Fantasy Football: Biggest surprises of the 2025 season — wide receivers

• Justin Jefferson and Brian Thomas Jr. were supreme disappointments: Considering the high fantasy draft capital invested in these two, it’s difficult to think of their seasons as anything but disappointing.

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Every NFL season is full of good and bad surprises, and 2025 was no exception. Plenty of fantasy football assets emerged seemingly out of nowhere to become quality starting options, while others let us down, either due to injuries, poor play, inefficiency or a benching.

In this article, we’ll look at some of the pleasant surprises and surprise disappointments at wide receiver from 2025, leaving out players who missed significant chunks of time due to injury.

Editor's note: Fantasy points/rankings are from Weeks 1-17

Pleasant Surprise: George Pickens, Dallas Cowboys

• Finish: WR5
• ADP: WR29

Pickens’ first season with the Cowboys arguably couldn’t have gone better from a fantasy perspective. He was often drafted as a WR3 this offseason and ended up being one of the most effective fantasy receivers in 2025.

Pickens finished as a top-five PPR wide receiver overall and was the PPR WR6 in points per game, even outperforming teammate CeeDee Lamb in both regards. Lamb has been a perennial WR1, so it was understandable that Pickens would be drafted well after him, having to deal with the toughest target competition of his career. Pickens shattered expectations, leading the team in targets (128), receptions (92), receiving yards (1,420) and receiving touchdowns (nine). Although he played three more games than Lamb, it was still an obviously impressive feat.

The 24-year-old's receiving numbers in 2025 were all career highs, in addition to his 87.3 PFF receiving grade and 2.37 yards per route run mark. All of his highlighted receiving numbers here were also top-10 marks among all wide receivers.

Pickens is a pending free agent heading into this offseason, but considering the year he had and his fit with the Cowboys, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him return, again putting him in a good spot to produce in 2026. 

Pleasant Surprise: Chris Olave, New Orleans Saints

• Finish: WR6
• ADP: WR32

Concussions marred Olave’s 2024 season and created enough concern for drafters this year to push him all the way down to WR3 territory by ADP. Olave was highlighted as a top bounce-back candidate this offseason, making him a great value for where he was being drafted, and he more than delivered on that value. He played all 16 games and finished as a PPR WR1 in 2025, dominating the target share in New Orleans and becoming one of the best values in drafts this year.

It is not a surprise that Olave was the Saints' top target, but fantasy drafters likely weren't expecting him to play every game. His ADP this offseason was far from that of the previous two seasons, when he was a top-15 wide receiver by ADP. His talent and production potential remain sky high, and he he proved to be well worth the risk in 2025.

Pleasant Surprise: Wan'Dale Robinson, New York Giants

• Finish: WR11
• ADP: WR66

Robinson emerged as a top-12 PPR wide receiver this year after Malik Nabers‘ early-season injury, although he was still arguably an underrated fantasy option at his WR66 ADP. Even in 2024, Robinson was significantly more effective in PPR than where he was valued, finishing that season as the WR37 with Nabers in the lineup on tha back of 132 total targets.

It only made sense that Robinson would outperform his ADP in 2025, considering his role in the offense as a typically low-average-target-depth receiving option who creates after the catch.

With Nabers out of the lineup, Robinson’s role grew significantly as he became more than just a screen-game option. His average depth of target increased to a career-high 9.0 yards in 2025 — well up from his 5.1 mark in 2024. So, while Robinson still saw 130-plus targets, the value of those targets increased dramatically and helped him crack 1,000 receiving yards for the first time in his career after a previous career high of 699 yards.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Robinson outperformed his ADP, but it was a surprise — even with Nabers out of the lineup — that he was able to get all the way up to becoming a top-12 PPR wide receiver, making him one of the best waiver pickups of the season.

Surprise Disappointment: Justin Jefferson, Minnesota Vikings

• Finish: WR26
• ADP: WR2

Jefferson was a consensus top-three fantasy wide receiver by ADP heading into this season and had never given fantasy managers any reason to expect much less. Before 2025, he had finished no worse than the PPR WR7 in healthy seasons. Even in 2023, when he played just nine games, he averaged nearly 19 points per game.

Unfortunately, this season was a completely different story. An unstable quarterback situation and Jefferson’s inefficiency, relative to his career norm, led to just a PPR WR25 finish in 2025, despite his not missing a single game. Jefferson finished among the top 12 fantasy wide receivers in a week only twice this season.

While WR25 isn’t a disappointing finish for most fantasy wide receivers, it’s a significantly underwhelming season for a player drafted as highly as Jefferson, and one who had seemingly solidified himself as a perennial top-three player at his position.

There will be plenty of hope that Jefferson can bounce back in 2026, but that will likely depend on his quarterback situation. His 64.6% catchable target rate this year was one of the worst marks at the position coming out of Week 17. For a player who still saw 130 targets, there was plenty of meat left on the bone. That level of involvement should create optimism that Jefferson can bounce back. But for 2025, Jefferson was clearly one of the biggest fantasy disappointments.

Surprise Disappointment: Brian Thomas Jr., Jacksonville Jaguars

• Finish: WR8
• ADP: WR44

Thomas made this list last year as one of the league’s most pleasant surprises as a rookie, finishing as the PPR WR5 and seemingly looking like an elite fantasy option for the future. As a result, Thomas was the Jaguars’ top-drafted wide receiver and a top-10-drafted fantasy wide receiver overall heading into 2025. Unfortunately, his 2025 season played out far differently.

He didn’t just miss out on returning top-10 wide receiver value, but he also failed in being the lead receiver for his own team. Thomas ranked third among Jaguars receivers in total receptions (45) and receiving yards (658), playing 13 games in 2025.

Several issues, aside from three missed games, caused Thomas to miss his mark in 2025. He tied for the second most drops in the league (eight), and his 53.6% reception rate ranked 89th among 101 qualifying wide receivers despite his above-average catchable target rate (72.6%), creating a massive drop-off in PFF receiving grade — from 83.4 (17th) in 2024 to 65.8 (67th) in 2025.

Ahead of Thomas' third NFL season, it’s difficult to imagine that he could do much worse, considering what he accomplished as a rookie. Expectations will still be tempered, creating more value by ADP.