7 NFL Wide Receivers in Best Position for Breakout Season in 2024

Alex BallentineJuly 17, 20247 NFL Wide Receivers in Best Position for Breakout Season in 20240 of 7

Green Bay Packers wide receiver Dontayvion WicksTodd Kirkland/Getty Images

No position in the NFL has skyrocketed in value and name recognition quite like wide receivers over the past few seasons. Teams are paying premiums for the best receivers in the league, and fantasy football managers are paying up for elite pass-catchers too.

Netflix even chose to profile the position after giving quarterbacks the spotlight last season.

Given their increasing importance across real-life football and the fantasy game, the ability to identify who is about to break out is a valuable skill.

Here, we’ll take a crack at the task.

Projecting how wide receivers are going to develop can be a little challenging. Their success isn’t just about their skill; it’s heavily impacted by scheme, opportunity and quarterback play as well.

Taking all of those factors into consideration, here’s a look at seven receivers who are primed to break out this season by making a notable leap in their production. Rookies were not considered because we are basing the term “breakout” as a leap in previous NFL production.

Quentin Johnston, Los Angeles Chargers1 of 7

Quentin JohnstonRic Tapia/Getty Images

Quentin Johnston did not do a lot to inspire confidence with his rookie season. There’s no way around that.

His raw numbers were not good, as he posted just 38 receptions for 431 yards and two touchdowns despite seeing 67 targets. The underlying metrics weren’t kind to him either. He posted just a 20.7 percent win rate vs. man coverage, according to Player Profiler.

Some of the issues he faced were somewhat predictable. Derrik Klassen noted Johnston’s issue with drops at TCU in his scouting report before he was taken in the first round. Those showed up on more than one occasion in Los Angeles.

However, there were some issues with the way he was used by Kellen Moore and the offensive staff last season. Johnston is built like a traditional deep ball target at 6’3″, 208 pounds; however, he also thrived as a YAC weapon in college as well.

New offensive coordinator Greg Roman has already referenced moving Johnston all over the formation and leaning into his abilities with the ball in his hands already.

The bottom line is that Johnston is going to have many factors working for him to break out. He has an incredibly talented quarterback in Justin Herbert. He’ll also be playing in an offense that now has a more defined identity under Jim Harbaugh and Roman.

Then there’s the fact that the departures of Mike Williams, Keenan Allen and others leave the Chargers with the most vacated targets and receiving yards in the league.

Rookie Ladd McConkey is going to soak up some of that production. Joshua Palmer could see an uptick in production, but Johnston will get every opportunity to become a staple of the offense.

Wan’Dale Robinson, New York Giants2 of 7

Wan’Dale RobinsonJim McIsaac/Getty Images

It’s not uncommon to see a receiver really hit their stride in the third year of their NFL career. Nico Collins was the latest to experience the Year 3 spike, becoming a star for the Texans offense in 2023.

Some of the candidates to have a Year 3 bump have too much production to be considered “breakout” players. Garrett Wilson, Drake London, Chris Olave and George Pickens are already the top receivers on their teams. All except London have at least one 1,000-yard season to their name already.

Wan’Dale Robinson hasn’t had as much success since going in the second round of the 2022 NFL draft. But he has a chance to make a leap with the New York Giants this season.

The Giants receiving corps is fairly nebulous at this point. It could be assumed that Malik Nabers will eventually take over as the top target within the offense. They wouldn’t have used a top-10 pick on him if that wasn’t the plan.

However, Robinson appears to have captured the coaching staff’s attention as well. Dan Duggan of The Athletic reported the Giants have moved Robinson in the backfield, in the slot and out wide during OTA work.

Brian Daboll is going to have to get creative to make up for the loss of Saquon Barkley in the passing game. Losing Darren Waller to retirement should open up some targets over the middle as well.

Robinson, a quick 5’8″, 185-pound playmaker, is the kind of chess piece that could help provide cover for both roles. If so, he might break out as the kind of playmaker who can be a high-end No. 2 to Nabers for years to come.

Khalil Shakir, Buffalo Bills3 of 7

Khalil ShakirBryan M. Bennett/Getty Images

Keon Coleman is an exciting addition for a Buffalo Bills team that traded away Stefon Diggs. Khalil Shakir will still be the team’s No. 1 option in the passing game, though.

The Bills’ decision to trade Diggs became easier as the season wore on and Shakir took over as the team’s most effective receiver. As Graham Barfield of Fantasy Points noted, the third-year receiver actually led the Bills in yards per game over the final 12 games of the season last year at 50.9.

He was incredibly efficient, earning that number with 51 fewer targets than Diggs and 26 fewer than Gabe Davis. Now the Bills will be without those two receivers, vacating 241 targets from an elite quarterback in Josh Allen.

Allen should have plenty of trust in Shakir at this point. He had a 133.6 passer rating when targeting Shakir in 2023, the highest mark for a receiver in the league, per Player Profiler.

