Meet the Rookies: WR & TE
2025 Prospect Profiles
A few months ago, in a post where I covered my biggest hits from the 2024 season, one thing that stood out was how the combination good QB play and vacated targets creates this goldmine of opportunity for rookie WRs. We don’t exactly have that to the same degree this year, but there are still some really intriguing names that I’ll get into.
It really cannot be overstated the impact these players have when they hit. Of course not all of them will, but when you compare to the alternative players of similar ADP, it just seems like a no brainer to take a swing on the rookie who’s cost is suppressed simply because he’s viewed as risky.
The following rookies are sorted by the order they were drafted, not necessarily by how relevant they will be this season. Although, draft capital is typically a good indicator of talent. I could easily write an entire post on every rookie at a skill position, but I’ve got to draw the line somewhere. These are the ones most likely to be fantasy relevant in year 1.
Wide Receiver
Travis Hunter / 1.02 / Jacksonville Jaguars
Travis Hunter is a tough evaluation. Obviously, he’s an incredibly good player — he’s the reigning Heisman winner and was drafted second overall which paints a clear picture. The biggest question for fantasy, though, is how much will he play on offense?
We may never know, but personally, I don’t think if he was just a receiver the Jaguars would’ve traded up to get him, and if we was just a corner I don’t think they would’ve made that move either. The fact that he can play both ways gives them a hedge; if he’s all-pro at both it was worth it, and if he’s even above-average at one then it’s still not a horrible move. But I guess what I mean to say is he’s not the Calvin Johnson number two overall type WR prospect.
There are a few other aspects to his profile to be aware of too. Analytically, he had a 2.51 yards per route run in his best season at Colorado, which is fine but not great for a first-round WR. And the fact that he did that at Colorado doesn’t give me the same confidence as it would at an LSU or OSU. Obviously you can make excuses for playing basically every snap and all that but just know he’s not a flawless prospect.
The other hesitation I have, and this one may be more relevant for his fantasy output, is that he’s playing alongside Brian Thomas Jr. A player who just finished with the sixth best YPRR ever for a rookie WR. We see two headed monsters all over the NFL: Chase and Tee, Puka and Kupp, AJ Brown and Devonta, so there’s still a path for production, but it does limit his ceiling.
Tetairoa McMillan / 1.08 / Carolina Panthers
Throughout the 2024 college football season there were two WRs in particular I was keeping an eye on. One was Luther Burden, who I’ll get to later, and the other was Tetairoa McMillan. Both had really strong 2023 campaigns and looked set to battle for the WR1 honors come this year’s draft. “Tet”, as many refer to him, easily walked away with that title among the two.
Still, he seems to be a polarizing prospect to some. Perhaps because we had what appears to be a generational WR class in 2024, with the likes of Malik Nabers and Marvin Harrison Jr., analysts are questioning where Tet would slot in had he been eligible in 2024.
I’ll start with the negatives before getting to what makes this player so special. McMillan played at Arizona, which was a member of the Big 12 most recently and PAC 12 during his first two seasons. Neither of those conferences have the same strength as a Big Ten or SEC, which does matter when analyzing prospects. His age-adjusted production, while not bad, doesn’t meet the likes of last year’s top-10 receivers.
Just looking at raw numbers, though, McMillan put up multiple seasons of 1,300+ receiving yards. That’s something that can’t be said by any of last year’s receivers.
The more I dig into it, I’m falling in love with the landing spot too. Bryce Young really started finding his footing down the stretch last season, and McMillan’s target competition consists of a soon-to-be 35 year-old Adam Thielen and a couple of sophomore WRs who weren’t spectacular as rookies. I fully expect McMillan to be Carolina’s alpha from day one.
