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Kate Magdziuk shares her Week 5 wide receiver rankings for standard scoring leagues and highlights several streaming options.
Welcome to Week 5 of the 2024 NFL season! With bye weeks kicking off this week, you may be in even more need than usual of some depth to fill out your fantasy football lineups. Four teams are on bye this week, including the Detroit Lions, Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Chargers and Tennessee Titans; that means a lot of your fantasy starters relegated to the bench!
To help you out, we’ll take a look at a few WR sleepers for those in desperate need of a depth play, plus my top-75 Week 5 wide receiver rankings to help you set your fantasy football lineups.
Week 5 WR sleepers
Rostership percentages in Yahoo! Fantasy leagues are indicated in parentheses.
Dontayvion Wicks, Green Bay Packers (vs. LAR, 15%)
The Green Bay Packers have a deep wide receiver room, and they’re going to need it heading into Week 5 without field-stretcher Christian Watson in the mix, projected to be sidelined for a few weeks with a high ankle sprain. This paves the way for 2023 sixth-round pick Dontayvion Wicks to make (more) waves, coming off a matchup where he saw a career-high 13 targets, though he caught just five of them for 78 yards… and two touchdowns. With QB Jordan Love under center, this offense packs a punch, and Wicks has been a key part of that.
Wicks has played 50%+ of snaps in just nine games in his career so far, and he’s scored at least one touchdown in four of them (and two touchdowns in two of them!). This week, he’ll have an opportunity to increase that percentage of games with a tuddy up against the Los Angeles Rams’ defense. They’re tied for the second-most receiving touchdowns allowed to opposing wide receivers so far this season (7) as their secondary struggles, having earned the fourth-lowest PFF coverage grade (48.3) in the league through four weeks of the season.
Tre Tucker, Las Vegas Raiders (vs. Broncos, 9%)
The biggest storyline out of Las Vegas right now, of course, is the trade request of star wideout Davante Adams. The under-the-radar storyline is the emergence of second-year WR Tre Tucker. Tucker has played 80% or more of offensive snaps in each of the last two weeks, scoring in each of those contests, targeted on the second-highest percentage of his routes run at 21.4%.
The Raiders have a challenging divisional matchup against the Denver Broncos this week, but assuming Adams is out (hamstring), it could be Jakobi Meyers who sees the bulk of coverage from shutdown CB Pat Surtain II. Meyers has primarily played out of the slot in his career, but played 72.4% of snaps out wide with Adams out in Week 4. Expect Tucker to be a potential beneficiary of that coverage directed Meyers’ way.
Jerry Jeudy, Cleveland Browns (vs. WAS, 48%)
The irony of the timing for this recommendation isn’t lost on me; just this week, Jerry Jeudy essentially admitted he was out of shape and needed to work on his conditioning. However, even poor conditioning for a newly-paid wideout might even be enough for the Washington Commanders’ secondary to slow down.
Washington’s defense is allowing a league-high 123.3 passer rating while forcing the second-lowest contested target percentage in the league (10.4%) per PFF. They rank top-four in passing yards per attempt and lead the league in passing touchdowns allowed. While the focus of the Cleveland Browns’ passing game is clearly Amari Cooper, Jeudy has posted 70+ receiving yards in two of his last three games against low-end competition, which could pave the way for flex-worthy consideration.
Fantasy football: Week 5 WR rankings
Kate Magdziuk is an editor and contributor for Yahoo Fantasy and co-host of the Locked On Dynasty Football podcast. She is also the managing editor for Behind The Steel Curtain, SB Nation’s exclusive Pittsburgh Steelers blog. Her previous bylines include Pro Football Focus, NBC Sports Rotoworld and 4for4 Football, among others.
