Old reliable. That’s the wide receiver position in fantasy football. The top guys have the ~400 PPR point upside that the top running backs have. But, due to the nature of the two positions, there is more longevity to the wide receiver position. And the age apex is a bit later. That allows the great players to stay fantasy relevant much longer.

That makes loading up on young wide receivers in your dynasty fantasy football leagues a great strategy for any build. But it’s especially prudent to do so if you are rebuilding or playing the long game. You can always flip the script and trade for aging but productive running backs later, but the price for star wide receivers does not typically drop.

Top 15 Dynasty Fantasy Football Wide Receivers 2026

As we are doing with each position, we are going to cover the top names at wide receiver first. Then we’ll highlight some later players that we are aggressively looking to buy or quietly looking to sell. So let’s dig into the top 15 wide receiver rankings for dynasty fantasy football and whether we plan to buy, hold, or sell them. 

 

 

 

Ja'Marr Chase, Cincinnati Bengals, 25 years old

The write-ups for a number of these players will not be long. Ja'Marr Chase is a superstar who is just now entering the age apex, and he’s tied to one of the best quarterbacks in the league. Joe Burrow has a massive contract with guaranteed money, Ja'Marr Chase has a massive contract with guaranteed money; neither is going anywhere.  

  • Recommendation: Buy

Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Seattle Seahawks, 23 years old

There is a reason that JSN was on the cover of this article in 2024. We suggested that he was on the “Chris Godwin trajectory”. Godwin was the WR2 overall in fantasy in his third year in the league, and now so is JSN. He’s expensive, but my thought process has always been to get the super elite guys by any means necessary and figure out the rest later. There is no WR2 or tight end out there that could come in and meaningfully dilute what this guy does. 

  • Recommendation: Buy

Malik Nabers, New York Giants, 22 years old

This guy has already proven to be special at a super young age. He’s proven to be an absolute target machine, regardless of who the quarterback is. We like Jaxson Dart, we like John Harbaugh, and we like the direction the team is moving in. When guys get hurt, sometimes we become too concerned with “buying low”. The reality is that you probably have a chance to buy at face value, which is multiple firsts, when you otherwise would have no shot. That’s a discount enough.

  • Recommendation: Buy

Puka Nacua, Los Angeles Rams, 24 years old

There aren’t going to be too many sell recommendations among the super elite options. But we need to reassess our thoughts on what “quarterback proof” really means. Guys like Andre Johnson and Terry McLaurin were QB-proof in the sense of a floor. But the ceiling was not as high, especially with regard to touchdowns. I mean, look at Justin Jefferson this year. 

Matthew Stafford will reportedly be back in 2026, but he turns 38 next month, and we’ve already entered into the world where we need to ask him if he’s playing football again or not. Sometimes teams just get lucky at quarterback, and sometimes wide receivers leave for greener pastures. Other times, they get stuck in a bit of a holding period while they try to link up with a high-end passer.

  • Recommendation: Hold

CeeDee Lamb, Dallas Cowboys, 26 years old

Lamb is a player where you really need to go out of your way to invent reasons not to want him on your team. He’s smack at the start of the age apex for wide receivers. Dak Prescott loves him, and Dak is not going anywhere. Power slot/flankers like Ja'Marr Chase and CeeDee Lamb don’t need to worry about split ends like Tee Higgins and George Pickens in terms of targets - if anything, it keeps the defense honest and draws the top corner on the outside. CeeDee Lamb is the exact kind of guy you should prioritize in start-ups or add at face value. It should cost you multiple firsts. And that’s fine.

  • Recommendation: Buy

 

 

 

Justin Jefferson, Minnesota Vikings, 26 years old

Look, the quarterback situation isn’t ideal. But, if you were going to sell Justin Jefferson, it should have been done on the concern before the season, not in the aftermath following it. You’re just never going to get fair value at this moment. If anything, you should try to buy Jefferson low, though that’s always easier in theory than in practice. Right now, you are just holding Jefferson and hoping the quarterback position is figured out sooner rather than later - ideally, with JJ McCarthy being the guy that figures it out. 

  • Recommendation: Hold

Drake London, Atlanta Falcons, 24 years old

We don’t always get the conditions we need to evaluate wide receivers. Sometimes they don’t get a full-time role right away. Sometimes the role they have is not ideal for them. Sometimes the quarterback is bad. Sometimes the playcalling is bad. With Drake London, he’s already been asked to play as a full-time wide receiver in the most difficult role as the split end. And we’ve seen him succeed in fantasy despite questions about playcalling and quarterback play. And he’s still only 24 years old. You can never have too many Drake Londons. 

  • Recommendation: Buy

Amon-Ra St. Brown, Detroit Lions, 26 years old

I was pretty famously wrong about Amon-Ra St. Brown early in his career. I figured that, when the Lions completed their rebuild, they would add high-end pass-catchers that would see the Day 3 draft pick become a part-time slot guy. Boy, was I wrong.

ARSB has been a catch machine with 100+ catches in four straight seasons. In any sort of PPR, he’s absolutely locked in. They drafted a wide receiver in the first round (Jameson Williams), a running back in the first round (Jahmyr Gibbs), and a tight end in the second round (Sam LaPorta), and none of that has derailed ARSB. Maybe you sell him in standard leagues, but in most formats, he’s going to be in your lineup every week for the next few years, minimum.  

