboys in 2018 after joining the team via trade from the Oakland Raiders for a 2019 first round draft pick. In those nine games, Cooper caught 53 balls for 725 yards and six touchdowns on 76 targets.

His 16-game pace based on his numbers with the Cowboys would have given Cooper 94 catches for 1,288 yards and 12 touchdowns, which would have placed him firmly inside the top-12 at the wide receiver position.

On a negative note, Cooper continued his career-trend of monster games mixed in with duds, with two 30-plus point performances sandwiched around three games of fewer than five fantasy points. Lack of consistency is the main reason why Cooper has yet to ascend to the elite level among wide receivers, as his knack of disappearing at times burns fantasy owners.

For this reason, Cooper is a far more attractive player in best ball formats than standard leagues, but he should still be considered a high-end No.2 WR in both standard and PPR leagues.

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