2025 Sophomore WR Manifesto

Malik Nabers is not my current WR1 among last year’s rookie class. Neither is Ladd McConkey — although he’s basically Cooper Kupp if Kupp were a better separator. And I can promise you my WR1 isn’t Marvin Harrison or Rome Odunze, of whom I won’t draft a single share at their current ADPs.

But you’re reading a Ryan Heath article, so before all that, you’ll have to suffer through a few pages worth of numbers and philosophizing. I promise they’re worth your time.

(Or, feel free to skip down to the “Sophomore WRs I’m Drafting” section to get straight to all my opinions on this year’s crop of Year 2 WRs. I won’t judge.)

Do We Over-Predict Year 2 Breakouts?

Fantasy managers are rightfully captivated by the idea of the “Year 2 Leap”. Elite fantasy WRs see their largest average production increases at this point in their career, and it’s one of the most common seasons for them to break out as a top-12 fantasy producer for the first time.

There was a time when this fact wasn’t widely acknowledged nor priced into every young receiver’s draft cost. But for at least the last couple of years, you’ve had to pay an ADP premium above and beyond what a Year 2 WR’s previous production would justify. And that’s already the case for 2025, according to Underdog’s Pre-Draft Best Ball ADP.

Have we gone too far?

I’m not sure I’d doomsay to quite that extreme. Fantasy leagues are won and lost by only a relative handful of power-law players — Upside Wins Championships, after all — and most such players with league-winning upside (not just WRs) have thematically been selected earlier and earlier as the market gets sharper each year. Even if they’re more expensive than before, we shouldn’t be shy about continuing to target Year 2 breakout candidates we believe can make big impacts.

But these market trends do mean that blindly drafting Year 2 WRs is no longer a viable strategy (as it arguably was 3-5 years ago) since they’re no longer systematically undervalued as a group. Instead, we need to more carefully discern which sophomores display favorable breakout indicators relative to their cost and which have instead been pushed up boards despite a lackluster overall profile.

That’s because — in a median sense — the outcomes for Year 2 WRs as a whole aren’t that great. Since 2021, wide receivers selected on Day 1 or 2 of the NFL Draft (with min. 150 routes in their rookie season) have averaged just under 9.2 PPR fantasy points in their sophomore seasons. Though they’re normally priced as if they’ll score better than they did as rookies, only 38% of them actually see an increase of 2.0 or more FPG.

That group contains several of the position’s most impactful fantasy breakouts in recent memory — Jaxon Smith-Njigba (2024), Rashee Rice (pre-injury in 2024), Ja’Marr Chase (2022), Devonta Smith (2022), and Amon-Ra St. Brown (2022, though he was originally a Day 3 pick) all come to mind— but over 60% of the time, you aren’t getting significantly more out of these WRs than you did in Year 1.

So what rookie-season indicators can help us predict which WRs will score the most FPG in Year 2 and which belong to the other 62% with inflated ADPs? I’m glad you asked.

How To Predict Year 2 Breakouts (And Busts)

Not a numbers guy? Don’t sweat it. Feel free to skip down to the player blurbs; I’ll bring up these stats wherever they’re relevant throughout.

As is the case for most receivers, overall rookie-season production (whether in the form of total fantasy points, receiving yards, receptions, first downs, etc.) is the most predictive of a Year 2 WR’s performance (right column). Per-game production (FPG, receiving YPG, etc.) isn’t far behind, so it’s valid to use those metrics for players who missed time — so long as we’re aware we’re sacrificing a bit of predictiveness. Efficiency metrics like YPRR and 1D/RR are also helpful, but they aren’t as predictive as actual production.

I was a little surprised that catchable targets (targets on which the QB’s ball placement gives the receiver a chance to make the catch, as charted by the Fantasy Points Data team) were the most predictive volume metric. But when I thought about it more, it made sense: a catchable target is worth about 2.31 fantasy points for a WR in a PPR league, about ~30% more than any random target. While catchable targets are heavily related to average depth of target (aDOT), they also bake in an element of QB quality — something quite important for a developing young WR. Players who earn the largest number of high-quality targets as rookies tend to produce the most as sophomores.

Conversely, contested target rate (-0.13) and aDOT (-0.26) had slight negative correlations to Year 2 production. A high contested target rate can be indicative of poor QB play or an inability to create separation, while an extremely high aDOT means lower catchable target and success rates, sometimes indicating a WR has been type-cast into a “field-stretcher” role that rarely translates to high-end fantasy production. No top-24 WR had an aDOT above 14.0 last season, with only Terry McLaurin and Courtland Sutton even cracking 13.0.

