2025 Fantasy Football WR Exit Interview: The meta around receivers dominating the game is changing

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The wide receiver position took some wild twists and turns during the 2025 NFL season. We saw big performances from superstars, with letdowns at all levels. The position was dominated by Year 3 to 4 wideouts; six of the top-12 scorers on a per-game basis were receivers in their third or fourth season.

This is an area of players’ careers to bet on going forward. The fantasy community is way too quick to label a player as “he is what he is” after just a couple of seasons in the NFL. Making those labels for a handful of these guys, particularly several of the names coming up in the "Best Performers" section below, was a losing bet in 2025. This will be a fascinating conversation to revisit in the offseason when analyzing the outlook for what was a disappointing — and not all due to factors within their control — crop of second-year receivers this past season.

2025's top WR scorers (through 17 weeks)

Puka Nacua, Rams — 289.5 half-PPR points
Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Seahawks — 289
Amon-Ra St. Brown, Lions — 246.1
George Pickens, Cowboys — 244
Ja'Marr Chase, Bengals — 231.5
Chris Olave, Saints — 219
Davante Adams, Rams — 192.9
Nico Collins, Texans — 190.7
Courtland Sutton, Broncos — 181.7
A.J. Brown, Eagles — 181.3
Jameson Williams, Lions — 177
Zay Flowers, Ravens — 172.5

The other thing you’ll note from the top scorers at the position is that the archetype of a leading receiver in today’s NFL is changing. Almost none of the top wideouts in the league are used as pure (or in some cases even mostly) X-receiver roles anymore. The league is now dominated by power slots like Amon-Ra St. Brown or guys who at least move around the formation. You still need to be a high-end man coverage-beating wideout to be the top target over an extended stretch for a healthy passing game, especially if you don’t have an elite quarterback, but the archetype of leading wideouts has slowly been evolving over the last few seasons.

It came to a head in 2025.

Another theme that’s more anecdotal than anything else is that it sure feels like wide receiver injury rates are on the rise. Again, that is more of a feeling than anything else. However, we watched a season where tons of big names missed time, which also happened in 2024, as well. There might be deeper issues at play but part of me wonders if this is also a consequence of modern passing games looking to take advantage of the middle of the field more than ever. If we’re going to deploy wideouts in this move-around fashion, they aren’t just going to be ducking out of bounds on boundary routes or taking hits on vertical routes from corners. You’re going to end up taking licks over the middle by bigger bodies, and the league is incentivizing these defenders to hit lower more than ever, based on the rules.

It’s one example, but I think about the knee injuries adding up for a guy like Garrett Wilson, who was deployed more in that move-around, over-the-middle fashion after being a pure boundary option in Aaron Rodgers’ style of offense in 2023 and 2024.

The final big picture note to make for this position: it’s time for a major market correction on the dominance WR holds in today’s fantasy game. This may not hold over the long term, but running backs have been outproducing wide receivers for each of the last two years. There were 20 flex-eligible players to score 14 or more half-PPR fantasy points per game this season. A whopping 13 of them were running backs, including seven in the top-nine scorers. I love studying and discussing wide receivers and when you hit on a mid-round gem, as we’ll discuss here, it’s a huge win. However, until we see the league meta shift back to what we watched in the late 2010s and early 2020s (if it ever does) we need to adjust the way we attack wide receivers relative to other positions.

Biggest Surprises

Christian Watson, Packers

The Packers' receiver corps has been an object of sick fascination of mine for the last few seasons, because it’s a deep room with no clear leading man but the overall offensive environment lends itself to passing production. I spent so much time talking about the group in the offseason. Yet, one outcome I didn’t imagine was that Christian Watson would return midseason and play the best football of his career after tearing his ACL in January 2025. That is exactly what happened. Watson wasn’t being drafted in most leagues but finished as the WR16 in points per game.

Wan’Dale Robinson, Giants

I’ve been critical of Wan’Dale Robinson’s game during his NFL career but credit where it’s due, he took things to a new level this year. He’s seen 140 targets and caught 92 passes through 17 weeks this season, nearly identical to the 140 and 93 he had all of last year. This season, he’s already cleared 1,000 yards after finishing with 699 in 2024. Robinson took a career-low 56% of his snaps in the slot and averaged 8.5 air yards per target. He simply got better as an outside and downfield wideout in Year 4 en route to a WR21 points-per-game finish.

Quentin Johnston, Chargers

Very early on this season, it was apparent that Quentin Johnston was a different player than the guy we saw in Years 1 and 2. This coaching staff has a much better handle on how to involve him as a run-after-catch threat than what he was tasked with in his rookie season. Johnston wasn’t consistent throughout the entire season and did have down weeks, but he ultimately led the Chargers in yards per game (52.5) and touchdowns (eight). That counts as a surprise. He was the WR24 in points per game this season.

