Terry McLaurin Fantasy Football Outlook Includes Top-5 WR Upside in 2021

Terry McLaurin wasted no time establishing himself as one of the best wide receivers in football. He's racked up 2,037 receiving yards over the first two years of his career, scoring 11 touchdowns for the Washington Football Team.

Coming off an 1,100-yard 2020 campaign, McLaurin looks primed for an even better year this season. He looks like a true breakout candidate in fantasy football.

Terry McLaurin Fantasy Outlook

McLaurin currently carries an average draft position (ADP) of WR10 in PPR formats. It's hard not to love him at that slot.

The Ohio State product was fantasy's WR20 in PPR formats last year. He did that while catching passes from a three-headed monster of Alex Smith, Kyle Allen and Dwayne Haskins. Say what you will about new starter Ryan Fitzpatrick, but he's a significant upgrade over that bunch – especially from a fantasy perspective.

The gun-slinging Fitzpatrick has his issues from a real-football perspective; his fearless style of play leads to a ton of ill-advised throws. But that's often a positive in fantasy. Fitzpatrick's 8.2 average depth of target (aDOT) was significantly higher than Haskins (6.9) or Smith (5.4). It's safe to say the boring, conservative Washington offense will be a thing of the past.

And that number isn't even fully representative of how much Fitzpatrick pushes the ball downfield. In 2019 he had the league's seventh-highest aDOT at 9.6. He also had the third-highest aDOT (10.8) in 2018.

That should lead to a lot more high-leverage, downfield targets than McLaurin has ever gotten.

Mix in the additions of Curtis Samuel, Dynami Brown and some improvement from second-year back Antonio Gibson, and defenses won't be able to key in on Scary Terry the way they have in the past.

Terry McLaurin ADP

With Fitzpatrick at the helm, McLaurin is primed for a third-year breakout. He's a bit risky at his current ADP because his upside is already baked into his draft cost. But it's hard to ignore all the signs pointing to a monster 2021 season.

McLaurin is a legit WR1 this year, checking in at WR12 in our 2021 fantasy football rankings.

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Max Staley is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Max Staley also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username mstaley1212. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.