Finally, a slightly different method of analysis has me musing about games played as a “sleeper” stat for predicting Year 2 breakouts. Check out the footnotes if you’re interested in this.^[1]

Sophomore WRs I’m Drafting

Brian Thomas, WR, Jacksonville Jaguars

Dynasty ADP: WR5 / Underdog ADP: WR8

As we just covered, a rookie’s total fantasy points are the single best predictor of their FPG in Year 2. Thomas’s 284 PPR points were the 4th-most by a rookie since 2010, behind only Odell Beckham, Puka Nacua, and Ja’Marr Chase.

But it gets even more impressive. Thomas played through a visibly painful chest injury — with which it was initially reported he’d miss up to 4 weeks — from Weeks 8-11. If we throw those games out, Thomas would have averaged 18.9 FPG (~WR3 last season, or the most by a rookie WR since Beckham) and 2.76 YPRR, which would rank as the best mark by a rookie WR in Fantasy Points Data history. And in six games post-bye, Thomas’s 41.5% first-read target share would have ranked 3rd-best across any full season in Fantasy Points Data history.

But the best part of Thomas’s profile heading into Year 2 is the upgrade he’ll receive from new HC Liam Coen calling the plays. A member of the wildly fantasy-friendly McShanahan coaching tree, Coen just produced the WR2 and WR10 by FPG with the Buccaneers. He’s also a master at scheming up easy targets for his receivers; Chris Godwin led all WRs in YPG (22.0) and FPG (4.8) on screens, and Coen has made it very clear he’ll move Thomas around (including into the slot) and design him screens in a similar manner.

In the same quote, Coen was adamant that he’d like Thomas to do more than run deep vertical routes. That’s also incredible news; Thomas led all WRs in Average Separation on fantasy-friendly slants, but he was asked to run them at just an 18th-percentile rate last year. In contrast, Coen had Mike Evans run slants at an 88th-percentile rate, averaging an insane 40% TPRR.

From a hardline statistical and strictly-on-paper point of view, Thomas has about as compelling of a case for a massive Year 2 explosion as Malik Nabers. But with the schematic advantages Coen brings, I actually prefer Thomas to Nabers in all formats this year (very narrowly). At cost, he’ll be one of my biggest stands of 2025.

Malik Nabers, WR, New York Giants

Dynasty ADP: WR3 / Underdog ADP: WR6

Among all rookie WRs since 2010, Nabers ranks 1st in total targets (170), 1st in receptions (109), 2nd in FPG (18.2), 6th in receiving yards (1,204), and 5th in receiving YPG (80.3). Only four unique players (Odell Beckham, Ja’Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, and Puka Nacua) with next-season data ranked ahead of him in any of these most-predictive metrics. None of this group to which Nabers belongs finished worse than the per-game WR4 in their respective sophomore seasons, collectively averaging an insane 20.2 FPG. Only Chase himself bested that mark last year.

The only nitpick one can truly make in Nabers’ profile involves target quality; he averaged ~2.3 FPG below expectation as a rookie, as only Rashid Shaheed and Davante Adams saw more uncatchable targets per game. But what Nabers (or more accurately, his QBs) lacked in efficiency, he more than made up for in overall volume; he commanded the highest first-read target share in Fantasy Points Data history and leads all recent Day 1 and 2 rookies in total catchable targets, even despite missing three games. It’s also a massive plus (to me) that he’s kind of an asshole who demands to be fed the ball.

The best thing for Nabers’ fantasy value would be for Jameis Winston to be named the Giants’ Week 1 starter — when he started for the Browns last year, he provided his receivers with 21% more catchable air yards per game than the 3rd-place team. It’s unlikely Winston is the team’s first choice, but if he were to step in at any point due to injuries, Nabers would almost certainly project as the overall WR1 for any games Winston starts. That’s especially noteworthy for best ball formats.

If we consider more likely outcomes, even Russell Wilson (in an ultra-low-volume Arthur Smith passing attack) provided a better offensive environment than the combination of Daniel Jones, Drew Lock, and Tommy DeVito did last year. And a hypothetical rookie quarterback drafted at the 3rd overall pick couldn’t possibly do much worse for very long, especially with HC Brian Daboll coaching for his job and being incentivized to win now.

