After a long offseason and over a month of hype out of training camp and the preseason slate, Week 1 of the 2026 NFL regular season has arrived. It’s about at this time that dynasty leagues really pick up steam as fantasy managers make last-minute moves to perfect their lineups before the full schedule kicks off.
If you’ve been playing the format for a while, you know the drill. Whether buying, selling, or just playing the market, there are always transactions to be made in dynasty fantasy football. Here are the best buy candidates to trade for at the wide receiver position as the new season begins.
Best wide receiver buys to trade for in dynasty fantasy football
Jaylen Waddle, Denver Broncos (WR21)
We’ll start off with a dynasty receiver buy for the contenders. To be fair, the hype train has largely taken off with this one, so it’s not like he’s flying under the radar. Still, Jaylen Waddle remains a screaming buy in dynasty formats if you’re looking to compete for a playoff berth, and especially the title. He’s a little bit older than many dynasty managers would probably prefer at 27.8 with his 28th birthday coming up in November, but there’s plenty of gas left in the tank for the newest member of the Denver Broncos’ passing attack. Waddle has been ranked as high as the dynasty WR6 in his career but now finds himself as the WR21 and climbing, per KeepTradeCut’s crowdsourced rankings. Before he was traded back in March, the former Miami Dolphin was comfortably placed as the WR29 in these same rankings, so he’s certainly climbed over the last few months – particularly in the last couple of weeks. Even with the price climbing, now is the time to get on the train before it leaves the station.
We’ve seen Waddle work in a variety of roles throughout his career. He was drafted in 2021 and immediately became an after-the-catch target hog, setting a then-record for a rookie wideout with 104 catches on 141 targets. Then, he slid into a secondary role when Tyreek Hill made his way to Miami and produced a career-best 1,356 yards and eight touchdowns on elite efficiency to make up for the decrease in volume. That was followed by a third consecutive 1,000-yard campaign, allowing the Alabama product to average between 14.2 and 15.4 FPPG across his first three pro seasons with a mid-range WR2 floor and a low-end WR1 ceiling. There’s a reason he was highly touted among the dynasty community.
Yes, Waddle’s two most recent campaigns were less impressive and he has something of a reputation for finding his way to the blue tent during games, but he bounced back for the most part down the stretch in 2025. After Hill went down with a season-ending injury in Week 4 last year, Waddle averaged 13.26 FPPG as the primary option across 11 games in which he played at least 50% of the offensive snaps. That number would’ve slotted him in as the WR18 on a per-game basis, and it came while dealing with some of the worst quarterback play in the NFL. Now, he steps into a Broncos attack called by Sean Payton that ranked seventh in pass rate over expectation in each of the last two years and fourth in pass attempts per game last season. Waddle is clearly the most talented receiving option on this roster and excels at getting downfield, working after the catch on screens and making grabs that should probably be just outside his catch radius. Pencil him in as a back-end WR1 or high-end WR2 this season with room for some serious spike weeks – which makes the cost of a late first-round pick worth the investment.
Brian Thomas Jr., Jacksonville Jaguars (WR31)
A little bit further down the rankings board, we have perhaps the highest risk-reward bet in the entirety of dynasty fantasy football. The community seems split between the Parker Washington camp and Brian Thomas Jr. camp; ask the average player how they feel about the latter and there’s very little room between absolutely loving him and believing he’s the next big bust at wideout.
I know, I know. Thomas was genuinely really bad last year and there’s not really a way around that. He averaged just 9.9 FPPG and finished as the overall WR42 after catching 48-of-91 targets for 707 yards and two touchdowns, adding a third score as a rusher. He posted only five outings of double-digit fantasy points with three weekly finishes inside the top-24 at his position, with just one of those inside the top-12 on the week at that. If you include three more weekly results inside the top-36, Thomas Jr. was effectively a boom-or-bust WR3 for fantasy purposes. After such a horrendous campaign, he tumbled all the way down to a ranking as the dynasty WR31, a far cry from his all-time high of WR5 in the format. After such a fall from grace, it’s almost understandable that so many people are this bearish on him.
Context rules all, though. Thomas played through several injuries last year, including a wrist issue in September, a shoulder problem in October and an ankle ailment in November, the latter of which sidelined him for three games. To top it off, his former LSU teammate Kyren Lacy took his own life a few months earlier in April. I’ll steer clear of much speculation out of respect here, but Thomas did speak about losing his friend on a podcast later on, so it’s not unreasonable to think he was working through a significant mental toll along with his physical injuries during the 2025 season. When combined with the challenge of learning a new offense in the first year playing under Liam Coen and his staff, these factors likely played a role in his regression on the field.
When it comes down to it, Thomas put up an all-time line of 87 catches for 1,282 yards and 10 touchdowns as a rookie in 2024. Sure, he was basically the only Jaguars wideout left healthy by the end of that season while also catching passes from Mac Jones rather than Trevor Lawrence, but that kind of historic production doesn’t come easily – only a handful of rookies have ever enjoyed such a successful debut campaign. The talented wideout who broke records in 2024 is still within Thomas, and based on reports from training camp, he’s shown a renewed vigor to put that caliber of production back on the field. The range of outcomes is wide and it’s unlikely he replicates those WR1-worthy numbers while sharing the field with so many other weapons in Jacksonville, but he’s displayed a truly elite ceiling before, which is more than you can say about a lot of dynasty assets. Ask around and see if your leaguemate who rosters Thomas is way down on his stock.
