I'm not sure there's another group in fantasy football that needs to fire its agent and get better PR than the X receivers these days. Suddenly, what used to be the spot in the formation where you'd find the true alpha receivers is now being viewed as the least desirable, least useful fantasy asset you can draft.  It's cooler in the best ball streets to take a team's TE2 or passing down back than it is to take a boundary receiver. You'd get guys complaining about Randy Moss' TPRR on boundary reps if he were playing today. It's crazy.

So, why is this happening? Well, there seems to be a growing disconnect between fantasy utility and real-life utility. In fantasy, especially in full PPR scoring, a catch for no gain is as good as a run that goes 10 yards. A player we wouldn't clock as an elite talent can therefore be extremely useful for our rosters. 

Volume is king in fantasy, and it's easier to draw targets if you're closer to the quarterback, running shorter routes and not facing the opponent's best corner. X receivers have none of those luxuries. They have to be exceedingly good to produce from that spot. Otherwise, they become cardio enthusiasts in football pads. Yahoo's Matt Harmon, a thought leader on all things wide receiver, has dubbed these types of players as "Sacrificial X's". 

It's a totally valid point. We need to be aware of guys whose snaps are empty calories. Tons of playing time  ≠ targets. A look at last year's numbers can give us a pretty good idea of who the cardio warriors were. 

Here's a quick definition of the X receiver spot from Big Blue View

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X wide receivers — also known as split-ends — are aligned on the line of scrimmage, so the space between them and a press defender is minimal. Strength and size are necessary for traditional X receivers. One-on-one matchups to the outside are best handled by bigger-bodied receivers.

The point of this article is to see if we're going a little too far with this whole "Alpha receivers are bad fantasy picks, actually" thing. Let's see what we find.

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High Snaps, Low Targets

Targets per route run is really useful data, especially for these boundary guys. Looking at this collection of receivers below, sorted by targets per route run percentage, we can see that outside alignment can put downward pressure on a player's target rate.

This group ran at least 300 routes, drew 110 or fewer targets and had aDOT of at least 10 yards downfield. I bolded the yards-per-route-run for the players who are likely to matter in fantasy this year. Only 10 of the sampled players in this type of role are being drafted in all formats.

For the record, you can make these types of tables and queries in our NFL advanced stats area on the site.

Essentially, this list is meant to isolate the "sacrificial X" types. Sure, you're probably not drafting David Sills or Jahan Dotson, but some of these draftable guys have some concerning contextual factors working against them. 

We can live with a muted target rate if the player makes the most of his opportunities. That's what made Alec Pierce so great last year and why I'm so bummed that things are not looking good for him coming into the 2026 season, health-wise. Pierce and Jameson Williams were the only players from this grouping who really smashed relative to expectations. Even Tee Higgins had a modest 1.64 YPRR that was salvaged by 11 touchdowns on 59 catches.

Some of these players are being drafted where they are based on the expectation of improved situations. DJ Moore (ADP 57)  gets to be featured in a Josh Allen offense, Quentin Johnston has the attention of mad scientist Mike McDaniel and Jordan Addison no longer has to play with J.J. McCarthy. We think. 

I am a little bit worried about Addison's fit with Murray, for what it's worth.

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WR Alignment vs. Efficiency

This table shows the best target-earning receivers in the NFL last year and where they line up. It's a blend of our advanced WR stats along with our WR alignment data.

It's sorted by TPRR%, but you can mess around with it. Guys like Puka Nacua, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Drake London earn their keep from the slot and are all top-20 picks in fantasy this year. However, you'll notice that there are tons of high-value receivers who play on the outside, too. 

Stray observation: the Rams' receiving corps is straight up unfair. A guy with a 3.88 YPRR on 451 routes and Davante Adams? Yeesh. 

If you flip the table to sort by Outside Alignment%, you're still going to find a lot of really useful players for fantasy all across the ADP landscape. George Pickens, A.J. Brown, Davante Adams, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Nico Collins line up outside 80 percent of the time and have YPRR figures north of 2.0.

Of course, the challenge is finding the players who are next up to join them in that stratosphere, since the highlighted players are all going really high in drafts. You could almost argue that an X Dead Zone occurs in the same way that a dead zone forms for running backs after the first 15 or so come off the board. And unfortunately, a lot of the high outside rate guys don't meet the efficiency thresholds that make them useful for fantasy. We don't want the sacrificial Xs on our fantasy teams. We don't want to go heavy on Darnell Mooney- or Xavier Hutchinson-type profiles. 

It seems I've buried the lede. The player who inspired this article was Jacksonville's Brian Thomas Jr. If there's a player ticketed for an X role who can re-establish himself as part of the upper crust of Alpha receivers, it might be him.

This tweet was the last straw for me. Look at the replies. The quote tweets. It's as if Thomas has been cast off to the Land of Wind and Ghosts. 

I just don't buy that Brian Thomas, a 6-foot-2, 209, receiver with 4.33 speed and a 38.5-inch vertical, playing on the boundary is a bad thing. Thomas gets crushed by fantasy managers who bought in on him at the 1-2 turn last year only to have a disappointing return. I get the frustration, but giving up on him seems crazy, too. Not many players have had the type of rookie season that Thomas did.

Only Randy Moss, Ja'Marr Chase, Odell Beckham, Brian Thomas and Mike Evans have had 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns as rookies since 1990 (StatHead). That's pretty good company. For Thomas to be useless in fantasy after that would be pretty surprising.

Here are some combined stats for Thomas over his first two seasons that pertain to playing a downfield/outside role.

Brian Thomas Route Data

Play-by-play data via nflfastR

After looking at all this data, I just don't think it's a bad thing that Thomas, by virtue of playing X, will be doing the things that 1) he's good at and 2) are more impactful on a per-catch basis in fantasy this season. It's not a skill issue for Thomas. There were lapses in focus last year that were evident and obviously need to be tightened up. But if he can tap back into that rookie year form, the returns on your sixth-round investment will go crazy. And for what it's worth, last year wasn't actually that bad. It was just disappointing relative to draft cost. 

I guess, as with any fantasy article written in 2026, all roads lead back to the Jaguars' offense. Parker Washington, who I like a lot, gets all the buzz. Thomas, who has a similar ADP and a top 5 fantasy season on his resume, goes half a round after Washington in Underdog drafts. 

Everyone is enamored with the Jacksonville offense. But there are so many questions about the target distribution that the fantasy landscape has been divided into factions. You're either a Washington guy, a Thomas guy or a Travis Hunter guy. Jakobi Meyers guys exist but they just quietly go about their business, much like Meyers. It's unlikely Trevor Lawrence will support upward of six targets and help them return value on their ADP. There will be a wrong answer or two. But Thomas' profile is interesting enough to where I don't think he'll end up as one of the duds for a second year in a row. 

I don't buy that Thomas can't mesh with Trevor Lawrence, who is a fine enough deep passer. Below are Lawrence's numbers on passes 20-plus yards downfield over the last three seasons.

Ultimately, I find that the X discourse has jumped the shark. The ADP market is sharp at correctly identifying the best X receivers and drafting them early. But you shouldn't buy the notion that simply by playing that spot is a bad thing. Alignment only tells you where the player is, not who he is. It used to be that slot-only guys were the bad picks in fantasy. The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, I say. 

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