Considering all of these possibilities, Nabers is well-deserving of his WR3 overall status in dynasty startups and is probably a touch undervalued as the WR6 on Underdog. I’d confidently select him ahead of Nico Collins in redraft as each team’s roster stands today.

Ladd McConkey, WR, Los Angeles Chargers

Dynasty ADP: WR11 / Underdog ADP: WR11

There’s a perception within the fantasy community that McConkey’s ceiling is capped. That idea rings pretty hollow to me; by the metrics, McConkey compares favorably to triple crown-winner Cooper Kupp.

I’m unsure whether the “low-ceiling” takes are driven more by McConkey lining up primarily in the slot or the NFL drafting him a round later than some of his contemporaries, so I will explain why neither of those concerns has analytical grounding.

A slot receiver’s ceiling could be lower if he consistently comes off the field in 2WR sets, meaning he has fewer plays on which to score fantasy points. But that hasn’t been the case at all for McConkey; his 81.7% route participation rate was just behind that of slot mega-producer Amon-Ra St Brown, or ahead of players like CeeDee Lamb and Chris Godwin. McConkey led the Chargers in route participation in 5 of 6 games from Week 12 on, with a higher route share than any other Chargers receiver in 1- and 2WR sets over that span.

McConkey also excelled whenever he played out wide. He amassed more fantasy points (79.5) from there than fellow rookie and “outside receiver” Rome Odunze (74.4), while ranking behind only A.J. Brown and Puka Nacua in YPRR.

As for McConkey’s status as a former Day 2 pick, draft capital is nowhere near as predictive (among Day 1-2 WRs) as actual rookie-season production. To borrow a video game term, I’d hypothesize this is due to WR allowing for much more “skill expression” than a position like RB.

Volume drives fantasy production, and earning targets as a WR is directly dependent on the player’s ability to get open; good receivers will be productive as long as they’re on the field. In contrast, most touches an RB receives are “designed” or pre-destined, a result of a direct decision by a coach (who will be influenced by forces external to what is happening on the field, including draft capital). This means that we should abandon our draft capital-fueled priors for highly productive rookie WRs much faster, as teams can’t enforce those same priors as harshly as they can by simply giving carries to a different RB.

And critically, McConkey has massively outperformed all of his recent Day 2 counterparts by the predictive metrics we’ve been discussing. Among WRs drafted on Day 2 or earlier since 2021, McConkey’s 15.1 rookie-season FPG ranks behind only Malik Nabers, Ja’Marr Chase, Brian Thomas, and Jaylen Waddle. Only Chase, Thomas, and Nabers averaged more receiving YPG. McConkey’s 2.57 YPRR was bested only by Chase and Rashee Rice, another former Day 2 pick who averaged 21.6 FPG in three full Year 2 games before his freak injury. Nothing McConkey put in the stat sheet suggests anything but a sky-high ceiling for his sophomore season.

McConkey’s dynasty ADP sitting back-to-back with Marvin Harrison Jr.’s — despite the former outproducing the latter by a whopping 3.5 FPG, leading in virtually every peripheral stat, and being attached to the far superior QB in Justin Herbert — is one of the biggest market inefficiencies of the offseason. I also clearly prefer McConkey to pocket passers like C.J. Stroud and Jordan Love going around his startup ADP.

Xavier Worthy, WR, Kansas City Chiefs

Dynasty ADP: WR19 / Underdog ADP: WR20

For the moment, I’m going to assume Worthy is not at significant risk of suspension in 2025 after the Texas DA declined to pursue charges, potentially due to a third-party witness.

With that out of the way, Worthy’s rookie season production gives us plenty of cause for optimism. His 11.0 FPG was the same as Devonta Smith scored in his rookie season, or ahead of players like Drake London and George Pickens. His 72 catchable targets likewise rested between the marks of Smith and Pickens, who respectively saw FPG increases of 4.0 and 2.5 from Year 1 to Year 2. And like those two, Worthy played all 17 games (see the footnotes).

On paper, Worthy is squarely within a plausible production range for a Year 2 breakout, and we even saw a preview of what that role could look like from Weeks 11-17 when he averaged 15.6 FPG. But I do have some reservations.

Within that late-season sample, Worthy averaged 1.7 designed targets per game, which accounted for 2.6 of those 15.6 FPG. If Rashee Rice returns in Week 1, there’s a solid chance that the designed work and Worthy’s “easy-button” fantasy points go away; Rice led the NFL in designed targets when he was healthy through the first 3 weeks of last season.

