Overvalued Players: 9 Wide Receivers to Avoid

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Overvalued players can derail your entire season. The Footballguys staff warns of wide receivers who are overvalued.

The flip side of succeeding with value players is failing with overvalued players. They can clog your roster and never seem to match your expectations. Avoiding them is another of the important keys to a successful fantasy team. To point out these players, we asked our staff to identify players available in the top half of your draft who should underperform their draft position.

RELATED: See the 11 Undervalued Wide Receivers here >>>

Here are the players who received the most votes:

• Marvin Harrison Jr., Arizona
• DJ Moore, Chicago
• Puka Nacua, LA Rams

And here are the reasons why, along with a team full of overvalued receivers.

Overvalued Player Receiving 4 Votes

Marvin Harrison Jr., Arizona

Chad Parsons: The top 10 is appropriate for Marvin Harrison Jr. on the dynasty front. However, in redraft, only a select few rookie receivers have been to grace WR1 territory in their first season. Trey McBride enjoyed a breakout season in 2023 and Michael Wilson can be a viable WR2 within the offense. Harrison is priced near his ceiling and the reasonable upside is more as a WR2/3 in fantasy, which would point to a more pronounced breakout in 2025.

Gary Davenport: In the interest of transparency, I am a huge Harrison guy—I can't remember the last time a wideout with his talent and polish entered the NFL. I have already gone on record that he will break every rookie receiving record there is to break. But I also predicted a Jets-Lions Super Bowl, because the point of that piece was to be bold (I may stick to the latter. Wrong all the time anyway—might as well be so with some style). The problem with Harrison isn't Harrison—it's the price tag. He may well wind up a top-12 wideout. At some point, he'll enter the conversation as the No. 1 fantasy pick overall—he's that good. But drafting at ceiling is just bad juju—especially with a rookie. As deeply as it pains me, if a second-rounder is what Harrison will cost in 2024 (and WR9 is most assuredly Round 2—early in it.) then I'm (sigh) out.

Bob Harris: The 6-foot-3, 209-pound Harrison is a smooth route runner who can hit another gear when the ball goes up. He tracks the ball well over his shoulder while using his big frame and huge catch radius to work like a power forward to wall off and shield defenders. Once the ball is in his hands, Harrison leans on speed and physicality more than elusiveness. So yes, Harrison is a prototypical No. 1 receiver, and his skill set aligns with Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray. But WR9? I'm fine drafting proven players with multi-year histories of success at or near their ceiling; I'm less eager to do that with rookies.

Andy Hicks: Sometimes you wonder if early ADP numbers favor rookie players far too heavily after the draft. The positioning of Harrison suggests that he is being taken at an almost impossible-to-achieve landing spot for a rookie. Of course, he could land in the top 10 fantasy receivers, but it doesn't take much to go wrong for a wide receiver to go from top 12 to outside the top 30 fantasy receivers. Everything has to go right in his debut season to achieve this draft spot. Take the guys who have better situations and odds of achieving these outcomes.

Overvalued Players Receiving 3 Votes

DJ Moore, Chicago

Chad Parsons: The projections for DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, and Rome Odunze point to an elite season out of the gate for Caleb Williams. The average 1.01-drafted quarterback finishes in the QB24 range for fantasy in Year 1. Moore is the most expensive of the wide receiver trio in the WR15-20 range, and an avoid based on competition for targets (among the highest in the NFL) plus being paired with a rookie quarterback.

Gary Davenport: You know why Moore is overvalued right now? It's not talent—if he isn't elite, he's elite-adjacent. It's the scramble drill. Rookie quarterbacks do one of two things with regularity—hold the ball too long or roll out of a pocket too soon. Caleb Williams was doing the latter the past two years in college, so a big change there is unlikely. Once Williams rolls out, you know who's going to find a hole in the coverage 12 yards downfied? Keenan Allen. It's his thing. This isn't to say that Moore won't be a solid WR2—that Bears offense has the potential to be their best in a while. But Allen is going to out-score Moore in 2024 in PPR points. Book it.

Leo Paciga: This one hurts to type, especially since Moore is coming off a very successful 2023 season in which he caught 96 passes for 1,364 yards and 8 TDs. I'd love to project much of the same for D.J. this season but while the team's overall expectations are higher, the ingredients have changed, and Moore is the player most likely impacted. The Bears drafted QB Caleb Williams at 1.01, added Keenan Allen and rookie Rome Odunze at WR, signed Gerald Everett as a viable TE2 behind Cole Kmet, and have a crowded, talented RB room - all of which will factor in to create a completely new offensive dynamic for 2024. Moore's current ADP is WR17 and with so many new pieces in play and the uncertainty of a rookie QB under center - even one as talented as Williams - I'm avoiding D.J. at that price.

Puka Nacua, LA Rams

Gary Davenport: Nacua was amazing as a rookie—a league-winner of a late-round pick or waiver add who broke a record older than I am—and kids, I'm old (like eligible for AARP benefits old). But just like disappointing players get cast aside the following year, fantasy drafters who won trophies because of Nacua are leaping to add him again. The fly in that ointment is that a healthy Cooper Kupp is going to eat into Nacua's numbers—unless you think Matthew Stafford is throwing for 5,000 yards. If opposing defensive coordinators are as high on Nacua as fantasy managers are, he'll be the one being bracketed this year—while a cheaper Kupp eats.