Alec Pierce, Indianapolis Colts (WR36)
The third dynasty wide receiver buy on this list has been subject to some offseason weirdness that you typically don’t want to see. Ankle surgery back in March left Alec Pierce recovering over the last few months and he only just rejoined his teammates at practice in late August after missing much of camp. You’ve probably seen a report or two about muscular atrophy, followed by a doctored image of the Colts wideout on the sideline with a leg that resembles that of a skeleton.
Don’t buy the panic; buy the player instead. Forget what you thought you knew about Pierce, who was widely regarded as a boom-or-bust FLEX at best in the past while working almost exclusively as a deep threat. He was one of the most highly regarded free agents set to hit the market back in March and wound up signing a four-year, $114 million contract to remain in Indianapolis with the organization which drafted him in 2022. The front office also traded wideout Michael Pittman Jr. away to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Are those the kinds of things that happen if a player is viewed solely as a deep-ball specialist? Probably not.
Pierce enters 2026 coming off a career-best season in which he reached 1,003 yards, joining the thousand club for the first time. He did so on just 47 receptions, averaging a whopping 21.3 yards per catch that paced the NFL for the second straight year after doing so with 22.3 yards per reception last year. To be fair, his reputation is deserved, but there’s clearly untapped upside for the former second-round pick. He’s scored seven and six touchdowns in those last two campaigns, so he’s able to get into the end zone, and his 84 targets last year were also another high mark for the 26-year-old. The Colts’ offense was awesome when Daniel Jones was healthy last year and could remain as such with the quarterback now extended and recovered in record time following his Achilles tear. There should be scoring opportunities and plenty of chances to catch deep balls as always with Jonathan Taylor still commanding stacked boxes, but the upside case for Pierce is what he can do with a little bit more volume in new areas of the field.
He averaged 12.2 FPPG last season and had nine double-digit weeks with a 50% hit rate on top-24 weekly finishes, all on an offense that was loaded with talent between himself, Tyler Warren, Josh Downs and Pittman Jr. Now, the latter has departed and been replaced with veteran Keenan Allen on a one-year deal, who doesn’t factor into the long-term picture. Pierce probably won’t get a ton of work in the short game, but there’s a case for him to see an uptick in overall target volume given his massive payday and trajectory of improvement over the last couple of years – plus, his route tree expanded some in 2025 and he made the most of the opportunity. He was the per-game WR27 last season but falls to WR36 in the crowdsourced dynasty rankings, a price discrepancy to take advantage of. Take the injury discount on the Colts’ clear top wideout. After all, this is dynasty!
Jayden Reed, Green Bay Packers (WR44)
Rounding out my four favorite buys at receiver heading into the new season is Jayden Reed. There’s been plenty of chatter over the last couple of years about his viability as a slot-only player and whether he’s actually a name you can trust on a regular basis in fantasy football. After a 2025 marred by injury, now is the time to ignore the noise and trade for the 26-year-old before the price tag increases.
Just two years ago, Reed was a top-15 wideout in KeepTradeCut’s crowdsourced rankings, topping out at WR13. A second-round pick in the 2023 class, his best fantasy output came as a rookie with 13.6 FPPG. He played in 16 games and finished as the overall WR25, catching fire down the stretch with at least 15 PPR points in seven of his last eight games that year. As a sophomore, he crossed 1,000 all-purpose yards and scored seven total touchdowns with 55 catches for 857 yards, plus another 163 yards via the rushing game. That kind of versatile usage made Reed a real weapon despite playing almost exclusively from the slot, rarely seeing even 70% of offensive snaps for the Packers. He was genuinely an awesome player on a per-touch basis; he just didn’t see the field as often as many fantasy managers would have liked.
That knock on his game became even more prescient when Reed appeared in just seven games last season, dealing with a broken collarbone among other injuries that kept him out for the majority of the campaign. He scored 13.50 PPR points in Week 1 despite a 38% snap share, then disappeared until Week 14 and posted no more than 10.50 PPR points in his next four contests to close the regular season. After such a disappointing finish, the community still seems to be quite down on Reed with a spot as the dynasty WR45 prior to the start of the 2026 season.
However, one can argue he’s now in the best position to succeed over his young career. Green Bay vacated 131 targets between the departures of Romeo Doubs and Dontayvion Wicks alone, freeing up a ton of volume and consolidating its pass-catching room to the core four of Tucker Kraft, Christian Watson, Matthew Golden and Reed. In particular, Doubs’ exit means the Packers lost one of their top red-zone threats as he saw 16 total targets inside the 20 last year. This kind of target consolidation should mean a bump for the team’s remaining receiving weapons, so even if Reed remains a slot-only receiver, he could easily get back to his old ways as a dependable WR3/FLEX with room for more assuming he can stay healthy with even a slight uptick in volume. He’s one of my favorite dynasty wide receiver buys with a price tag of a mid-to-late second – at worst, you get a depth piece who’s produced in the past and is only 26 years old.