I’m also not fully convinced Worthy will be the Chiefs’ primary deep threat in 2025. The recently re-signed Marquise Brown amassed more air yards than Worthy in their games together (298 to 255), and Worthy’s separation metrics on deep routes across the full season (per Fantasy Points Data) don’t paint a particularly rosy picture. There’s a world where Worthy is squeezed both for short-area targets by Rice and for downfield targets by Brown.

That said, there’s also a world where Rice misses the first month of the season due to suspension (or is otherwise physically diminished while recovering from his injury), Worthy receives all of the designed work while taking a step forward with his deep ball tracking (and luck), and picks up exactly where he left off averaging upwards of 15-16 FPG. In that world, he’d immediately be valued as a Round 3 startup pick as a young productive WR attached to Patrick Mahomes for his career. Few other players going near Worthy in dynasty startups have that amount of value upside.

All considered, I view Worthy’s redraft/best ball ADP as inoffensive (though I will draft more Rice if he remains available a round later). In dynasty startups, he’s a great fit for builds that lock up their WR production early but need to take upside swings from a value perspective, though a poor fit for teams drafting multiple QBs early and in need of safe WR production.

Sophomore WRs I’m Avoiding

Marvin Harrison, WR, Arizona Cardinals

Dynasty ADP: WR10 / Underdog ADP: WR18

I’ve already mentioned that from an on-paper production perspective, Harrison’s rookie season was vastly inferior to that of Ladd McConkey, and that Harrison’s superior draft capital isn’t nearly as predictive of Year 2 success as what we’ve seen happen on an NFL football field. My stance there is known, so in this blurb, I’d rather get into the mechanics behind why Harrison’s rookie campaign was so disappointing.

As we touched on above, a high contested target rate is negatively correlated with Year 2 success. The list below demonstrates this.

But in Harrison’s case, I don’t believe this reflects poorly on his separation ability (as I do for many of the other names above). In fact, he ranked a solid 34th of 128 qualifying WRs in Fantasy Points Data’s Average Separation Score. Rather, his high rate of difficult contested targets reflects his usage.

Kyle Menton made a convincing and detailed argument to this effect in his recent article, but in short: most of Harrison’s usage came on high-difficulty downfield throws, especially on the perimeter. That’s clear from his relatively high aDOT (14.1), his 2nd-ranked perimeter target rate (per Jacob Gibbs), and his high frequencies of Corner and Go routes (below). Harrison was notably hyper-successful and an excellent separator over the middle of the field; he just wasn’t deployed that way nearly as often.

While I don’t think Harrison is the sort of receiver who will ever be given tons of “easy-button” screens and designed targets, there’s at least some chance he’ll be featured on more horizontal concepts in the short and intermediate areas of the field in Year 2, leading to a step forward in production. We even saw glimpses of this at times last season, including a lot more crosser routes in the second half of the year. I’m just unwilling to select Harrison as if that’s a lock to continue improving further (as his current ADP suggests) — especially with Kyler Murray and OC Drew Petzing returning this year.

None of this is to say Harrison is unlikely to improve at all. For context, his rookie season ranked between Drake London and Jordan Addison by catchable targets and receiving YPG; I expect him to be a productive NFL player. I just think he’s about a round too expensive in all formats.

Rome Odunze, WR, Chicago Bears

Dynasty ADP: WR17 / Underdog ADP: WR25

Odunze averaged 8.6 FPG during his rookie season, about the same as Rashod Bateman and Michael Wilson. His 60 catchable targets rank between the first-year campaigns of Rondale Moore and Jonathan Mingo. Needless to say, nothing Odunze did in Year 1 justifies his current ADP, nor a belief that he’ll break out in 2025.

The market’s current enthusiasm for Odunze seems driven in part by surface-level similarities between his and Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s rookie season, which did result in a Year 2 breakout. Both receivers were relatively unproductive while competing with two veteran wideouts in an offense called by Shane Waldron (whom Smith-Njigba has nothing good to say about). But that’s where the similarities end.

Aside from Smith-Njigba being a better analytical prospect and being two rounds cheaper in dynasty startups a year ago than Odunze is currently, we could also identify that Smith-Njigba was rarely on the field or targeted on early downs, potentially at the direction of Pete Carroll. No such splits exist for Odunze, who ran the 12th-most routes in the league (and nearly 100 more than Smith-Njigba did as a rookie). He was also even less productive after Waldron was relieved of his duties.

