Potential breakout WR named Bills’ “biggest fantasy football value” for 2024 season

The national interpretation of the Buffalo Bills’ offseason signing of veteran wide receiver Curtis Samuel has changed in recent months, as the team’s subsequent maneuvers put the acquisition in a new context. Buffalo signed the 27-year-old for three years and $24 million in mid-March, adding the versatile speedster to a receiver roster that had just released No. 2 pick Gabriel Davis as a free agent at the time.

Pundits generally liked the deal, feeling Samuel could have a mid-career breakthrough while serving as a complement in an offense led by one of the league’s best signal-callers, Josh Allen. The aforementioned “new context” was created when Buffalo traded perennial Pro Bowl wideout Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans in early April, putting Samuel and third-year contributor Khalil Shakir at the top of a Buffalo receiver corps that was suddenly a hodgepodge of unproven options.

The Bills further strengthened their receivers later in the offseason by selecting Florida State pass-catcher Keon Coleman in the second round of the 2024 NFL Draft, but their offensive weapons in general are still unproven, and we’re not entirely sure WHO– if anyone – will be Allen’s favorite target in September.

Related: NFL writer predicts breathtaking highs or painful lows for the Bills in the 2024 NFL season

Gary Davenport of Bleacher Report is championing Samuel and believes fantasy football owners should do the same. In a recent article naming each NFL team’s “most valuable fantasy football picks” for the 2024 season, the author called Samuel Buffalo’s biggest underdog.

“The offseason departures of Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis have thrown Buffalo’s passing attack into chaos,” Davenport wrote. “But someone has to emerge as Josh Allen’s new favorite wide receiver, and Samuel is easily the most proven wide receiver on the team. As far as late throws go, fantasy managers could do a lot worse.”

Davenport writes that Samuel is currently rated as a WR50, which admittedly seems a bit low given the wideout’s advantageous situation. The former second-round pick is an objectively gifted playmaker who will team up with the most talented quarterback he’s ever played with in an offense that desperately needs capable pass catchers. Plus, he’ll be reunited with offensive coordinator Joe Brady, who led him to the best performance of his professional career in their only season together with the Carolina Panthers (Samuel totaled 1,051 scrimmage yards under Brady during the 2020 NFL season). Add to that the notion that he’s a versatile player who will get his hands on the ball in countless ways, and it’s difficult not to be happy about his chance.

Still, there are some reasons to pause. Samuel is entering his eighth professional season and has never reached 1,000 yards receiving in a single season. He will also have to compete for targets in an unproven but dense air attack that includes the aforementioned Shakir and Coleman, along with Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Mack Hollins and tight ends Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox. There are certainly targets, but there are a lot of mouths to feed.

As the summer progresses, we’ll have a better idea of ​​the hierarchy of the passing attack, but at this point, Samuel seems like a worthy player to target in late fantasy drafts. There’s a chance he settles into a complementary role, but given his obvious talent and proven familiarity with a scheme designed by Brady, there’s potential for him to become a significant contributor. That opportunity seems too big to pass up, with him being drafted as the WR50.

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