Darkhorse wide receivers to finish as the fantasy football WR1 in 2021

After previously highlighting the darkhorse running backs who could finish as the overall RB1 in fantasy football in 2021, we now turn our attention to the wide receivers.

This time, we are examining what makes a receiver end the season as the fantasy WR1. The position isn’t as top-heavy as running back, but there is still juice to squeeze when targeting second- or third-tier wideouts.

Here are the WR1 finishers from the past five years using 0.5-PPR scoring:

Season	WR1	Total Points	PPG	PPG Rank
2020	Davante Adams	300.9	21.5	1
2019	Michael Thomas	300.1	18.8	1
2018	Tyreek Hill	284.5	17.8	3
2017	DeAndre Hopkins	261.8	17.5	2
2016	Jordy Nelson	256.2	16.0	2

As mentioned, the fantasy points per game are considerably lower for top-end receivers compared to running backs.

For the past two seasons, both Davante Adams and Michael Thomas were first-round ADP receivers. However, the three prior WR1s were each outside of the first round.

One interesting thing to note is that the benchmark for points per game has slowly risen over the past five years:

Season	WR1	Tgt	Tgt Share	Rec	RecYDS	Total TD
2020	Davante Adams	149	27.1%	115	1,374	18
2019	Michael Thomas	185	30.9%	149	1,725	9
2018	Tyreek Hill	137	22.2%	87	1,479	13
2017	DeAndre Hopkins	174	30.3%	96	1,378	13
2016	Jordy Nelson	152	23.1%	97	1,257	14

Taking a look at the stats breakdown tells us one fairly obvious thing: targets, targets, targets. If you adjust for Adams’ two missing games in 2020, his market share would have clocked in at 32.3%. The largest reason that Tyreek Hill finished as the WR1 in 2018 was due to a massive 17 yards per reception and some added rushing work.