We continue to live in the golden age of wide receiver play in the NFL. It’s a direct impact from the reality that we will never have a bad wide receiver draft class again. Every year, we get a new batch of exciting young prospects ready to push onto the fantasy football radar, and we still have a healthy amount of veterans who haven’t entirely aged out just yet.
The new wave of play-callers from the McVay/Shanahan trees, and the new branch sprouting off of Sean Payton’s tree via the Lions offense and Ben Johnson, are creating innovative roles within the position to elevate new positional archetypes. The style of a wide receiver that can become a highly productive option has expanded.
All that is why it continues to feel like there’s a wealth of appealing options deep into your draft board.
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Now, that’s not to say that you should entirely punt wideouts until the late rounds. While the depth of the position is excellent, the wealth of options has only made the truly elite difference makers at the position even more apparent.
Top 24 at the WR position for 2025
Ja'Marr Chase
CeeDee Lamb
Justin Jefferson
Nico Collins
Drake London
Malik Nabers
Puka Nacua
Amon-Ra St. Brown
Brian Thomas Jr.
A.J. Brown
Ladd McConkey
Tee Higgins
Jaxon Smith-Njigba
Mike Evans
Marvin Harrison Jr.
Garrett Wilson
Terry McLaurin
Tyreek Hill
Davante Adams
George Pickens
Zay Flowers
Jaylen Waddle
Calvin Ridley
DeVonta Smith
Preferred draft strategy for WRs
Even with the depth of wide receiver talent in the league right now, that doesn’t mean I want to just wait around forever to take my WR1. While the pool of starting-caliber wideouts is plenty full, there is still a healthy gap between them and the truly elite players at the top.
You need to fall in the right area of the draft to take a shot on players in my first tier this year but they’re worth the plunge over the non-elite RB1s. I have all three of Ja’Marr Chase, CeeDee Lamb and Nico Collins ranked inside the top seven overall picks. If you can’t grab those, I’m higher than consensus on names like Drake London and Malik Nabers this year, both of whom I have above their overall ADP and are worth snagging in late Round 1. The second round is also an appealing range to take your WR1.
I haven’t dabbled much in the Round 3-4 wide receivers this year. This is partly because I want to escape the top-four rounds with multiple shots at running back this year, but also because I don’t think the risk/reward proposition for these players is all that different from what you can get in the next tier. You’ll find a mix of names that are younger and in their primes like Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Garrett Wilson and Marvin Harrison Jr. We like those guys as talents but there are offensive ecosystem and quarterback questions. The first name is my favorite, if forced to pick.
Then there are veterans like Tyreek Hill, Terry McLaurin and Mike Evans. The latter is the only one I’m not actively avoiding at the moment.
As mentioned, this is less about my disdain for the players above and more about how much I love taking 2-3 shots at wide receiver between Rounds 5-8. I go into an extensive breakdown of the wide receiver landscape in my annual Draft Day Blueprint article, especially how to attack this section of the position. Still, we can dive into a high-level view in this space.
This area of your drafts is what really crystallizes why this position is so strong in today’s NFL. We have established good players who might not be elite but are excellent starters like Zay Flowers, DeVonta Smith, Jameson Williams and Courtland Sutton.
There are players who, with the right breaks or ecosystem changes, can take a new leap in fantasy like George Pickens, Chris Olave or Rome Odunze.
You’ll find veterans who haven’t aged out yet and are looking at new and possible ascending quarterbacks like Calvin Ridley, Stefon Diggs and Jakobi Meyers.
Then, you’ll find, outside the top-70 picks, the two wide receivers who went in the top 10 of this year’s draft — and saw strong usage in the preseason — Tetairoa McMillan and Travis Hunter, both excellent upside bets I want to take in Year 1.
The quality of options here is why I’ve flagged this as the best range of fantasy drafts to double, if not triple-dip, at the position. Sure, you can take some value players I like in the 100s of your drafts, and in fact, you should, but just don’t sacrifice this section.
Three targets I want at cost
Normally, I don’t end up naming someone from my top-24 overall players in an exercise like this, but Drake London is someone whom I’m multiple position spots ahead of ADP and a full round higher on than the consensus. London is knocking on the door of being one of the best and most complete wideouts in the game and could push to lead the NFL in targets this year. He had an outrageous 38.9% target share in Michael Penix Jr.’s three starts at the end of 2025.
Ricky Pearsall came back from offseason injuries that stalled his practice time, not to mention an August gunshot wound, to get on the field as a rookie. It took some time before he looked like himself but he was smoking man coverage toward the end of 2024. He can play inside and out, while winning as a separator at all three levels. He’s the 49ers wide receiver I want to draft this year with Brandon Aiyuk coming back from a multi-ligament knee injury that will cost him time this year.
I’m cheating and using my third answer to offer up both Emeka Egbuka and Matthew Golden. We can group them together, as they are Round 1 rookie wide receivers who go outside the top-115 overall picks. Neither was expected to be a major Year 1 hit because of the crowded pass-catching corps on their new teams. However, injuries have opened up the door for both to challenge those expectations. They also happen to play for two offenses that should be among the most efficient units in 2025.
Egbuka and Golden were second and third in Reception Perception’s success rate vs. zone coverage, behind only Travis Hunter, among prospects I charted in this year’s draft. Round 1 rookie wide receivers pushed down for ambiguous target trees are great bets in fantasy when they go this late.
One fade at cost
At this point, Tyreek Hill has never once shown up in my draft plans for 2025. He still goes high based on his name, but there are multiple reasons to be scared off. The most important is that Hill showed significant signs of decline last year. Not only was this expressed in production-based efficiency metrics, but his play in isolation fell short of his career expectations.
Perhaps Hill can still be a helpful player as he ages but I’ll bet against him getting back to elite form at age 31 after a dip like that. We’ve also not touched on some of the environmental concerns we have about the Dolphins' offense, and the seemingly constant tension between Hill, his team and his quarterback.
If I’m taking a shot on a Dolphins wide receiver, I’ll go with Jaylen Waddle, who is still in his prime and goes much later.
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