After a dismal final season with the Minnesota Vikings, Adam Thielen was forced to continue his career elsewhere. He signed with the Carolina Panthers ahead of last season and was largely an afterthought in fantasy football.
Instead, Thielen had a bit of a renaissance, posting elite WR1 numbers early in the season. Could lightning strike twice for the veteran receiver?
Adam Thielen’s 2024 Fantasy Forecast
Thielen is objectively one of the greatest UDFAs in NFL history. From 2017-2021, he finished inside the top 15 wide receivers on four occasions. Nevertheless, Father Time is undefeated.
In 2022, Thielen had the worst season of his career (since his 2016 breakout), averaging 10.6 fantasy points per game. Thus, his time with the Vikings came to an end.
After latching on with the Panthers, there was a glimmer of hope, given Carolina’s incredibly shallow WR depth chart. However, at 33 years old and having shown obvious signs of decline, there was little reason to expect anything other than Thielen’s career to continue a slow crawl toward retirement.
Instead, Thielen came out blasting…well…a delayed blasting. His Week 1 was a disaster, but from Weeks 2 through 8, Thielen averaged 23.1 fantasy points per game.
The mere fact that Thielen was still capable of this was incredibly surprising. He was looking like the single best value pick in all of fantasy and a true league winner. Then, the wheels fell off.
Thielen finished the season as the WR25, which was still a massively positive return on investment. However, considering how he started, we can’t help but view his 13.6 fantasy ppg as a disappointment.
Beginning in Week 9, Thielen’s production cratered. From Weeks 2-8, he didn’t score below 15.2 fantasy points. Yet, from Week 9 on, he didn’t score above 15.4. During that span, he finished better than a WR3 just once — making him mostly unstartable.
Last season, Thielen commanded a 25.7% target share. He led the league in slot snaps and was fifth in total routes run. There was a ton of volume.
This year, the Panthers signed Diontae Johnson, who will be the clear WR1. Carolina also spent the last pick of the first round of the NFL Draft on Xavier Legette.
Although Thielen is still going to be the primary slot receiver, there’s no guarantee he plays in two-receiver sets anymore. And he certainly won’t be out there in single-receiver sets.
It’s reasonable to expect Bryce Young to take a step forward as a sophomore. However, given how he performed last season, it’s not reasonable to project him to support two fantasy-relevant wide receivers, let alone three.
Thielen’s ADP sits at WR59, No. 166 overall. He’s going well behind Johnson and Legette. Clearly, fantasy managers have decided it’s over for Thielen…and I agree.
Thielen is my WR70. When taking shots on upside in the latter stages of fantasy drafts, we want young players who have yet to truly break out. Thielen is the exact type of player not to draft.
We know what Thielen is. It’s incredibly unlikely anything like what happened early last season happens again. As a result, fantasy managers should look elsewhere when Thielen’s name starts to creep up the best available players list.