Courtland Sutton isn’t a flashy fantasy football name, but the Broncos wide receiver sure knows how to get the job done. While most fantasy managers wrote him off before the season as an unlikely contributor, the veteran is in the midst of a late-career revival.
It would have been wild to ask this several months ago, but is Courtland Sutton a WR1 now?
Some Sutton stats
The 29-year old wideout has been the source of much debate amongst the fantasy community in recent years. Sutton was a second-round draft pick by the Broncos in 2018 and had his first fantasy-relevant season in 2019 with an overall WR19 campaign. During that season, he caught 72 passes for 1,112 yards and six touchdowns for an average of 14.3 points per game.
However, that was the last time Sutton even finished as a top-24 receiver in fantasy. He suffered a season-ending injury in the opening game of his 2020 season, and since then, he hasn’t broken the 1,000-yard mark even once in a full campaign. Even when he caught 10 touchdowns last season, Sutton still wasn’t a player to feel comfortable starting as anything more reliable than a TD-dependent FLEX option.
It’s been five years since that career-best campaign, but the veteran receiver now appears on the right track to come close to his 2019 numbers. Through 11 games, Sutton has gathered 85 targets, 49 of which he’s caught for 647 yards and three scores. Are his numbers eye-popping? Certainly not, but he slots in as WR15 on the season in total points.
An emerging offense
Rumor has it that if you listen closely enough in Denver, you can hear chants of “Broncos country, let’s ride,” echoing on the wind from the Rocky Mountains — nature is healing.
For real though, did anyone think the Broncos offense would look even halfway decent with Bo Nix under center? The Oregon product is beginning to turn heads with a sneaky-good rookie campaign. He’s thrown for at least 200 yards in eight-of-11 games, with nine touchdowns and just one interception across his last four starts. In Week 11, Nix put forth his best performance yet by completing 28-of-33 passes for 307 yards and four TDs in a blowout win over the Falcons.
As Nix’s top receiving target, Sutton has been a beneficiary of the rookie quarterback’s improvement over the past month. In his last four games, he posted fantasy outings of 21.1, 26.3, 19.0, and 14.3 points. It’s his best stretch of this campaign, but overall, he’s posted at least 13.8 points in seven-of-11 contests.
Perhaps even more importantly, the 6-5 Broncos are a competent football team for the first time in several years and have a very promising prospect at the game’s most important position.
Sutton’s ROS outlook
Let’s circle back to Sutton’s fantasy value for the home stretch of the season. As mentioned earlier, he ranks WR15 in total points, which puts him at the cusp of the coveted top-12 mark for WR1 production. Looking at his per-game average of 12.9 points slots him in much lower as the WR33 on a PPG basis.
On the other hand, though, Sutton and Nix have shown a solid connection over their last four games. The receiver has been targeted at least eight times per contest in that span, so he’s seeing great volume, and he’s a big-bodied pass catcher who’s shown red-zone ability throughout his career.
The most interesting stat? Sutton is averaging 20.2 points over his last four contests, which certainly fits the bill of WR1 production. Sutton managers who believe in Nix’s upward trend may be rewarded if the offensive duo continues to connect.
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