Fantasy football is about creating more WR firepower than your opponents. You can’t do it without numbers, but you can’t win tournaments with numbers if you don’t select the right guys. Nothing provides more fantasy upside than hitting on undervalued WRs.
That’s been the focus of my WR Breakout Series, a research project that hits this topic from a variety of important angles.
- The importance of second-year WRs: understanding how receivers develop and why it translates into serious fantasy scoring
- The complex relationship between age and fantasy production: how and when WRs add volume and efficiency to their profiles
- Highly efficient young players and the risk/reward in chasing them: are the stars advertising themselves?
While breakouts are often the key to fantasy glory, 2024 presents a unique opportunity for players chasing a secondary breakout. If it seems like the Year 2 breakout candidates are slightly weaker than in past seasons, that’s because so many rookie WRs broke out last year.
It’s true that all these breakouts happened in the 17-game era, when reaching 200 PPR points in a season is somewhat easier than it used to be. But every player on the list above had already reached 200 points by Week 17 — none of them needed the extra week.
Of course, the fact that they’ve already broken out doesn’t make them bad picks in 2024. But it does mean that if they’re going to outperform their ADPs, in most cases we might need more than just a repeat of their rookie year performance. Are secondary breakouts in the offing?
A Brief Survey of Secondary (and Tertiary) Breakouts
Since 2016, there have been 19 occasions in which a player has reached at least 200 PPR points in a prior season and then gone on to produce a season with at least 34 additional PPR points (2 or more points per game).
| Season | Player | Year | PPR | Previous High PPR | Improvement | Previous High Season |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Justin Jefferson | 2 | 310.7 | 274.2 | 36.5 | 2020 |
| 2017 | Tyreek Hill | 2 | 239.2 | 201.6 | 37.6 | 2016 |
| 2023 | Amon-Ra St. Brown | 3 | 305.5 | 256.7 | 48.8 | 2022 |
| 2022 | Justin Jefferson | 3 | 360.2 | 310.7 | 49.6 | 2021 |
| 2022 | CeeDee Lamb | 3 | 285.4 | 227.7 | 57.7 | 2021 |
| 2021 | Diontae Johnson | 3 | 264.3 | 223.9 | 40.4 | 2020 |
| 2020 | Calvin Ridley | 3 | 283.5 | 208.8 | 74.7 | 2018 |
| 2019 | Kenny Golladay | 3 | 250.0 | 207.1 | 42.9 | 2018 |
| 2018 | Tyreek Hill | 3 | 328.0 | 239.2 | 88.8 | 2017 |
| 2018 | Michael Thomas | 3 | 321.5 | 259.7 | 61.8 | 2016 |
| 2023 | CeeDee Lamb | 4 | 369.7 | 285.4 | 84.3 | 2022 |
| 2022 | A.J. Brown | 4 | 290.1 | 249.3 | 40.8 | 2020 |
| 2019 | Michael Thomas | 4 | 374.6 | 321.5 | 53.1 | 2018 |
| 2021 | Cooper Kupp | 5 | 410.9 | 270.6 | 140.3 | 2019 |
| 2018 | Davante Adams | 5 | 329.6 | 248.7 | 80.9 | 2016 |
| 2018 | Adam Thielen | 6 | 309.3 | 243.8 | 65.5 | 2017 |
| 2023 | DJ Moore | 6 | 278.1 | 232.5 | 45.6 | 2019 |
| 2020 | Stefon Diggs | 6 | 328.6 | 266.3 | 62.3 | 2018 |
| 2018 | Julio Jones | 8 | 329.8 | 259.9 | 69.9 | 2016 |
In most cases, the previous high PPR mark was set in the year immediately preceding a secondary breakout. But in some cases there are intervening seasons. In some cases we even see tertiary breakouts (Justin Jefferson, Tyreek Hill, CeeDee Lamb, and Michael Thomas all show up twice.) And in many cases a secondary breakout adds well over 50 points above the initial breakout.
