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.
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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.
Dan Fornek’s Courtland Sutton Fantasy Projection
Courtland Sutton’s second season with Sean Payton (and first season with rookie quarterback Bo Nix) started slowly. Sutton caught just 21 passes (on 47 targets) for 277 yards and two touchdowns through Denver’s first seven games. However, something clicked starting in Week 8.
From Weeks 8 to 18, Sutton caught 60 of 88 targets for 804 yards and six touchdowns. Sutton’s WR25 finish (career-high 14.1 PPR PPG) isn’t the greatest, but his WR10 showing from Weeks 8 to 18 (18.0 PPG) shows just how much potential he has as a fantasy wide receiver.
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The veteran receiver thrived as a downfield threat for Nix, finishing second in air yards (1,787), fifth in air yards share (43.2%), seventh in deep targets (26), and eighth in red-zone targets (22). He finished third among wide receivers in contested catch rate (60.6%).
The chemistry between Sutton and Nix was undeniable to close the season, but time will tell if he can maintain the same productivity with more target competition in 2025. Denver added veterans Evan Engram and J.K. Dobbins in free agency and drafted running back RJ Harvey and wide receiver Pat Bryant in the draft. All four players can earn targets on a team that returns five of its top seven target earners.
Sutton showed in 2024 that he can sustain a stretch of low-end WR1 production, but is likely to finish as a WR2 in 2025 with legitimate target competition added to the offense.
