Fantasy Football Week 13 wide receiver rankings: Trust Amari Cooper on TNF?

The wide receiver position is in much the same place it’s been for the past few weeks heading into Week 13: surprisingly shallow. I mean, I have Odell Beckham ranked 16th based on one good game with the Rams; Brandin Cooks is 17th with just 119 yards over three games since Tyrod Taylor’s return to action.

But who am I supposed to put ahead of them? It’s not like the likes of Terry McLaurin, DK Metcalf, or Tee Higgins have been much more reliable. DeAndre Hopkins looks like he could return from his hamstring injury this week, but the Cardinals have been spreading the ball around a ton this season, making him more touchdown-dependent than he’s ever been in his career. Maybe Brandon Aiyuk deserves to be ahead of them with Deebo Samuel out, but he hasn’t exactly been trustworthy this season.

It’s a tough situation for the position, and it’s tied to a decrease in passing production across the league that has also made the QB position look a lot shallower than expected. Here are my top 48 wide receivers for Week 13. To see the rankings from Jamey Eisenberg, Dave Richard and Heath Cummings, make sure you head here. 

Week 13 WR Rankings

1. Cooper Kupp vs. JAX
2. Tyreek Hill vs. DEN
3. Keenan Allen @CIN — Allen is a PPR superstar, but you can’t necessarily chalk his lack of touchdowns (two on 116 targets) up to bad lack, because he has just six targets from inside his opponent’s 10-yard line. Mike Williams has eight.  — 
4. Justin Jefferson @DET
5. Stefon Diggs vs. NE — The Patriots are a tough matchup, but Diggs torched them last season, putting up 15 catches for 237 yards and three touchdowns on them.  — 
6. CeeDee Lamb @NO — Lamb was a full participant in practice Monday, so it seems safe to assume he’ll be back on the field Thursday.
7. Chris Godwin @ATL — It’s possible Antonio Brown could be back for the Buccaneers in Week 13, which would make Godwin and Mike Evans a bit riskier. Not that you would be looking to avoid either, obviously. But they’d be more like WR2s.
8. Mike Evans @ATL
9. Diontae Johnson vs. BAL — Johnson has 109 targets this season without a drop. Adding up his last 16 games – which includes when he was benched for his drops in Week 14 last season — he has 110 catches on 175 targets for 1,266 yards and seven touchdowns. He struggled in two games against Baltimore last season with nine catches for 52 yards, but I’m really not worried about that.
10. Marquise Brown @PIT — Brown has been a solid PPR option thanks to 28 catches over his past five games, but it’s been a disappointing stretch overall, with 51 or fewer yards in three of five. Brown just hasn’t been able to hit on many big plays during that stretch — he has just one catch for more than 22 yards on 54 targets. Volume has obviously not been an issue, which is reason to remain optimistic, especially after we saw him pull out of an even worse slump last season. Keep the faith.
11. Tyler Lockett vs. SF
12. Ja’Marr Chase vs. LAC — Chase hasn’t made much of an impact of late, but he still has a 24% target share of his past three games, so I’m not concerned about the lack of production. This is just the natural ebb and flow of the season, and his role is too valuable to even consider sitting. Maybe he isn’t a No. 1 Fantasy WR in this low-volume pass offense, but that shouldn’t be held against him.
13. Adam Thielen @DET — Thielen has really benefited from an increase in pass volume this season, as they are on pace for nearly 80 more attempts over 16 games than they had a year ago. Of course, he’s also just still scoring touchdowns at an absurd pace, though his 11.1% rate is just south of last year’s 13% rate. If he doesn’t score, there’s a decent chance Thielen will disappoint you, but there’s a decent chance he’ll score, you know?
14. Jaylen Waddle vs. NYG — You don’t really need to break Waddle’s season up into arbitrary endpoints to make it sound impressive, seeing as he’s on a 16-game pace of 103 catches, 1,012 yards, and six touchdowns. But, just for fun: Since Week 6, he’s averaging 18.1 PPR points per game; Ja’Marr Chase is averaging 14.9 in that same span. Chase is better than Waddle, but Waddle has emerged as a must-start Fantasy option, especially in PPR.
15. Odell Beckham vs. JAX — Unsurprisingly, Beckham was more involved in the offense in his second game, matching Cooper Kupp for the team lead with 10 targets, catching five of them for 81 yards and a touchdown. He played all but one snap for the Rams, and I would expect that to be his role moving forward. Beckham is pretty beat up — injuries in both shoulders and he seemed to be grabbing at his back at times in Week 12 — but given his apparent role in this offense, I’m going to have to view him as a starting-caliber WR at this point.
16. Brandin Cooks vs. IND — The return of Tyrod Taylor to the QB spot hasn’t exactly been great news for Cooks value, as he has just 119 yards over three games since Taylor’s return. More concerningly, after being targeted 14 times in Taylor’s first game back, Cooks has been targeted just eight times. I’m still leaving him in the WR2 range for now, but I’m not super confident at this point.
17. Brandon Aiyuk @SEA
18. D.K. Metcalf vs. SF
19. Terry McLaurin @LV
20. Tee Higgins vs. LAC — And, if you’re wondering why it’s worth keeping the faith in Chase despite subpar production of late, Higgins’ Week 12 is a good example of why. When you’ve got a talented receiver tied to a good quarterback getting a good target share, that will lead to production.
21. DeAndre Hopkins @CHI — Hopkins has now had four weeks off, so the assumption here is he’s healthy enough to play his usual role. Even before the injury, Hopkins was on pace for just 107 targets in 16 games, his lowest total since he was a rookie. Will the Cardinals continue to spread the ball around? His chances of scoring a touchdown are always high, but Hopkins is more of a WR2 in the role the Cardinals have used him in.
