A Wide Receiver to Target in Each Round of Your Fantasy Football Draft

Antonio Brown, Pittsburgh Steelers

ADP: 6 (1.06)

Given the positional scarcity at running back, there are only a handful of wide receivers I'd be willing to take in the first round of my fantasy football drafts over a top-tier tailback.

And as the number-one wideout in our fantasy football draft kit, sitting at the top of that list is Steelers wideout Antonio Brown.

As the centerpiece of Pittsburgh's aerial attack, Brown has seen an amazing workload over the past two seasons. In this time span, Brown has been on the receiving end of 347 total targets (174 per year) including a whopping 181 last year, including 34 in the red zone.

This ensures a very high floor for Brown alongside his WR1 ceiling. In fact, Brown is on an amazing 33-game streak of having at least 5 catches and 50 yards.

In terms of his ceiling, as our Editor-In-Chief JJ Zachariason found, last year Brown had 10 top-12 performances (WR1 in 12-team PPR leagues), which was three more than any other wide receiver in football.

Brown's Reception NEP of 151.91 ranks sixth out of the almost 2,800 instances a receiver has tallied a Reception NEP score over the past 15 seasons. And since the turn of the century, you could argue only one wideout (Randy Moss) has had a better season -- both in real life and in fantasy -- than Brown's 2014.

With the Steelers offensive core intact, there's little reason to believe that Brown's role in this offense will be any different from the one he had in 2014.

Given Antonio Brown's high volume of targets in the Steelers offense, combined with his outstanding efficiency on all these looks, if there's one wideout I'm taking with my first pick of fantasy football drafts this season, it's him.