Are you a social media-certified Knower of Ball? The qualification exam for 2024 is super easy. It’s just one question: “Are you hip to the skills of Dontayvion Wicks?” Of course, Puka Nacua was the breakout 5th-round rookie wide receiver to have in fantasy football last year, but Wicks laid enough foundation to believe we may have plumbed two fantasy-relevant players from the depths of the 2023 draft.
Dontayvion Wicks 2024 Fantasy Football Outlook
The Path to the 5th Round
The Packers love buying the proverbial draft dip on prospects whose final season, for whatever reason, was a disappointment relative to their penultimate season (see: Love, Jordan). Wicks was a poster child for this paradigm.
Wicks put himself on the prospect radar with a breakout redshirt sophomore campaign in 2021. He turned 57 receptions into 1203 yards and nine touchdowns. But injury and tragedy conspired to ruin his 2022. Wicks missed two games due to injury, and the Cavaliers’ final two games were canceled when three members of the football team were killed in a mass shooting committed by a classmate.
Wicks’ combine will go down, as shown in example 422,645 (citation needed), as to why the 40-yard dash is an overrated individual metric. He ran a positively glacial 4.62-second 40-yard dash, but the rest of his testing was good enough to forge a 9.21 relative athletic score. That score certainly caused the athleticism-obsessed Packers to take notice.
2023 in Review
Wicks’ 2023 statistical line is hardly the stuff of legend. His 39 catches for 581 yards and four touchdowns probably didn’t win anyone a fantasy championship. In truth, he only had about 150 more yards and two more touchdowns than Chargers rookie Quentin Johnston, who is near-universally viewed as a draft bust. So why are we talking about Wicks as a divining rod of “ball knowledge” and ignoring Johnston?
Expectations certainly play into the discussion. Johnston was a first-round pick. Wicks was a fifth. Making the team and contributing at all to a playoff run was a win for Green Bay’s investment in Wicks.
The real difference shows up in their efficiencies or lack thereof. The contrasts in their respective Player Profiler pages are stark. Wicks’ efficiency metrics (yards per target, yards per route run, win rate, average separation, Et al.) suggest he’s an elite player who only needs more opportunity to be a star. Johnston…not so much.
2024 Look Ahead
The aforementioned need for more opportunity is the potential fly in the ointment for Wicks’ breakout opportunity. Even if Jordan Love thinks Wicks is due for a major breakout, the target competition he’ll face is the eight-headed hydra in the (receiver) room.
Much has been made of the Packers’ talent throughout their receiver group vs. having a true number-one receiver. Regardless of how you come down on the discussion for actual football, it’s not the best situation for fantasy. There’s a lot of talent on the Green Bay offense and only one ball to go around.
Assuming health, Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs will probably be the starting outside receivers, with Jayden Reed manning the slot and the first in three-receiver sets. One can only imagine that coach Matt LaFleur is licking his chops, wanting to get second-year tight ends Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft on the field at the same time to confuse defenses as to the intention of a given play.
So where does that leave our second-year hero from Virginia? Basically in the same place as everyone else in the offense. Terrific best ball options but with stone zero floors on a weekly basis, making them terrifying starts in managed lineup leagues.
Take the Packers’ playoff game against Dallas, for example. As good as Jayden Reed has been all season, he saw three targets and had no catches in a game in the Packers’ offense, putting up a 40 spot in. Doubs and Aaron Jones happened to be the offensive heroes that day. They’ll all have their days this year. It’s just going to be really tough to tell when they’re going to be.
Check out where Dontayvion Wicks falls in our 2024 fantasy football rankings!
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A Look Inside the Green Bay Packers
Editor’s Note: While Joel focused on Dontayvion Wicks in fantasy football, we don’t want to leave you hanging on the rest of the team. Here is a quick look at the other fantasy-relevant Packers.
Jordan Love
Aaron who? Love was the best QB in the league over the final eight games of the season (18 TD, 1 INT). He’s the one part of the offense you’ll be able to trust as a week-in, week-out starter and is an elite QB option.
Josh Jacobs
The dropoff from 2022 to 2023 was stark. The QB and offensive environment upgrade should get him closer to the ‘22 version.
Marshawn Lloyd
The talent is undeniable. The things that coaches care about in their RBs (pass protection, ball security) are in doubt. The pre-season talk from the coaching staff makes it sound like he’s going to get significant run.
Christian Watson
If the hamstring asymmetry can be overcome, he retains the elite WR ceiling hinted at by his elite athleticism.
Romeo Doubs
Reduced his drop rate to a third of its unacceptable 2022 level. He’s not going away and should be highly valued in TD-heavy fantasy environments (looking at you Underdog Fantasy).
Jayden Reed
More than justified his somewhat surprising draft capital. When they drafted him, the Packers specifically mentioned his ability to play outside as well as man the slot. That and his role in the run game give him a high touch floor.
Bo Melton
From practice squad to playoff touchdown scorer. If Watson can’t stay on the field, Melton’s speed would seemingly make him a direct replacement.
Luke Musgrave
The athleticism was as promised, and the college knee issues didn’t carry over (his kidney laceration was a freak injury resulting from an …unnecessarily violent tackle). If/when the physical coordination to maximize the athleticism comes along, he has a chance to be special.
Tucker Kraft
Contingent value with a Musgrave injury; otherwise a TD-or-bust option at tight end.
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