22. Darnell Mooney vs. ARI — It sure seems like the breakout is happening for Mooney, who has 120-plus yards in consecutive games. He’s seen a ton of targets lately — 24 in the past two games without Allen Robinson, most notably — and he hasn’t had to sacrifice his downfield shots to do so, racking up a massive 335 air yards in the past two games. I’m not ready to view Mooney as a must-start guy yet, but I’m also not sure how you could get away from him given his past two games.
23. Michael Pittman @HOU — It’s been a disappointing few weeks for Pittman, who looked like one of the league’s true breakout stars for the first half of the season but is averaging just 52.8 yards per game over his past four. I would write it off as just the ebbs and flows of the season, but the Colts have been happy to avoid the pass when they are leading, and they should be leading pretty early on in this one. Pittman is risky, but so are most of the WR in this range.
24. Jerry Jeudy @KC — Jeudy leads the Broncos in target share for the season, but at just 22%, it’s not like he’s exactly dominated looks. It doesn’t help that he just hasn’t taken the leap we hoped for since coming back from his ankle injury. He remains the most intriguing pass-catcher in this offense, but that doesn’t mean he’s a must-start option.
25. Hunter Renfrow vs. WAS — Renfrow had a huge Week 12, finished with 134 yards on eight catches, and it’s worth noting that it came when Las Vegas used him totally different than they usually do; he had 99 air yards in this game, well above his typical average of 46. If that represents how they plan on using him moving forward, that would be pretty exciting, but it’s a pretty big outlier for Renfrow, so I’m not expecting that. He remains more of a PPR specialist.
26. Chase Claypool vs. BAL
27. DeVonta Smith @NYJ — Smith is tough to trust on a weekly basis, but trying to figure out when the good or bad weeks will be is probably going to be more frustrating than just viewing him as an inconsistent fringe WR2. In this landscape, there aren’t many better options.
28. Elijah Moore vs. PHI — It’s fair to wonder whether Zach Wilson can deliver the ball to Moore effectively enough for him to live up to his potential, but I’m not going to panic off a game where Moore had a 33% target share.
29. Amari Cooper @NO — Cooper will make his return from his bout with COVID-19 Thursday night, but was reportedly still dealing with symptoms as of at least Thursday and is expected to have his reps limited depending on his conditioning. He’s still start-worthy, but it’s a risk. 
30. Jakobi Meyers @BUF
31. Cole Beasley vs. NE — Beasley is battling through a rib injury and has just 12 targets over the past three games as they’ve tried to limit his exposure. If the Patriots focus on taking Diggs away, I could see Beasley having a bounce-back game, but using him would be a risk given his recent usage. Only for PPR leagues.
32. Michael Gallup @NO
33. Kenny Golladay @MIA
34. Mike Williams @CIN — With eight targets and an 8.5-yard average depth of target, Williams’ usage in Week 12 actually looked a lot more like his early-season usage than what we’ve seen of late. It didn’t lead to a big game this time, however, and that makes five games with fewer than 10 PPR points in his past six. Williams is a boom-or-bust WR3 at this point.
35. Van Jefferson vs. JAX — The opportunity is there for Jefferson, who is playing nearly every snap and has seen 29 targets over his past four games. And he’s been pretty productive, averaging 69 yards per game during that stretch. But it’s hard not to think about how much better things could be if he had better than 41% of those targets. If Matthew Stafford plays better moving forward, Jefferson could be in for a big breakout.
36. Marvin Jones @LAR — Jones has 186 yards and no touchdowns on 32 targets over the past five games. It’s hard to overstate how bad this passing game has been relative to expectations, but it’s also hard to write Jones off entirely given a pretty healthy target share and the potential for the light to click on for Trevor Lawrence.
37. Mecole Hardman vs. DEN
38. Jamison Crowder vs. PHI
39. Tyler Boyd vs. LAC
40. Laviska Shenault @LAR — I wish I could tell you to have faith in Shenault, who has managed to turn games of eight and nine targets into 15 and 33 yards in two of his past three games. But the Jaguars just can’t seem to figure out how to get him going. There’s still a chance something clicks and he goes on a nice run, but I don’t have faith in it.
41. Courtland Sutton @KC
42. Rashod Bateman @PIT — Bateman now has just 60 yards over his past two games, with a career-low four targets in Week 12 sticking out as especially disappointing. Bateman’s snap share collapsed to a frighteningly low 44% in Week 12, and if he can’t stand out from Sammy Watkins and Devin Duvernay, there’s no way Bateman is going to stand out for Fantasy. I still love the potential here, but he isn’t pushing Marquise Brown for the lead role like some hoped, and that makes him awfully fringe-y at this point.
43. Christian Kirk @CHI — Kirk didn’t really see much change to his role with Hopkins out, so I’m back to viewing both him and A.J. Green as fringe starters. There’s upside with both, but this team spreads the ball around too much to have faith in either of them.
44. Russell Gage vs. TEN — Gage is a somewhat interesting Fantasy option given his role in this offense, however, his best games this season have been of the 60-ish-yards-and-a-touchdown variety, and the weekly floor is pretty low in a mediocre offense. He’s a fringe option at best.
45. Amon-Ra St. Brown vs. MIN
46. Emmanuel Sanders vs. NE — The big plays are going to come at some point again, but they haven’t been there of late, and Sanders hasn’t been integrated into the offense as anything more than just a deep threat. Until that changes, you can’t trust Sanders as anything more than a dart throw.
47. Tim Patrick @KC
48. Marquez Callaway vs. DAL
49. T.Y. Hilton @HOU