There are many strategies and methods for winning a fantasy football championship, and more are being developed each passing year.
Not to sound too much like Abe Simpson, but “back in my day, there were only a few different ways to zig when others zagged.” More advanced analytics, coupled with the growing popularity of the hobby, have spurned several new strategies to assemble the “ideal” fantasy football roster, one such being a WR-Heavy approach.
Fantasy Football Draft Strategy: WR-Heavy
The appeal of focusing on the wide receiver position is pretty simple — wideouts generally experience fewer injuries than their running back counterparts and strongly benefit from a boost in PPR and high-volume FLEX leagues.
The running back position has become less top-heavy in recent years, affording managers the opportunity to capitalize on its depth by targeting high-volume receivers instead. Above all else? The NFL is a pass-heavy league. Period.
Want to take a guess at how many teams had more rushing attempts than pass attempts last year?
Three. That’s it. The three teams were:
- Buffalo: 547 rushing attempts/495 passing attempts
- Washington: 484 rushing attempts/469 passing attempts
- Green Bay: 492 rushing attempts/489 passing attempts
So, yes, it makes sense to use the WR-Heavy approach and load your roster with a bevy of receivers, taking advantage of the versatility of the FLEX spots. Participating in a full PPR format makes wideouts even more crucial to obtain.
Depth at Running Back
Taking a quick glance over at last season’s final totals, Christian McCaffrey led all FLEX players with an astounding 416 points in 2025. Bijan Robinson (370) and Jahmyr Gibbs (366) weren’t far behind. Jonathan Taylor (362), De’Von Achane (322), and James Cook III (302) also broke the 300-point ceiling.
The top five running backs all averaged over 20 fantasy points per game, compared to just two of their wide receiver counterparts (Puka Nacua and Jaxon Smith-Njigba).
Depth at the position often allowed managers to select running backs off the waiver wire after the first few weeks, grabbing players who became bona fide RB2 options for the rest of the season. Here are just a few folks who had an amazing return on their investment costs:
- Javonte Williams had an average draft position (ADP) around the RB40-RB45 mark, and he finished as the RB12.
- Kenneth Gainwell was ranked largely outside of the top 250 players and viewed as a rotational piece alongside highly touted rookie Kaleb Johnson. Johnson landed in Mike Tomlin’s doghouse and never saw the light of day. Gainwell finished as the fantasy RB16.
- Rico Dowdle had an ADP that hovered around the 150th overall pick, placing him around the RB50 mark in standard-size formats. He ended up wrestling the starting role away from Chuba Hubbard and led Carolina in carries, finishing as the fantasy RB18.
The list goes on.
Impactful running backs were not only available to claim from the waiver wire earlier in the season as long-term starters, but also had some amazing spot starts as well, with backup options being thrust into the limelight when the starters went down.
Kyle Monangai was a stud for Chicago in the middle of 2025, as the Bears’ backfield became more of a committee situation with D’Andre Swift nursing injuries. Monangai’s dominance from Weeks 9-13 helped propel plenty of fantasy managers into the playoffs.
Though he began the season behind Tyrone Tracy Jr., Cam Skattebo eventually earned his way into the starting role, thanks to inefficiency and fumbling issues by Tracy. The rookie responded with multiple RB1 finishes from Weeks 3-7 before he tore his ACL.
Their impact wasn’t a fluke.
Other committee backs like Jordan Mason, Kimani Vidal and J.K. Dobbins also had their time to shine. It therefore stands to reason that, given the prevalence of injuries and depth chart shakeups at the position, impactful running back starters are much easier to acquire off waivers than their counterparts at wide receiver.
Last season’s epic rookie running back class further expanded the available pool of relevant options, which can be acquired late in drafts. I covered their impact in my recent “Was Zero RB Effective?” article, and the overwhelming conclusion was that yes, they were. Zero RB coincides with a WR-Heavy draft, so it stands to reason that if one held true, so did the other.
Positional Scarcity
I’ve said it several times this offseason, and I’ll echo the mantra yet again.
Volume. Is. King. In. Fantasy. Football.
For as pass-centric as the NFL is, the number of truly elite, high-target players at receiver is lower than you might expect. Offenses around the NFL have been keen on spreading the ball to tertiary options instead, focusing on mismatches in the slot against inferior defenders more than ever. This further dilutes the pool of truly “alpha” options for managers to draft.
Want to take a quick guess at how many receivers had more than 100 receptions last season?
Five.
The last time there were five or fewer players with 100 receptions was in 2019, when there were four.
An increase in passing attempts hasn’t resulted so much in the “alpha” performers at the position having outstanding seasons, either. There has been a remarkably consistent trend of five or fewer receivers finishing with 300 fantasy points or more each season. The last time that didn’t occur was 2018, with seven.
It stands to reason that if there are few true dominant receivers, focusing on that as an area of need in drafts becomes increasingly important.
The ability to fill one’s FLEX spots with fantastic talent at receiver allows managers to have a leg up on their competition, while also giving them the flexibility of focusing on the waiver wire for relevant players to fill in gaps, especially during bye week issues.
Wide Receiver Boom Rates
The running back position arguably has a higher weekly point-total floor due to the concentration of touches within a smaller player pool. However, it doesn’t have nearly the same ability to truly win you a given week outright as a wide receiver does.
Sure, this assumes that you had the ability to start the top wideout each week, but that is what we’re trying to do with a WR-Heavy draft.
Comparing wide receivers to running backs over the course of the 2025 season, wide receivers posted the higher “boom” rate. Of the 17 weeks (I’m using that as a barometer since so few leagues use Week 18), receivers had more weeks with top FLEX finishes than their running back counterparts.
Injury Risks
As alluded to, the wide receiver position typically averages fewer catastrophic injuries each season than running backs. Sure, you may have been unlucky and selected Malik Nabers as your WR1. It happens. You also could have started your draft feeling rather confident about a combination of Alvin Kamara, Omarion Hampton, Joe Mixon, Chuba Hubbard, Bucky Irving and Josh Jacobs.
Running backs have to endure more contact on average than wide receivers. Even in committee situations or when the coaching staff attempts to limit total touches, running backs eventually wear down over the course of a season.
They will attempt to play through injuries at a diminished capacity, hoping to retain their starting role and avoid being “Wally Pipped” by someone else on the depth chart.
None of the factors mentioned above will radically change as we enter the 2026 draft season. I’ll continue to highly recommend selecting an anchor option at running back early on, and then hammering the wide receiver position as much as possible during the middle rounds to give yourself flexibility.
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