Emeka Egbuka / 1.19 / Tampa Bay Buccaneers
It was kind of a shock to see Emeka Egbuka get selected 19th overall to the Bucs. Not that I didn’t expect him to go in the first round, but he joins a team that already had Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Jalen McMillan. Still, we saw points last season where both Evans and Godwin were sidelined, putting a lot of pressure on the rookie McMillan and TE Cade Otton, so you can’t fault Tampa for adding depth.
With that being said, the target competition doesn’t paint the prettiest picture for his year-one fantasy potential. Although, I don’t think displacing McMillan is too big a task, so he should see plenty of routes, and if he’s just that good it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him get targeted on those routes. I do expect his ADP to fall because of all that, so he should be a fun late-round dart-throw type.
As a prospect, Egbuka is really solid. He posted multiple seasons of 1,000+ receiving yards, and had above-average YPRR at one of the biggest programs in the country. He also has the most receptions in school history at Ohio State, a school that has produced some pretty good receivers… Cris Carter, Michael Thomas, Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, JSN, just to name a few. Some of those guys he played alongside too, and still earned plenty of volume.
Matthew Golden / 1.23 / Green Bay Packers
In terms of pure upside, Matthew Golden has arguably the best landing spot of any of the rookie WRs. In the early months of prospect season, like before the Senior Bowl, before the combine, Matthew Golden wasn’t really being talked about. He started to gain some buzz once people started digging into the tape, then the combine came.
His teammate, Isaiah Bond, was talking up his speed ahead of the event saying he was going to break a certain Xavier Worthy’s 40-yard dash record. Let’s just say he didn’t come close. Instead, Matthew Golden was the fastest Texas receiver, and fastest receiver period, at the combine after running a blazing fast 4.29.
His performance at the combine surely solidified himself as a first-rounder, but this gets at a debated topic. Should combine results influence how we evaluate prospects? At other positions, I’d argue yes, but at wide receiver, I think the answer is no. It comes down to what we value in fantasy versus what the NFL values. A 4.3 guy who can take the top off a defense and keep the safeties honest is super valuable in the eyes of NFL coaches and GMs, but doesn’t typically profile as a high target earner.
I’m not saying Golden is that, but we should at least keep in mind his testing outweighed his college production and is probably a big piece of the equation to what led him getting drafted in the first round.
Golden started his journey at Houston where he never really broke out. Then transferred to Texas for his third season, after the aforementioned Xavier Worthy left for the NFL. At Texas, Golden led the team with just 987 yards on 58 receptions and a 1.82 yards per team pass attempt. Anything below 2.00 is a red flag. He is definitely a film over stats kind of player, but when compared to the other first-round wide receivers, I just have a hard time seeing it.
However, Christian Watson is coming off a torn ACL creating some vacated targets, the Packers seem convinced that Jayden Reed is a slot only player, and they just drafted Matthew Golden in the first round so he will certainly get his opportunity as the team’s primary X receiver. He joins Travis Hunter, in my eyes, as the biggest risk/reward plays for the coming fantasy season.
Jayden Higgins / 2.02 / Houston Texans
I love this spot for Jayden Higgins. Ironically, Higgins reminds me a lot of his now teammate Nico Collins. That may seem like a bad thing, but I think it allows Houston to move them both around the formation and use them in creative ways.
Over his first couple of seasons in the NFL, CJ Stroud has been very good for his pass-catchers in fantasy land. We’ve had back-to-back top-five YPRR seasons from Nico Collins, and Tank Dell was a really solid number two before getting injured again. Unfortunately, this time it looks like he’ll be out the entire 2025 season. So outside of Nico, we can essentially think of all the targets in Houston as up for grabs.
Houston did bring in Christian Kirk and drafted Higgins’ Iowa State teammate, Jaylin Noel, in the third round. They both profile as slot only WRs, though, so I don’t have any concerns about Higgins’ ability to get on the field and see looks his direction.
After transferring from Eastern Kentucky, he had seasons of 983 yards and 1183 yards respectively at Iowa State, leading to one of the higher career YPRR numbers in the class. I think holistically, when you look at the landing spot, draft capital, and prospect profile, Higgins is one of the cleanest WRs in this class, even if he doesn’t have the crazy upside some of the others do.