To argue back in Odunze’s favor, he at least played all 17 games, which has been slightly associated with significant and otherwise unexplainable FPG increases in Year 2 (see footnotes). Of even greater importance are the upgrades the Bears have made along the offensive line in conjunction with the schematic improvements new HC Ben Johnson should bring, especially if he happens to move Odunze into the slot.

Similarly to Harrison, Odunze was primarily asked to run the least valuable routes for fantasy (Corner and Go routes) — perhaps that changes under Johnson. But without specific assurances (like Liam Coen’s for Brian Thomas), I’m uncomfortable projecting that.

I understand the desire to get access to Johnson’s offense. But one can do so at either a much lower cost (in dynasty) or much less risk (in best ball) by simply drafting D.J. Moore. In startups, Odunze bafflingly goes off the board between the rookie 1.03 and rookie 1.04 — picks at which one could draft a better prospect who hasn’t already shown us a flop of a rookie season in Tetairoa McMillan. I see little reason to pay Odunze’s current price.

Keon Coleman, WR, Buffalo Bills

Dynasty ADP: WR41 / Underdog ADP: WR58

By the predictive on-paper stats, Coleman averaged 8.6 FPG and commanded only 40 catchable targets as a rookie. Throw in his 1.87 YPRR, and you have a statistically similar output to Treylon Burks’ rookie year. So that isn’t great.

Archetype-wise, Coleman also carries one of the red flags we discussed above through his 15.3 aDOT. This is negatively correlated with Year 2 production, and receivers tagged with the “field-stretcher” role tend to have lower floors and ceilings in fantasy football.

Perhaps most concerningly, the Bills signed (and rather handsomely paid) Josh Palmer after Coleman’s rookie year. Though Palmer has never particularly popped on the stat sheet (perhaps for all of the same “field-stretcher” reasons discussed), it seems very likely he offers more than Coleman as a deep separator, per the Fantasy Points Data team’s charting.

Coleman may make a surprise Year 2 leap and instead emerge as a target-earner in the intermediate areas of the field. Any young wide receiver likely to run a full-time route share with Josh Allen is a fine click as the WR58 in best ball. But in dynasty, I’d much prefer to lock up cheap production at other positions (players like Najee Harris, Matthew Stafford, Jonnu Smith, and Jakobi Meyers go in the same round in startups) or re-roll for an early rookie 2nd.

Ricky Pearsall, WR, San Francisco 49ers

Dynasty ADP: WR33 / Underdog ADP: WR40

Deebo Samuel was recently dealt to the Commanders. Brandon Aiyuk is likely out until midseason as he recovers from his ACL tear. And former Round 1 pick Ricky Pearsall averaged 23.8 FPG over the final two games of the season, after surviving a gunshot wound to the chest during an attempted robbery days before the season opener. So it’s wheels up, right?

I’m not quite there. Pearsall may have been physically, mentally, and developmentally nerfed, and I buy the idea that he could have been more productive across the 11 games he did play had he not been shot. But this isn’t a case of him barely playing for most of the year, and then breaking out the moment he stepped onto the field in a real capacity.

Instead, Pearsall ran a decently large sample of 275 routes — eclipsing a 60% snap share in 8 different games — and averaged just 1.45 YPRR in a system that’s historically been great at maximizing per-route efficiency. Going back to our most predictive stats, Pearsall’s 32 total catchable targets place him behind players like Josh Palmer and Jahan Dotson as rookies. On a per-game basis, he averaged only slightly more FPG than Kadarius Toney and ranked behind Alec Pierce in receiving YPG.

We’d have to give Pearsall the benefit of the doubt to draft him in the same round as Jauan Jennings in redraft or three rounds ahead of Jennings despite just a ~2-year age difference in dynasty. Jennings notably out-targeted Pearsall in all but one game they played together.

Finally, we’ve seen plenty of talented receivers struggle under Kyle Shanahan early in their careers. Aiyuk famously averaged just 10.0 FPG while in Shanahan’s doghouse in Year 2, while Samuel also took until his third season to put together his big breakout. I suspect the heavy demands Shanahan puts on his skill players to play multiple positions have something to do with this extended learning curve. With that history on my mind, I will always defer to players we’ve already seen sustain production in this system.