Ranking rookie wide receivers by impact in 2025: Where Travis Hunter, Tetairoa McMillan, others land
The value of the wide receiver position in the NFL has continued to ascend over the past decade, and it’s become common for the college ranks to send an epic class to the league every draft season. While the 2025 class didn’t receive as much fanfare as the 2024 group, we still saw six receivers selected in the top 40, and eight in the first two rounds.
A new standard has been set for how long it takes for a receiver to produce. Rookie explosions aren’t out of the ordinary. Not at all.
And we’re all amped to see how Travis Hunter performs as potentially the first true two-way player in a long time at the NFL level.
So let’s rank the top five receivers strictly based on who’ll be most productive in 2025. Below the picture box for each receiver is the officially rookie-year stat projection from the CBS Sports Fantasy Football team.
The Texans are doing it the right way — and when I write “it” I mean, building around a young quarterback and “right way” meaning, they have stayed aggressive with acquiring assets around C.J. Stroud while he’s still incredibly cheap.
Last year, they swung a deal for Stefon Diggs. In the 2025 draft, their first three picks were receiver (Higgins), offensive tackle, then Higgins’ receiver buddy at Iowa State, Jaylin Noel. For as fun in the slot as Noel could be, Higgins is very Nico Collins-like on the outside. At 6-foot-4 and 214 pounds with 4.47 speed and a 39-inch vertical, he exudes intimidating and explosiveness, a fine combination.
Houston only has to “replace” 101 targets from their 2024 campaign, and I expect Higgins to split those with newly acquired veteran Christian Kirk. Despite his size and all the rebounding skills he possesses, he’s also a sharp route runner who’ll be able to get open with decent regularity. Plus, he’ll turn 23 in his rookie season and was a four-year contributor at the collegiate level — he’s ready to produce right now. I wanted to rank Hunter higher. I really did. And I won’t be floor if he’s the most productive rookie receiver at season’s end — he’s clearly the most talented. His position flex makes him such a wild card. I have no clue — no one does — how much the Jaguars plan to utilize him on each side of the ball and/or if the split-duty will slow his productivity on offense and/or defense.
Had to include Bech, a receiver on which I had a first-round grade. But it’s not just because of that. The Raiders have 174 “available” targets based on the club’s 2024 figures, and boast significantly more quarterback stability now with Geno Smith than the woeful Gardner Minshew-Aidan O’Connell tandem from a season ago.
The Raiders do have prodigious tight end talent Brock Bowers, who went bonkers as a rookie with a rookie record 112 receptions. While I expect him to continue to be the focal point of the offense, I won’t be stunned if that catch number regresses in his second season, and Davante Adams is long gone.
Ashton Jeanty will anchor what will likely be a much-improved run game that will have more emphasis than in recent years because of the Chip Kelly hire, but it’s not as if Smith will never throw the football.
Bech has as well-rounded of a game as any receiver in the rookie class. I mean that. Beyond blazing speed, he can do it all. And he will showcase that veteran-like polish for the Raiders early and often in 2025.
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3. Luther Burden, Bears
How can Burden be this high? The Bears drafted tight end Colston Loveland in front of Burden in Round 1, they have D.J. Moore, and selected Rome Odunze in the first round last year. OK, so Caleb Williams has ample, highly talented targets around him. The Bears are rightfully being very aggressive at this stage of their rebuild. But Burden is absolutely one of those highly talented pass catches at Williams’ disposal.
The 21-year-old receiver ran a blistering 4.41 at the combine at 6-foot and 206 pounds. He’s clearly in the A.J. Brown/Moore mold physically, and his play-style is almost identical to those two stars. In 2024, Burden forced a gargantuan 30 missed tackles on 61 receptions. While his volume decreased in his final season at Missouri, he proved he can be a reception-magnet in 2023 when he snagged 86 passes for 1,209 yards with nine touchdowns.
Ben Johnson can utilize Burden all across the formation — and he will — en route to a quietly very productive rookie season in Chicago. I expect a leap from Williams too.
2. Travis Hunter, Jaguars
I wanted to rank Hunter higher. I really did. And I won’t be floor if he’s the most productive rookie receiver at season’s end — he’s clearly the most talented. His position flex makes him such a wild card. I have no clue — no one does — how much the Jaguars plan to utilize him on each side of the ball and/or if the split-duty will slow his productivity on offense and/or defense.
But I cannot heap enough praise on Hunter’s advanced game at receiver, a skillset that slowly but surely grew from his time at Jackson State through the two seasons at Colorado. He’s nifty off the line against press, his supreme athleticism makes him an impossible cover, his ability to track the football is probably his finest trait, and he’s a menace after the catch. Believe it or not, the Jaguars.
Jacksonville has to replace a whopping 212 targets from last season, the club enters 2025 with Brian Thomas Jr. — a stud, by the way — as the only established target for Trevor Lawrence.
The Panthers have 124 “available” targets from 2024, and all of them might go to McMillan. OK, so 2024 first-round receiver Xavier Legette will get some, but I also expect Bryce Young to throw the football more than 27 times per game in his third season (his average was a shade over 27 per contest last year).
McMillan is pro-ready, and Carolina had a sizable need at the “X” wideout spot, a designation that is increasingly blurring the NFL but still exists. At Arizona, with Jacob Cowing as his teammate in 2022, McMillan jumped onto the draft radar with 90 catches for 1,402 yards and 10 touchdowns. Then last season, as the clear-cut target defensive coordinators needed to plan for when facing Arizona, he still went for 1,319 yards and eight touchdowns on 84 receptions.
For being as sizable as he is — 6-4 and 219 pounds — McMillan is deceptively flexible when changing directions as a route runner, and that athletic talent (along with sheer power) allows him to rock after the catch. Whether it’s a classic dig route from the outside, or a slant on an RPO, McMillan will accumulate major productive in Carolina in Year 1. Let’s just hope for his sake, Young’s ascension continues.