  • Recommendation: Hold

Tetairoa McMillan, Carolina Panthers, 22 years old

With high-end assets, we want certainty. We only get so many first-round picks, and we need to make sure they go to good use. With later picks and bench spots, we lean into uncertainty. The Carolina Panthers took a step forward and, though they limped into the playoffs, they gave the Rams a run for their money (a team they already beat once). We like Dave Canales, and Bryce Young is growing on us.

More importantly, McMillan immediately surpassed fellow first-round pick Xavier Leggette and all other incumbent pass catchers. He established himself as the alpha wide receiver on this team as a rookie, which is no easy task. Having 70 catches, over 1,000 yards, and 7 touchdowns is exactly what we like to see, and I expect McMillan to be a staple in fantasy lineups for years to come. 

  • Recommendation: Buy

Ladd McConkey, Los Angeles Chargers, 23 years old

Any offshoot of the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree is good for the top weapons and bad for the ancillary pieces. Why? He uses a fullback and blocking tight ends. That basically vaporizes the WR3. But it highly consolidates the targets among the top two WRs, the tight end, and the running back. McConkey is very obviously a top two wide receiver on the team and should benefit from the new scheme. I’m now buying in on a player that I was not previously super heavy on. The group of wide receivers after Amon-Ra St. Brown is fairly close, but age is a factor for us with both McConkey and McMillan. 

  • Recommendation: Buy

 

 

 

Nico Collins, Houston Texans, 26 years old

After a slow start to his career, Nico Collins has now his 1,000+ yards in back to back to back seasons. He’s the clear alpha for his team, and there are no signs of that changing in the near future. The one knock on Collins is his injury history, as he’s now managed to miss games in all five of his seasons. But I care less about the “injury prone” label in dynasty when I’m competing to win, as I’m already pushing the chips with depth. For years, with a guy like Keenan Allen, you’d just start him when you have him and start someone else when he misses time - dynasty is not like redraft, where all the assets are evenly distributed. 

  • Recommendation: Hold

Chris Olave, New Orleans Saints, 25 years old

Look at the early careers for guys like Terry McLaurin and Brandin Cooks. They were pretty consistently giving you 1,000+ yards receiving. Whether or not they scored a bunch of touchdowns really boiled down to the offense and how good the quarterback is. Brandin Cooks did well with QBs like Drew Brees and Tom Brady, just like McLaurin never scored more than 5-7 until he played with Jayden Daniels, when he scored 13. And that’s how we view Olave. He’s a guy you can start with subpar QBs, but will thrive with better ones if/when that time comes.

Concussions are a tricky subject in the NFL, and the same is true for fantasy football. But, for us, the injury-prone label is just another piece of stigma we can take advantage of. Brandin Cooks and Davante Adams had concussion issues early on, and people called for their retirements early on - both went on to have ~10K career yards. So that is not scaring us off this player.  

  • Recommendation: Hold

George Pickens, Dallas Cowboys, 24 years old

George Pickens is the diva wide receiver personified. There’s no telling how he’ll react to contract negotiations and/or a franchise tag with Jerry Jones. But we saw this season that he can be absolutely dominant with a QB with a gunslinger mentality - something the Steelers never had in his time there. So, Pickens is the kind of guy that we are holding onto for now.

That said, he can go in anynumber of directions. He could stay with the Cowboys, where he would have a good floor but maybe not a super elite ceiling next to Lamb. He could leave to be the #1 target for a good quarterback, like Josh Allen. Or he could take a big contract to play for a bad team, and then it’s just the Steelers all over. So we aren’t going crazy buying him either.

  • Recommendation: Hold

Marvin Harrison Jr, Arizona Cardinals, 23 years old

I’m not giving up on Marvin Harrison Jr in dynasty. Quite the opposite, in fact. We need to find a way to separate “disappointment based on expectation” vs. “future value”. Expectations were high, so MHJ scoring 196.5 PPR points as a rookie felt disappointing. Meanwhile, we are very excited about Tetairoa McMillan, who just scored 211.4. Marv is less than a year older than McMillan and still has just as much potential.

It was just revealed to use pretty clearly that there are other passes capable of distributing the ball better than Kyler Murray. With Jacoby Brissett, a guy like Michael Wilson, who didn’t offer much for multiple years, turned into a top 10 wide receiver. Harrison was banged up for much of that span, so we didn’t really get to see what he was capable of with a different quarterback. Which, honestly, is a good thing for his value, as you can actually buy in on the ground floor now.

  • Recommendation: Buy

Garrett Wilson, New York Jets, 25 years old

Garrett Wilson is in a similar holding pattern to Chris Olave. Good player with serious quarterback questions. The difference is that they don’t even have a serviceable quarterback now, and the 2026 offseason is kind of a terrible time to acquire one. Not to mention, we really do not trust the ownership group in New York. We really wish that Wilson had not committed to being a New York Jet until he’s 30 years old with a massive guaranteed contract. 

If you are competing now and want to pivot to a more sure thing, then that makes sense - otherwise, you are just waiting for the Jets to make the correct call at quarterback. Keep in mind that multiple quarterbacks they have now drafted have gone on to be starting quarterbacks with other clubs, so it’s also about them handling that quarterback properly. 

  • Recommendation: Sell