Denver Broncos wide receiver Courtland Sutton posted his best season playing with Bo Nix. With a full year of experience together and no real competition for targets, is Sutton being undervalued once again in 2025 fantasy football drafts?
Should You Draft Courtland Sutton in Fantasy?
I’ve long been a fan of Sutton. However, after years of disappointment, it became tough to continue believing.
Sutton first broke out in 2019, posting 13.9 fantasy points per game. Given that it was your typical sophomore year improvement, he looked on track to become a fantasy WR1. At 6’4″, 216 pounds, Sutton has the size of a throwback dominant outside receiver.
Unfortunately, Sutton tore his ACL in the first week of the 2020 season and seemed to never get back to where he was.
There was steady improvement. But capping out 11.9 PPG in 2023 wasn’t exactly exciting for fantasy. Was it a Sutton problem or a Broncos problem? In 2024, we got our answer.
Nix instantly became the best quarterback Sutton’s ever caught passes from. Suddenly, Sutton was treated as a true alpha, and the results showed. He caught 81 passes for 1,081 yards and eight touchdowns, averaging a career-best 14.1 PPG.
Court doing Court things.
📺: CBS pic.twitter.com/vL3gKKtRRS
— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) October 13, 2024
Sutton earned a 25.1% target share, which was second only to his 2019 season, and commensurate with what WR1s are supposed to see.
MORE: Free Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator
He also started a bit slow, as Nix was operating with training wheels for roughly the season’s first month. As a result, Sutton had some mega duds mixed in, most notably 7.8 and 3.6 fantasy points in each of the first two weeks.
Sutton started to take off following his very strange Week 7 performance, where he didn’t see a single target. From Week 8 onward, Sutton reached double-digit fantasy points in every game and averaged 17.96 PPG. Those are mid WR1 numbers.
This year, Sutton may turn 30 years old in October, but we have no reason to expect a decline. If anything, he’s still getting better.
Sutton’s WR23 ADP is in line with where he finished last season. It doesn’t take into account his slow start. It also doesn’t seem to be properly factoring in the lack of target competition.
The Broncos did very little at wide receiver, only spending a third-round pick on Pat Bryant. Their main addition was Evan Engram, who will provide a tight end upgrade but not be a threat to Sutton. Their WR2 is currently Marvin Mims Jr.
That said, it’s tough to rank a guy like Sutton highly because there are so many young, talented wide receivers with high ceilings. I have Sutton at WR31, which feels like it’s too low. Yet, when I try to move him up, I can’t. This naturally makes Sutton appear undervalued and, unfortunately, places him in a spot where I’m unlikely to draft much of him.
Mason LeBeau’s Courtland Sutton Fantasy Projection
The Broncos’ WR1 is a hard player to quantify right now. Are we betting on a year-seven breakout whose about to turn 30? That’s not entirely fair for Courtland Sutton, who still hauled in 10 touchdowns with Russell Wilson in 2023, and initially broke out in 2019 with Drew Lock and Joe Flacco at QB. Since then, he’s dealt with injuries, bad QBs, and Nathaniel Hackett.Â
Sutton isn’t an elite receiver, so he couldn’t quite work through the circumstances the Broncos have put him through, but he’s been quite productive when the situation has been at least decent, and he’s clearly beloved by QB Bo Nix and HC Sean Payton. Denver added several receivers over the past two seasons, creating a mix of young talent and TE Evan Engram, so there is some concern of his potential workload.Â
I’d say those concerns are valid, especially at his WR22 ADP. It’s a touch too high for me when true upside players like Xavier Worthy, George Pickens, and DJ Moore are going around him. However, I don’t think his status as the teams WR1 is truly in danger. Marvin Mims and Troy Franklin do not threaten Sutton’s role, and the only other big body receiver here, Engram, is also more of a finesse player.Â
With 17 touchdowns over the past two seasons and two different QBs, this production doesn’t happen on accident. But I do struggle to see the pure target share that would elevate him to a fantasy WR1. I go back and forth with Sutton — I’m not avoiding him, but I typically won’t get him unless he slides a bit either.