Bob Harris: Nacua is coming off a historic season built on an unexpected opportunity with Cooper Kupp sidelined by a hamstring injury. Nacua took advantage by posting 25 catches and racking up 266 receiving yards over his first two games. He finished with 105 catches for 1,486 yards and six touchdowns, making him WR4 on the season. But as DraftSharks' Jared Smola pointed out, in 12 games with Kupp on the field, Nacua's average targets dropped from 11.8 to 8.8 per game, and his catches fell from 8.8 to 5.5. More importantly, his 22.8 PPR points per game dipped to 16.9 points per game. As much as I like Nacua (and I'd love to have him as my WR1 at a cheaper price), drafting him as WR6, with Kupp heading into the season in good health, is betting on a significant shift in roles and workloads.

Sigmund Bloom: Nacua was a first-round value last year, but not when Cooper Kupp was on the field. He was only WR15 on a PPR points per game basis from Week 5 on. Kupp was limited for some of those games, so Nacua's outlook if Kupp stays healthy in 2024 is even dimmer than that. He could take a step forward in year two to make up some of the slack, but Nacua's ADP basically assumes that Kupp will limp through 2024 like he did 2023.

Overvalued Players Receiving 2 Votes

Zay Flowers, Baltimore

Chad Parsons: Until further notice, assume Mark Andrews is the WR1 in the Baltimore offense. Andrews missed time in 2023, opening the door for Zay Flowers and Isaiah Likely to enjoy an expanded opportunity. We have yet to see a high-end fantasy receiver in the Lamar Jackson era and Flowers does not project as well as Marquise Brown in terms of being a downfield option. Drafting a receiver in the WR20-40 range, there should still be elite upside possibilities and Flowers is on the lower band of possibilities.

Bob Harris: As CBSSports.com's Dave Richard recently noted, in the eight games when a Ravens running back had 13 or more PPR points last year, Flowers exceeded 14 PPR points just two times. In the other nine games, when a Ravens running back didn't get 13-plus PPR points, Flowers scored 14 or more PPR points four times. Given that, I expect Derrick Henry, who scored 14.1 fantasy points per game working behind one of the league's worst offensive lines in a lackluster Tennessee offense last year, to be a limiting factor for Flowers. Another? A healthy Mark Andrews, who missed six games last year, should return as Lamar Jackson's downfield target of choice. With players like Amari Cooper, Christian Kirk, and Keenan Allen available later, Flowers is an easy pass for me at WR25.

Malik Nabers, NY Giants

Jason Wood: Being excited about this year's rookie receiver class is understandable since Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers, and Rome Odunze would've each been the top receiver drafted in many prior seasons. But to my mind, Nabers landed in a terrible spot. While many still think Brian Daboll is a great coach, I would ask everyone to look at his long history calling NFL plays and then realize he's been league-average or worse in every season without Josh Allen. The Giants unwillingness to move on from Daniel Jones (Drew Lock is not an enticing alternative) not only makes it likely the Giants offense continues to be at or near the league bottom, but it also calls into question Daboll and the front office's futures. 

Ryan Weisse: Looking at this list, I'm pretty happy with most wide receivers at their current price. Nabers is the glaring exception. The worst part is that this has nothing to do with Malik Nabers. With Daniel Jones set to lead the Giants yet again, there is no way to trust any of the team's receivers. Jones and the Giants haven't thrown more than 20 touchdowns since 2019, and no Giants receiver has scored more than five times in that span. Everyone loves rookies, which is propping up his draft cost. He is the best player in the Giants' offense already, but that kind of attention from defenses is going to make things tough during his rookie season.

Chris Olave, New Orleans

Julia Papworth: Chris Olave as the 11th wide receiver off the board is too high for me. To get a return on this investment, Olave would have to finish at least eight spots ahead of his WR19 finish in 2023. This puts alot of faith in Derek Carr, a quarterback who has loved to check it down to Alvin Kamara (87 targets in 2023) and has also shown love for other pass catchers outside of Olave, including Rashid Shaheed, who had 75 targets that he converted to 719 yards. For Olave to warrant this draft capital, you are banking on touchdowns, which is a scary prospect for a player who has never topped five in a season. Oh, and remember Taysom Hill is still in New Orleans, ready and willing to steal touchdowns on trick plays.  Olave is a solid top-20 wide receiver, but WR11 is too rich for my blood.

Sigmund Bloom: Olave is ahead of a lot of receivers who outscored him last year. While he is heading into his third season and could improve, he was actually less efficient per target last year than he was in his rookie year. The change at offensive coordinator to Kliff Kubiak should emphasize the running game more, and Olave didn't exactly click with Derek Carr last year. There are a lot of overvalued wide receivers in the second round, but Olave stands out as the easiest to fade at an inflated ADP.

A Team Full of Overvalued Wide Receivers

Individually, these receivers are fantastic. But one has to wonder how all three can return value considering how high they are going in most drafts.