2024 Lessons Learned: Your 2025 Wide Receiver Strategy
By Rachel Tootsiepop - Exclusive to Footballguys
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RELATED: See lessons learned at all other positions:
Quarterbacks | Running Backs | Wide Receivers | Tight Ends
In this week's roundtable series, I asked our Footballguys staff to discuss their fantasy New Year's resolutions for each position and their overall takeaways for approaching drafting in 2025.
Yesterday, we talked about the running back position. In today's article, we share insights on the wide receiver position.
Lessons Learned at the Wide Receiver Position
Underwhelming Year for Wide Receivers
Jason Wood: After years of fantasy leagues trending toward prioritizing receivers above all else, 2024 was a year where that strategy likely let you down. Most of the top receivers failed to deliver on their preseason ADPs due to a combination of underperformance and missed games. It was the missed games that proved most damaging; in many ways, the receiver position felt more like the running back position this year.
If you examine the top 24 receivers on a per-game basis, very few played a full slate of games. Chris Godwin was WR2 on a per-game basis but only played seven games. Tee Higgins was WR3 but missed six games. Other notable names—Puka Nacua (11 games), Malik Nabers (14), Nico Collins (11), Mike Evans (13), Davante Adams (13), A.J. Brown (13), Rashee Rice (4), DeVonta Smith (13), Stefon Diggs (8), Jordan Addison (14), Cooper Kupp (12), and Adam Thielen (9)—all missed significant time.
My New Year's resolution is to buy the dip. Next year's ADP will almost certainly skew toward running backs, thanks to their resurgence in 2024. This presents a prime opportunity to target two elite receivers within the first three rounds—a strategy that will almost certainly be a plus-EV decision.
Will Grant: Wide Receiver was the let-down position of 2024 in many cases. Top picks like Tyreek Hill, Puka Nacua, Davante Adams, and Chris Olave did not perform well enough to justify the high draft picks it took to get them. While CeeDee Lamb finished eighth in fantasy scoring, I doubt many fantasy owners were happy spending their 1st round draft picks to get him. As Jason pointed out, a big part of this was due to injury, either to the receiver or the quarterback throwing it at them.
But other top choices played out as expected. Ja'Marr Chase's holdout didn't stop him from dominating the field, scoring almost 100 more fantasy points than #2 wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. Justin Jefferson and Drake London also had top-five finishes, and rookies Brian Thomas Jr., Malik Nabers, and Ladd McConkey provided excellent value in their first year.
My New Year's resolution is to be open to taking a wide receiver or two in the top three rounds but be mindful of their situations. Jaxon Smith-Njigba finished in the top 10 because of an injury to DK Metcalf. Jerry Jeudy was okay at the start of the season but came on when Amari Cooper was traded to Buffalo. Courtland Sutton provided considerable value with Bo Nix under center, and Jameson Williams finally emerged as a solid wide receiver for the Lions. For the 2025 season, wide receiver will be the position I sprinkle in here or there and look for the value as it comes to me rather than go big in the early rounds.
Andy Hicks: This year, we saw Justin Jefferson and Ja'Marr Chase return to the elite level, Amon-Ra St. Brown and CeeDee Lamb remained there, while Brian Thomas Jr., Malik Nabers, Drake London, Terry McLaurin, Garrett Wilson, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba reached that level for the first time. That means, as Jason explained, a lot of expected success for wide receivers failed to materialize. Injury, age, and other circumstances saw a lot of disappointment.
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