The Path to a WR1 Fantasy Football Season: Tank Dell

Editor’s Note: This profile is part of our annual Path to a Fantasy WR1 series. For our methodology and an outline of the process, make sure you read the 2024 Path to WR1 Series Primer.

In the past 20 years, 78 wide receivers have hit 150 or more half-PPR points for the first time in one of their first three seasons. Of those, 70.5% have been in their second season. Forget what you’ve heard if you’ve heard something else; the most reliable breakout year for WRs is Year 2.

Excluding Puka Nacua, who broke out as a rookie, these are the 2024 ADPs for second-year WRs:

Dell is coming off a broken fibula that ended his season in Week 13, and then in April of this year, Dell was injured in a “wrong place/wrong time” shooting incident. The Texans traded for long-time alpha Stefon Diggs this spring and extended Nico Collins, who finished 10^th in half-PPR scoring in 2023. Between Dell’s health and target competition, there are plenty of reasons to feel uneasy.

However, Dell boasts an incredible second-year profile. Without exaggeration, before his injury, he was having one of the best rookie seasons in recent memory.

Find out the full statistical projections for the Footballers Consensus WR1s in the Ultimate Draft Kit.

2023 Season Recap

Dell hit 16.5 half-PPR PPG as a rookie in 2023, gathering 4.7 receptions on 7.5 targets per game, and posting 70.9 yards per game. The only rookie that hit all four of these thresholds in 2023 was Nacua.

In the past five years, only four WRs have reached these levels in all four areas: Dell, Nacua, Ja’Marr Chase, and Justin Jefferson. Going back ten years, Odell Beckham and Michael Thomas join the list. If we go back a full twenty, Marques Colston is the only other addition. That’s seven players in twenty years, one of which is Dell.

Each of those players besides Dell and Nacua has ranked in the top 12 in the league in half-PPR in points per game at least twice, and their career ledgers are littered with other productive fantasy seasons:

According to a study I did dating back to 2016, it takes around 13.2 half-PPR PPG to be a top-12 WR. Through 13 games last season, Dell was on pace for over 16. Using data dating back to 2004, Dell outpaces WR1 averages in receptions, targets, receiving yards, and TDs per game, when he would only need to bank roughly 80% of these averages to match the rates of a bottom-tier WR1.

Fantasy points, receptions, targets, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns are all among the most correlative stats for future WR fantasy performance, according to a study I did weighing dozens of stats dating back to 2015.

Dell vs. Collins vs. Diggs in 2024

Diggs comes over from the Bills as his relationship soured with Buffalo as it had with Minnesota. He moves to an exciting team with a lot of Super Bowl potential and one of the best young signal callers in the league, C.J. Stroud.

It is worth remembering that he also leaves an exciting team with a lot of Super Bowl potential. And as good as Stroud’s rookie season was in 2023, Josh Allen, widely regarded as one of the top two QBs in the league, has been playing at this level for years. Therefore, we cannot reasonably consider the move an upgrade.

Diggs was still a top-10 WR in 2023, something he has accomplished four seasons in a row and five of the last six. He was 10th in expected points (EP)/G, boasting an 88.3% route participation and a 0.71 weighted opportunity, which are fair. He did, however, decline as the season went along.

Stefon Diggs in key metrics by week 2023″ width=”300″ height=”190″ />Of course, this is a very small sample size, but Diggs is now 30 and quickly approaching the WR age cliff. We cannot rule out that his performance is already on the downswing (though it can’t be confirmed either).

Diggs should also face heightened target competition as he joins Dell and Collins.

Collins is reasonably the best receiver of the group. He ranked highest of the three in 2023 in half-PPR points, EP/G, yards per route run (YPRR), PFF grade, and targeted quarterback rating; he did so with the lowest route participation of the three at just 67.1%. He trails Dell in a few sturdy statistics, but these are sturdier; Collins should be taken first off the board of the three and has the greatest opportunity at a WR1 season.

However, In 2023, Dell was better than Collins in intended air yards (IAY) and converted air yards, both of which can be predictive (although Diggs was better than each at IAY). He had the best average depth of target (aDOT) of the three by a wide margin. Of some concern, Dell led the trio in fantasy points over expected (FPOE)/G and trailed them in EP/G.

As Marvin Elequin correctly stated in his tremendous recent article, EP is more reliable and predictive – a map to how production was made; FPOE is more volatile, heavily tied to big plays and TDs, which are unstable. It is reasonable that FPOE can be weighed against EP to diagnose possible regression candidates. Dell was outpacing the league average TDs/yards rate of .0044, compiling over twice that at .0099. This abnormal pace also shows up in his routes/TD, where he finished fourth in the NFL. These are all indicators that Dell may be due for some regression. The concern becomes obvious: If Dell is already a regression candidate, and Houston is adding Diggs – in no way a non sequitur, even if he is aging – Dell’s EP and FPOE are both in danger of falling, threatening his 2023 pace.

That doesn’t even account for the health concerns.

These Pangs Seem Pretty Serious Though

Our own Matthew Betz discussed Dell’s injury with Pat Kerrane three months ago; he compared Dell’s injury to Mark Andrews’, which occurred two weeks prior. Andrews was able to return to the field in the AFC Championship Game and play meaningful snaps; Betz seemed entirely unconcerned Dell would be available for the start of training camp. The gunshot wound happened later than this interview (and after Betz wrote up Dell in the Ultimate Draft Kit), so I reached out to see if there were any concerns.

“He was already on the field at OTAs in full capacity, so no worries from me,” Betz replied.

This sentiment seems to be echoed among those most familiar with the situation; there is very little concern at this point that either medical issue will prohibit Dell from taking the field to begin the season.

Conclusion

We simply cannot overlook the importance of player trajectories. Diggs is older and there is at least a modicum of evidence he is descending. Dell has done more in one year than Collins did his first two; it’s anecdotal at best, but the transition to the NFL should have been harder out of the University of Houston than out of the University of Michigan. Dell, who is admittedly older than you think at 24, is an ascending player who put up historically significant numbers as a rookie. His profile wouldn’t indicate a passable career track; it’s an elite one.

I want to encourage readers to consider more objectivity on such profiles. Sturdy second-year WR profiles are a great bet; as consistently as they are overlooked, we can usually build an entire corps of good pass-catchers simply by targeting them. That resistance you feel to Dell now is the same phenomenon driving his cost downward as we speak; if we stick to our guns in these situations, we are frequently rewarded.