Shakir isn’t likely to absorb a whole lot of the deep targets that Davis had. That role is better suited for Coleman. But it’s hard to see anyone else taking the manufactured touches that Diggs used to see.

There isn’t a much better context to support a breakout season. Shakir should be a target magnet, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him clear 100 receptions and 1,000 yards in the Bills offense.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Seattle Seahawks4 of 7

Jaxon Smith-NjigbaMatthew Maxey/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The Seattle Seahawks used a first-round pick on Jaxon Smith-Njigba last season, but it was hard for him to be a star in the offense with DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett both soaking up a lot of targets.

Both Metcalf and Lockett will be on the roster again to start out the 2024 season, but Lockett is another year older. He’ll be 32 in December, while Smith-Njigba is just getting started at 22 years old.

It’s important to keep in mind that injuries also played a role in Smith-Njigba’s rookie season. He had a hamstring injury that cost him games at Ohio State and rolled into his post-draft offseason. Then he started the season with a brace from a broken wrist that was surgically repaired.

Fighting through those injuries and a talented duo of veterans makes his 628 yards on 63 receptions a little more impressive in hindsight.

The only concern for a JSN breakout season could be the competition for targets. However, he still saw 93 as a rookie, and Tyler Lockett is a logical trade candidate if the Seahawks aren’t competitive by the trade deadline.

A Smith-Njigba breakout season could form a new formidable duo in the Pacific Northwest.

Dontayvion Wicks, Green Bay Packers5 of 7

Dontayvion WicksPerry Knotts/Getty Images

There are a lot of opinions about who the breakout wide receiver is going to be in Green Bay this season. Jordan Love showed that he can play at an elite level over the back half of last season, and there are plenty of talented young receivers in Green Bay.

The most important opinion on the receivers belongs to Love, though. After all, he’s the one throwing Christian Watson, Jayden Reed, Romeo Doubs and Dontayvion Wicks the ball.

It was Wicks that Love predicted is going to have a “monster year” in an interview for Bleacher Report.

The Packers might have unearthed a gem when they took Wicks in the fifth round of the 2023 draft. His raw box score numbers were strong for a Day 3 rookie, as he reeled in 39 passes for 581 yards and four touchdowns.

Wicks was even more impressive when you look at more granular measures like his success rate running different routes. According to Reception Perception, Wicks had a success rate of at least 73.3 percent on seven of the 10 routes they chart.

There are a lot of young receivers on the Green Bay offense, so that stands as a challenge for Wicks to hit his ceiling. However, Wicks’ versatility and success at running a full route tree should give him an advantage over some of the more one-dimensional choices Love has.

Jameson Williams, Detroit Lions6 of 7

Jameson WilliamsEzra Shaw/Getty Images

Much like Quentin Johnston, Jameson Williams hasn’t done a lot to prove that he’ll eventually live up to the hype that comes with being a first-round pick. However, Williams has been impacted by his availability in each of his first two seasons.

Williams was drafted in the first round of the 2022 draft after tearing his ACL in the national championship game. The injury forced him to miss 11 games of his rookie season, and he caught just one pass. Granted, that pass was a 41-yard touchdown, but it was a less-than-ideal start to his career.

Then Williams suffered a hamstring injury in training camp that forced him to miss the rest of the preseason before serving a three-game suspension for violating the league’s betting policy by betting on non-NFL games from an NFL facility.

Williams flashed some of the dynamic playmaking that made him a first-round pick once he got on the field, but not nearly enough. He ended up with just 25 receptions for 395 yards and three touchdowns.

Assuming Williams can get a full training camp and preseason to find his way and hit the ground running, this could finally be the season he puts everything together. The Lions already have a target-magnet No. 1 receiver in Amon-Ra St. Brown, but Josh Reynolds’ departure opens up a role for a high-end No. 2 who can threaten defenses vertically.

Williams filling that role and helping the Lions offense continue to evolve could yield big numbers.

Michael Wilson, Arizona Cardinals7 of 7

Michael WilsonChristian Petersen/Getty Images

There’s naturally going to be a lot of eyes on Marvin Harrison Jr. in the desert this season. He’s the most hyped rookie receiver in a long time, and he’ll have high expectations for his debut season.

But don’t forget that Michael Wilson already showed a lot to get excited about last season.

The third-round pick got off to a hot start on a Cardinals offense that didn’t have Kyler Murray to start the season. He had at least 50 yards in five of the first eight games of the year before injuries threw him off track.

From Weeks 9-13, he played in just one game. When he got back to the lineup, it took him a while to adjust, but he did finish out the year with six catches for 95 yards against the Seattle Seahawks.

With Harrison presumably the team’s top receiver, a lot of people will forget about the promise Wilson showed. That could be a mistake.

The second-year player recently said on Arizona Sports’ Wolf & Luke show he feels a “night and day” difference from his rookie season to this year. With more confidence in the playbook and chemistry with Kyler Murray, he could have big things in store.

There’s no reason that Harrison and Wilson both can’t flirt with 1,000 yards in 2024.