Michael Wilson, Cardinals

Michael Wilson was one of the pleasant-surprise stories in the wide receiver world this season. Quietly, Wilson has always been a player who has flashed some ability to be a starting outside receiver in the NFL:

When Marvin Harrison Jr. was removed from the lineup, the targets consolidated around Wilson and Trey McBride in a shallow group of pass catchers on an offense that was relentlessly throwing the football with Jacoby Brissett in negative game script. It was a perfect storm for passing production that was certainly a fantasy scam; the Cardinals won just one of Brissett’s starts.

However, Wilson can play and that was revealed this season. He ended the year as the WR26 in points per game.

Best Performers

Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Seahawks

Jaxon Smith-Njigba went off the board in the third round of most fantasy drafts this summer and well outperformed those expectations. He averaged a whopping 3.72 yards per route run and gained a first down on 16.5% of his routes. It was one of the most efficient receiver seasons in recent years. He did it while working as an outside receiver in a new offense after previously being a slot-heavy option. Smith-Njigba’s ascension to elite status was a treat to watch.

George Pickens, Cowboys

Won’t get them all right; never will. However, George Pickens being one of the best picks you could make at wide receiver this season after being my biggest flag-plant player in my Draft Day Blueprint was a nice hit. Not only did Pickens get a boost by going to a pass-first offense in Dallas with a massive quarterback upgrade in Dak Prescott, he’s also gotten better in each of his pro seasons. Pickens was productive regardless of whether CeeDee Lamb was available or not. He finished the year as the WR6 in per-game scoring.

Chris Olave, Saints

One of the things I found out this summer whenever I put content out about him was that people thought Chris Olave was actually not good at football, in addition to the concussion concerns. Seemingly, the only reason for this was that he never had big games in fantasy or was a letdown pick relative to ADP.

It was absolute nonsense.

Always be ready to take advantage of these situations because it was pretty easy to see that was not true by the eye test, Reception Perception, advanced stats, etc. The bigger issue was never Olave; it was that he'd never played a full season in a well-designed offense or with a quarterback he had good chemistry with. Both of those boxes were checked by Kellen Moore’s system and especially Tyler Shough ascending to the starting job. Olave finished the fantasy season as the WR9 in points per game.

Puka Nacua and Davante Adams, Rams

Puka Nacua is the current WR1 in points per game and Davante Adams the WR8. It was an awesome year to draft a Rams wideout, as this passing tree was incredibly consolidated around these two options. The Rams' push to more 13 personnel only increased the per-route target numbers for Nacua and Adams. You even got a slight August discount on both amid the Matthew Stafford back scares from training camp.

Biggest busts — and what needs to change for them to turn things around

Justin Jefferson, Vikings

Justin Jefferson is off to one of the best starts in NFL history for a wide receiver. And yet, he’s not impervious to a falloff in a bad offensive environment with poor quarterback play. Even when J.J. McCarthy started to stack some viable weeks toward the end of the season, it was a struggle to get Jefferson the ball on the difficult perimeter routes.

If we’re calling balls and strikes, Jefferson also left some plays on the field with drops. That can usually be mitigated if you have a functional passer, which Minnesota didn’t. We’ll either need to see a big jump from McCarthy or a serious veteran addition before getting Jefferson anywhere near his old status in fantasy rankings.

Brian Thomas Jr., Jaguars

The 2025 season was a lost one for Brian Thomas Jr. right from the jump. He has likely played through injuries all season but also didn’t play well going over the middle of the field or consistently working through zone coverage. Those are requirements for NFL WR1s in today’s game. It was just a bad season for him, no way around it. The Jaguars eventually started rebuilding him by moving him into a mostly X-receiver role where he almost exclusively ran vertical and out-breaking routes. That move helps get the best out of Thomas but it’s a naturally low-volume and borderline sacrificial role in Liam Coen’s offense. Even if he’s healthier and cuts back on drops in 2026, he’s going to need a role change to get back to the production he had as a rookie.

Ladd McConkey, Chargers

Ladd McConkey falling from WR11 in ADP to WR37 in points per game was a huge bummer and something I didn’t see coming. As for why it happened, I think it is as simple as the pass-catching group was way more crowded in 2025 than anticipated, and the offensive line has, at this point, become untenable. You can’t run a normal passing game with it in its current state and I'm not sure they’ve done a good job coaching around it. McConkey is someone I’d be comfortable betting on as a rebound candidate if Keenan Allen isn’t back next season and guys like Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt return to the lineup at tackle.

Xavier Worthy, Chiefs

I’ve always been a skeptic of Xavier Worthy as a high-volume starting outside receiver. It’s fair to note he got hurt in Week 1 and that may have sunk his whole season but there wasn’t much evidence that he could be that guy in 2025. Worthy just doesn’t have the skill set as a separator to inhale a high target load at his size as a perimeter receiver. He needs role catering but that can’t happen in the Chiefs offense because Rashee Rice gets that treatment. I’d be hard-pressed to bet on Worthy bouncing back in 2026.