Fantasy Football 2024 WR Exit Interview: You should expect the position to bounce back in 2025

By / / Sports / 7 minutes of reading


It was not a banner year for the wide receiver position at the top of the league this season and that was reflected in fantasy football scoring.

The WR12 in 2023, Deebo Samuel Sr., scored 213.7 points. This season, just seven players beat that mark. Ja’Marr Chase averaged 20 points per game, leading the league by a wide gap. The WR2 in points per game was Chris Godwin, who hasn’t played in months, and his 16.1 mark was bested by seven running backs this season.

In terms of the top 20 overall non-quarterback scorers in fantasy football this season, 14 of them were running backs.

I actually wrote about this subject a little less than a month ago to investigate why there was a lack of dominant wide receiver performances this season. I won’t rehash every point made in that wide-reaching article but the “too long didn’t read” conclusion was simply a run of bad luck at the position in 2024. Typically, the sharp bet is on workhorse running backs to suffer major injuries over the course of the season. This season, it flipped on its head as many featured backs stayed healthy while some of the game’s premier and most productive wideouts missed long stretches of action. There really isn’t any deeper lurking culprit at play.

You can bet 2025 ADP will overreact to a down year from the position.

Current league trends point to the running game being more important and as long as backs stay healthy next season, especially now that there are some elite talents placed in top-tier rushing ecosystems, they can continue to cash in on that reality. However, that doesn’t mean that wide receiver is any less important than we’ve seen in prior seasons.

Both Brian Thomas Jr. and Malik Nabers went down as two of the best picks you could make this season. Thomas, in particular, provided a ton of value, considering he was a fringe top-100 pick and frequently the third pass-catcher taken from his own team for most of the summer. He also saved his best work for the end of the season.

Nabers had some dry spells this season when the offensive line fell apart after Andrew Thomas went on IR and Daniel Jones was released. However, Nabers showed monster target-earning upside and was the exact type of special talent to thrive in a shaky offense with bad quarterback play. He has a chance to rocket up 2025 draft boards if the Giants find the right passer to pair with him.

JSN’s second season was a great reminder not to overreact to rookie-year results. While he didn’t offer a standout first NFL season, that was easily explained away given he was playing with two veteran wide receivers in DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. He quickly jumped ahead of both in 2024 and was one of just eight wide receivers to catch 100 passes. JSN finished as the WR10 this season and went outside the top 40 receivers in drafts over the summer. He’s the type of separator and intermediate monster I want to bet on for years to come.

Yet another rookie makes the list. Ladd McConkey was an instant impact player in his first year for a Chargers team that desperately needed an above-average receiver. McConkey cleared that baseline and then some. After being taken as the WR44 in drafts this summer, he launched into the top-12 scorers at the position. It still feels like he’s not getting enough credit for having a truly special season as a rookie, averaging 3.01 yards per route run vs. man coverage.

McConkey dominated tough coverage and won at all three levels. He looks like an obvious future superstar at the position.

Finally, Terry McLaurin had the season he was not only capable of but always deserved the moment Washington found a franchise quarterback. Jayden Daniels and McLaurin shared an instant connection on downfield passes outside the numbers. The veteran receiver scored 13 touchdowns this season, second only to Ja’Marr Chase among wideouts. Fears about low passing volume with a scrambling rookie and the lack of understanding about how good McLaurin truly was made him a big value at his 2024 67th overall ADP.

This last spot was close between Courtland Sutton and his former teammate, Jerry Jeudy, both of whom went quite late even in the deepest of drafts and finished as top-15 scorers. Ultimately, I gave it to Sutton both because he finished slightly higher (WR13 to WR15) and was more relevant over the course of the season, whereas Jeudy had a massive spike month. Sutton was the only Broncos skill-position player not operating in a rotation this season. His game as an over-the-middle route runner in the intermediate area overlapped perfectly with the one in which Bo Nix likes to throw football.

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The 49ers wide receiver was a top-30 pick in overall ADP but finished outside the top-40 scoring players at his own position. The film matched the decline in production as Samuel didn’t look nearly as explosive in space as usual and his struggles to win against man coverage were more pronounced than ever. There’s a good chance 2024 was his final season with the 49ers.

Coming off a dominant 2023 season and with CeeDee Lamb in a contract holdout, Tyreek Hill felt like the obvious choice for the WR1 overall in the summer. He went off the board on average as the second-overall player behind Christian McCaffrey. For such a high cost, it was a painful season for Hill.

Sure, he didn’t have Tua Tagovailoa under center for a large chunk of the season but between Weeks 8 and 16 (when Tua returned and before he missed the last two games), Hill averaged 12.1 points per game. That was good for WR24 in that span. Any way you slice it up, this was a letdown season for the soon-to-be 31-year-old speed receiver who sounds like he’s ready to play for a new team.

I’ll contend that Marvin Harrison Jr. didn’t have a “bad” rookie season, but there’s no debating that he fell short of extremely lofty expectations. Harrison was taken as the WR9 in the drafts and never came close to returning on that value. It was just a bad idea to take a rookie receiver so high, no matter what his pedigree foretold. If we’re splitting up the pie of blame as to why he was so volatile this season, everyone deserves a slice from the coaching staff, Kyler Murray and Harrison himself. If you want to bet on him in Year 2, you certainly should be able to do it at a much lower ADP after so many were burned in 2024.

In the first month of the season, it looked like Metcalf was going to be one of the right answers in fantasy. That didn’t last. He dealt with some injuries but was also just outplayed by the aforementioned Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The Seahawks offense operated a bit more smoothly when they funneled the passing game through JSN as the No. 1 read and moved away from some of Metcalf’s volatility. He finished the season as the WR32 in 15 games, well south of his WR18 ADP. I think there’s a chance he’s traded this offseason.

I’m not going to sit here and slam Pittman for a bad season because it was clear playing through what he revealed to be a fracture in his back severely hampered him at points this season.

He still goes down as a significant miss in fantasy, finishing as the WR43 in 16 games after being taken as the WR21. It was always going to be a stretch for Pittman to meet those expectations with Anthony Richardson under center. The fact that the coaching staff went away from some of the quick-hitting passes in favor of longer-developing route concepts that leaned into Richardson’s arm strength stung Pittman even further. Pittman should bounce back individually in 2025 with good health but it’s still a crowded offense in Indy with not a lot of clarity at quarterback.

  1. Ja’Marr Chase

  2. Justin Jefferson

  3. Puka Nacua

  4. Amon-Ra St. Brown

  5. Nico Collins

  6. CeeDee Lamb

  7. Brian Thomas Jr.

  8. A.J. Brown

  9. Drake London

  10. Ladd McConkey

  11. Malik Nabers

  12. Jaxon Smith-Njigba





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About The Author

Avatar of Cristina Daniels
Cristina Daniels is a writer with a passion for lifestyle, books, sports, education and tech. When she's not writing, Cristina loves spending time with her family and friends. She also enjoys watching movies and reading books.

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