Finding 2025's superstar wide receivers: Ladd McConkey and Rashee Rice stand out

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a day ago

When looking at the superstar wide receivers of today—Ja'Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, and so on—it's easy to say with hindsight that we should have seen them coming. To be fair to those two players, they were both superstars out of the gate. That brought me to a fairly obvious and easy-to-answer question: Are all superstar wideouts good as rookies? That question then took me down a larger rabbit hole where I found every future fantasy WR1 without fail.
The 2024 rookie wide receiver class
I wanted to specifically look at how the best wide receivers of the past decade performed as rookies for two reasons. The first is that rookie performances are very predictive. Players who are good early in their careers tend to age like wine. The second is that we just got an astonishingly good crop of rookie receivers via the 2024 draft. If we want to project those players forward, we only have first-year data to compare them to the current superstars. I set the bar for 'superstar' rather high at 300 PPR points, leaving us roughly 20 unique receivers to look at since 2015. Most of them accounted for multiple superstar seasons. Two—Antonio Brown and Adam Thielen—were thrown out because they barely played as rookies. I'll mention the effect including them would have had later. Let's look at the 2024 rookies versus the average superstar's debut season.
There's nothing groundbreaking at the top. Nabers, BTJ, and Ladd all look like future stars. When looking at the advanced data, future superstars did their best work in yards per route run and Pro Football Focus receiving grade. The superstar average had an 88th percentile rookie season in YPRR and 85th percentile in receiving grade. They were still good at earning targets per route, but that was the least impressive of the fancy metrics, sitting at the 80th percentile. A 16 percent target share is also shockingly low for a group of players who go on to be the league's premier target-dominators. This points me toward the idea that earning targets as a rookie matters, but it's even more important to look at what a player does with those looks. That, in turn, is a green flag for McConkey. He didn't match BTJ or Nabers in fantasy points, but he bested Nabers in YPRR and topped both in first downs per route. He currently goes at pick 18 in Underdog drafts while Nabers and Thomas Jr. come off the board at picks nine and 13. That gap should be closer.
The data doesn't look good for anyone else. Keon Coleman, however, does fit the bill of a player who was modestly efficient but the volume wasn't there. I'm leaving the light on for him at WR55. Xavier Worthy's data goes from dreadful to solid if you include the playoffs, but he still doesn't come particularly close to the superstar thresholds.
Marvin Harrison Jr. is the elephant in the room. He had no issues earning targets when compared to the stud stand-in. His efficiency, however, lagged far behind. The thing MJH drafters can hang their Buckeye ball caps on is his grading. Pro Football Focus liked him more than the data, giving him their No. 29 receiving grade. He was also above average in ESPN's Open Score, ranking 43/116 wideouts. MHJ finished as the WR30 last year and is being drafted as the WR14 right now. Fantasy managers are drastically overpaying based on his most likely outcomes, but they are at least capturing the idea that there is some ceiling here. The bigger question is whether he will hit that high-end outcome in 2025 specifically.
Early versus late breakouts
It shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but receivers who achieved superstar status later in their careers were worse as rookies than those who broke out early. This should help us set our expectations for someone who disappointed as a rookie (read: Marvin Harrison Jr.). This table is the superstar averages broken down by those who broke out in their first or second year versus the wideouts who didn't hit their 300-point season until year four or later.
A key point to note here is again the target-earning dynamic. Early breakouts were both efficient and target-magnets as rookies. Later breakouts were still good with the ball in their hands, but the ability to be the focal point of an offense took longer to develop and/or earn. This is where Antonio Brown comes in. He averaged a truly mind-bending 2.95 YPRR as a rookie but didn't see the field much. His ability to torch defenses was there from the jump, but he needed a year to become his team's top dog. Including him would have continued to pull us toward the idea that dynamism as a rookie should carry a bit more weight than just target earning.
That brings us to another obvious point. The earlier a player is drafted, the more likely they are to break out quickly. This is the average breakout year by draft day:
Day One - 2.7
Day Two - 4.3
Day Three - 4.8
Only one first-round receiver broke out after their third season. That was somehow Julio Jones. He came up less than a point shy of the 300 mark in his fourth season and was banged up during parts of his first three years. NFL teams give their high draft picks every opportunity to hit during the first three years of their rookie contract. If a wideout doesn't become a game-changing fantasy asset after three years, we can often rule out that happening later in their careers.
Drake London vs. Garrett Wilson vs. Chris Olave
This is the Big Three of wide receivers who should have given us a breakout season already. Starting with the cheapest and least likely to become a superstar, Chris Olave flashed all of the indicators of a future star in his first and second seasons. He recorded 90th-percentile or better marks as a rookie in all of the aforementioned stats, highlighted by a stellar 2.4 YPRR. Despite the team getting worse since then and his numbers falling across the board, Olave has been over two yards per route in each of the past two seasons with top-15 marks in Open Score as well. Tyler Shough is the fly in the ointment. Rookie quarterbacks rarely produce elite fantasy receivers and this isn't a rookie quarterback we (or the NFL) are excited about. Even if you throw out the idea that Olave will give us a superstar season, his WR37 price tag is absurdly cheap given his three-year stretch of good-to-great advanced metrics.
A side note, Rashid Shaheed quietly fits the mold of a late breakout. He is a UDFA who averaged 2.6 YPRR as a rookie but didn't earn many targets. I don't think Shaheed is the league's next marquee receiver, but I like to note when a team has multiple wideouts with breakout potential. Tyler Shough QB30 anyone?