Luther Burden / 2.07 / Chicago Bears
As mentioned in the Tet McMillan blurb, Luther Burden was the other high-end prospect draft analysts were keeping an eye on throughout the 2024 college football season. And, like Tet, Burden also seems to be a polarizing prospect. The similarities end there.
Where Tet wins with size, a decent release and route-running combination, and his contested-catch ability, Luther Burden wins on schemed touches with his yards-after-the-catch and homerun potential. The schemed touches aspect is what has many concerned about his ability to translate to the next level. For one, the hashes are a lot wider in college, which allows coaches to get away with some unorthodox concepts getting their playmakers in acres of space against defenders who aren’t equipped to matchup athletically. The other piece is just that, the gap in athleticism that allowed Burden to simply run by, around, and through defenders won’t present itself in the NFL.
If you’re looking at the analytics, however, you can reasonably convince yourself Luther Burden is the best WR prospect in this class. His sophomore season at Missouri was eye popping. He put up 1,212 yards with a 32.5% target share as a 19 year-old. That’s easily the best age-adjusted & program-adjusted, production profile of the rookie WRs.
The landing spot presents another issue. In the first round, the Bears took Colston Loveland, to form a pass-catching core that now consists of DJ Moore, Rome Odunze, Colston Loveland, Luther Burden and Cole Kmet. Not to mention D’Andre Swift should figure in the passing game a fair amount too. It’ll be tough to predict who’s getting the ball.
Tight End
Colston Loveland / 1.10 / Chicago Bears
To maybe get the obvious out of the way, despite having better draft capital, Colston Loveland is not Brock Bowers. Loveland does unfairly get dinged a bit by some of the draft community because he didn’t have insane raw production, but to be fair to him, Michigan’s offense was pretty bad last season. In terms of market share, Loveland’s 582 receiving yards made up nearly 35% of the team’s offense through the air, which is crazy.
Loveland is essentially a wide receiver in a tight end’s body. Not that he’s a poor blocker, or bad at doing the other stuff tight ends are asked to do, but when you watch him play, he’s a super fluid athlete who runs good routes and consistently wins the ball in traffic.
You can’t fault the Bears for adding a ton of weapons for Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams to play with, but it does pose an obvious problem for fantasy. Loveland and Burden are going to fall in fantasy drafts because of the competition, so you have to ask yourself if you want to bet on the talent versus the opportunity.
Tyler Warren / 1.14 / Indianapolis Colts
Tyler Warren is kinda like a souped-up younger version of Taysom Hill. He pretty much did everything at Penn State. They handed him the ball, he caught passes, he even played some QB.
From a fit perspective, even though we’ve learned to avoid players catching passes from Anthony Richardson, it’s at least cleaner than what’s going on in Chicago. The Colts really just needed someone they could give the ball to under pressure and let him go to work, instead of consistently airing it out to their receivers on deep routes.
As a prospect, Warren’s late breakout does give me some pause. Perhaps that can be explained by converting from playing QB in high school and playing behind NFLer Theo Johnson, but Warren never had more than 500 receiving yards until his fifth season where he exploded for 1,451 total yards.
Still, after the big three of Bowers, McBride and Kittle, there aren’t really any super attractive names at TE so I don’t mind taking a shot on Warren if you’re looking for some upside.
The more I dig into this class as a whole, the more it looks like the inverse of last season. I talked about it in the Perfect Storm too, but it’s looking like we’re going to have a bunch of really good young WRs from the past few years continue to develop, paired with an impressive rookie RB class.
All that makes me want to lean even more into the RB dead zone, and target some of the intriguing profiles there, while getting the stud WRs early. I’ll send out a post soon covering the RB dead zone once some of the best-ball drafters get to work so we can reference the ADP.