The price ramps up with Garrett Wilson. He goes as the WR13. A superstar season isn't mandatory for him to pay off his cost, but it needs to be within reach. Wilson's rookie season was better than all of the superstar thresholds save for YPRR, where he only averaged 1.85. That number fell in his second season and didn't fully rebound last year. His best metric as a rookie was his 85.9 receiving grade. That too fell in 2023 and failed to return to his rookie season benchmark last year. He set a career-low mark in Open Score and targets per route run in 2024. This was despite playing on the most functional version of the Jets offense in his career. He's getting an upgrade in physical passing talent this year with Justin Fields replacing Aaron Rodgers, but Fields hasn't always been an asset for his pass-catchers. He ranked 39th in passing yards per dropback in 2024 compared to 11th for Rodgers. This is based almost entirely on Fields' propensity to scramble and take sacks, both of which kill passing volume. With an ambiguous body of work through three seasons and a volume depleter at quarterback, Wilson is a tough sell for me at nearly a WR1 cost.
Drake London is the last of our 'this time it counts' wideouts from the 2022 class. The No. 8 overall pick posted 97th-percentile marks in 3-of-4 rookie metrics and still got above the 90th percentile in yards per route run. His numbers all took a tumble in his second season. Unlike Olave or Wilson, London showed us another gear last season. He averaged 2.3 YPRR with a 90.1 receiving grade, both of which matched Amon-Ra St. Brown. He finished as the WR5 in total but the WR14 in points per game. Possibly the biggest difference between St. Brown and London last year was the offensive environment. The Lions led the NFL in scoring, averaging over 10 points more per game than Atlanta. PFF deemed 86 percent of ARSB's targets as catchable compared to 74 percent for London. Michael Penix should be better than Kirk Cousins was last year. He also targeted London relentlessly in his three starts.
Very small but encouraging end of the year run for Drake London with Michael Penix (Weeks 16-18):
- 39% target share (27% with Cousins)
- 12.7 ADOT (10.7 with Cousins)
Week 16: 5/59/0 on 8 targets *left early with hammy*
Week 17: 7/106/0 on 13 targets
Week 18: 10/187/2 on 18…
London is the most expensive of the three at WR9, but it's a justified price given the dropoff in ceiling that happens just a few picks later when Tee Higgins comes off the board.
Rashee Rice fantasy breakout
Rashee Rice is just about the most glaring breakout candidate on the board right now after the first two rounds. Like previous superstars, Rice put together a dominant rookie season, posting 96th-percentile marks in receiving grade, YPRR, and first downs per route. The only category in which he was lagging slightly behind was target rate with a 94th-percentile mark of 24 percent. He upped the ante in four games last year with 3.2 YPRR and a 32 percent target rate. Both marks trailed only Puka Nacua. Rice was on pace for 136 catches, 1,632 yards, and 11 touchdowns before suffering a PLC injury in Week 4 that required season-ending surgery.
"I mean, he looks like Rashee."
Patrick Mahomes says that Rashee Rice has worked extremely hard this offseason. Mahomes notes that there are no limitations. pic.twitter.com/w05GU6sqsL
It seems like he is back at full strength already and his legal situation continues to get kicked down the road. Rice's price is also on the rise. He was being taken at the top of the fifth round a few weeks before the NFL draft. His price has shot up since then and the movement has continued through the release of Best Ball Mania VI.
If you want Rice, get in the lobby now. Conversely, I would be stunned if drafters in your home league are as enthused about him as the Underdog sickos.
Packers wide receiver fantasy outlook
The Packers are stocked without wideouts who have superstar indicators. Starting with the least likely, Christian Watson checked a lot of boxes as a rookie, but he will likely miss a chunk of the 2025 season while recovering from a torn ACL. Dontayvion Wicks' name also bubbles to the top when looking at recent rookie standouts. The former fifth-round pick averaged 1.9 YPRR as a rookie and was graded as a top-30 receiver by PFF. He then increased his target-earning potential in his second season. Wicks went from a 50 percent route rate and a 20 percent target rate to 57 and 25 in his second season. Did this result in more fantasy points? Of course not. He led the NFL with an 18 percent drop rate and only 70 percent of his targets were deemed catchable. He became one of just four players to earn a 0 in ESPN's Catch Score in the eight-year history of their player tracking data. The addition of Matthew Golden will almost certainly keep Wicks at a low route rate. Like Shaheed, I want to know when a team has multiple upside bets on their roster, even if the odds are slim.
My favorite breakout bet of the year is Jayden Reed. A second-round pick in 2024, Reed hit the ground running with 793 yards and eight scores plus an 11/119/2 line on the ground. You can't coach players to be as dynamic as Reed is with the ball in his hands. As someone who bet heavily on Reed last year, I was hoping you could coach him to earn more targets. The opposite happened and he went from a target rate of 23 percent as a rookie to 19 percent in 2024. His first read target share also fell, indicating the team just wasn't that interested in getting him the ball. Despite this, Reed boosted his YPRR to 2.2, primarily on the back of improved YAC production. The efficiency is there for Reed. When his team gets him the ball, he's a special player. Can he be a special player every game for an entire season? I don't know. At a WR43 cost, I'm dying to find out.
Bonus: Brock Bowers SZN
For fun, I threw Brock Bowers' rookie season in the dataset to see just how good he looks when compared to wide receivers. Given that he plays a de facto WR1 role for Vegas and is being drafted among WR1s in fantasy, it's only fair to hold him to a higher standard. To no one's surprise, Bowers looks like a superstar wide receiver in the making, yet we get to play him at tight end. His 88.4 receiving grade trails only Justin Jefferson's rookie season mark of 90.5. He recorded 90th-percentile marks in first down and target rate as well. His 26 percent target share trailed only Trey McBride last season. He did this while catching passes from Gardner Minshew, Aidan O'Connell, and Desmond Ridder. Now he gets Geno Smith under center. A mid-second-round pick seems like a small price to pay for a player who could easily outscore multiple first-round wideouts while having tight end eligibility.