2025 NFL draft wide receiver projections: Rankings, stats, comps

Wide receivers are no longer just a long-term investment -- they can make an immediate impact on an NFL team's passing game. Every NFL draft since 2019 has had at least one wide receiver hit 1,000 yards in his rookie season, including three last season. 

The 2024 Playmaker Score projections for the wide receiver class came out very well. We had Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr. as the top receivers, ahead of Marvin Harrison Jr., and both finished top two in rookie receiving yards. The main errors were having Ladd McConkey too low and Ja'Lynn Polk too high compared with their rookie performances.

Do not expect as much out of the 2025 class, however. This is not a strong wide receiver group. Last year, 13 receivers had a Playmaker Score of at least 400. There are four for the 2025 class, and one of them might not even play full-time wide receiver in the NFL.

Playmaker Score, done annually by Nathan Forster, analyzes the player's peak college season along with other variables -- including ESPN's Scouts Inc. rankings -- to project a player's receiving yards per year in his first five NFL seasons. Below, let's take a look Playmaker's top WR prospects in the 2025 draft, along with similar prospects from previous drafts. Similar historical prospects are based on players with similar Playmaker statistics, so there might be two physically dissimilar players compared because they were similar statistically.

1. Travis Hunter, Colorado

Playmaker Score projection: 642 yards/season
Scouts Inc. ranking: 2
Similar historical prospects (as a WR only): Mario Manningham, Xavier Worthy

Hunter comes out on top in Playmaker Score, but the system likely still severely underrated his prospects as a wide receiver. An underlying premise of Playmaker Score is that talented wide receivers will earn a larger share of their teams' offenses. That assumption slightly goes out the window when you have a player who also played full time on defense. If Hunter had just played receiver, he would have been less fatigued and earned even more snaps on offense at Colorado. But the fact that Hunter was still productive enough to lead even an extremely weak wide receiver class is a testament to how special he is.

Obviously, there's a chance Hunter will be a full-time cornerback. No wide receiver who plays just a few snaps per game on offense is going to hit a projection of 642 yards per season. It's smart to not read this projection literally but rather read it as just one more point of information in support of Hunter's amazing overall talent.

2. Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona

Playmaker Score projection: 625 yards/season
Scouts Inc. ranking: 15
Similar historical prospects: Julio Jones, N'Keal Harry

McMillan is known for his size (6-foot-4, 219 pounds), catch radius and ability to win contested catches rather than using raw speed. As you can see, prospects similar to McMillan were all over the map when it came to their performance in the NFL. Other similar prospects chosen in the first round include Sammy Watkins, Kenny Britt and Jonathan Baldwin.

3. Matthew Golden, Texas

Playmaker Score projection: 574 yards/season
Scouts Inc. ranking: 17
Similar historical prospects: Jaylen Waddle, Curtis Samuel (without the carries)

Golden ranks third among this year's receivers in Playmaker Score because he's projected as a mid-first-round pick and is coming out a year early. Otherwise, his metrics aren't quite as impressive as you might expect. Golden had 58 catches for 987 yards and nine touchdowns last season in the Longhorns' 16 games. They threw the ball 541 times -- the fourth most in the nation. Golden had the fastest 40 time among wide receivers at the combine (4.29 seconds), but history shows there's no statistical signal in a player's 40 time that you won't already find in his college performance.

4. Luther Burden III, Missouri

Playmaker Score projection: 556 yards/season
Scouts Inc. ranking: 32
Similar historical prospects: Sammie Coates, Jonathan Baldwin

As mentioned, Playmaker Score looks at the wide receiver's peak season, so Burden's projection is based on his 2023 campaign (86 catches, 1,212 yards and nine touchdowns) rather than his 2024 campaign (61 catches, 676 yards and six touchdowns). Missouri threw the ball fewer than 400 times in 2023, giving Burden touchdowns on 3.2% of pass attempts. That's the highest figure for this year's top dozen prospects.

Another historical prospect who comes out similar to Burden is more impressive than the ones listed above: A.J. Brown. Brown had more touchdowns as a sophomore at Ole Miss (11), although he had more yards as a junior (1,320). Unlike Burden, Brown's numbers were hurt because he had to share the field with DK Metcalf.

5. Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State

Playmaker Score projection: 377 yards/season
Scouts Inc. ranking: 50
Similar historical prospects: Kevin Dyson, Jahan Dotson

One of the important factors that creates a big gap between our top four receivers and the next four is that the top four receivers are juniors. The next four receivers, starting with Egbuka, are coming out as seniors.

Historically, there's been a big difference in the NFL performance between players who come out early and those who don't. If their college metrics are similar, the players who come out early almost always have better NFL careers. However, there is a reasonable basis for questioning whether this is still true. In the past, top prospects came out as soon as they could to make money in the NFL. Now, players might stay in college an extra year for a lucrative NIL opportunity. So these four receivers, and seniors going forward, might be slightly underrated by Playmaker Score.

As for Egbuka, he's an interesting prospect because his best college year came as a sophomore. He had 1,151 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2022. That's more yardage (vs. 1,011) and the same number of touchdowns as he had in his senior year, except he did it on an Ohio State team that threw the ball less often and featured Marvin Harrison Jr. Egbuka had just 515 receiving yards as a junior, but he rebounded as a senior after overcoming ankle injuries.

6. Tre Harris, Ole Miss

Playmaker Score projection: 342 yards/season
Scouts Inc. ranking: 47
Similar historical prospects: Quinton Patton, Chad Johnson

Harris, like Egbuka, had his best statistical season as a sophomore -- in his case, a redshirt sophomore -- in 2022. However, that season he played for Louisiana Tech rather than Ole Miss. Harris scored 10 touchdowns for that Louisiana Tech team but only 15 in the following two seasons combined at Ole Miss. However, he had more average yards per reception at Ole Miss (18.2 in 2023 and 17.2 in 2024).

Scouts like Harris as a big (6-2) target with all-around skills: He can break tackles, can gain yards after the catch, has great body control and comes down with contested balls.

7. Jaylin Noel, Iowa State

Playmaker Score projection: 336 yards/season
Scouts Inc. ranking: 68
Similar historical prospects: Rashad Greene, T.Y. Hilton

8. Jayden Higgins, Iowa State

Playmaker Score projection: 335 yards/season
Scouts Inc. ranking: 57
Similar historical prospects: Eric Decker, Tyrone Calico

Noel and Higgins are prospects from the same school with very similar metrics despite very different sizes. Noel is 5-10, 200 pounds; Higgins is 6-4, 210 pounds. In 2024, Noel had 80 catches for 1,194 yards and eight touchdowns. Higgins had 87 catches for 1,183 yards and nine touchdowns. Noel did better in the 40-yard dash at the combine (4.39 compared with 4.47), while Higgins did better in the jumps.

Noel is more of a slot receiver, but Higgins can play inside or outside. Both players got a boost in Playmaker Score because they had to share the offense with each other, but Noel was slightly higher because he had a handful of carries.

Day 2 sleeper

Isaiah Bond, Texas

Playmaker Score projection: 331 yards/season
Scouts Inc. ranking: 123
Similar historical prospects: John Metchie III, Lavelle Hawkins

Bond was a high school state sprint champion, and his game mostly revolves around that speed, but he's also a reasonable route runner with good hands. Bond had 540 yards and five touchdowns last season despite having to share the field with Matthew Golden. (He also had one touchdown on the ground.) Even more impressive, Bond had 668 yards and four touchdowns in 2023 alongside Xavier Worthy, Adonai Mitchell and Golden.

By the way, you'll notice on the table below that Bond has a higher Playmaker Rating than Golden. That's a weird quirk of the system because Playmaker Rating, unlike Playmaker Score, does not account for projected draft position. Essentially, Playmaker Rating is giving Bond a bonus for having a highly projected teammate but not giving Golden a bonus for being that highly projected teammate. So don't interpret that as Bond being a better prospect than Golden.

Day 3 sleeper

LaJohntay Wester, Colorado

Playmaker Score projection: 160 yards/season
Scouts Inc. ranking: 289
Similar historical prospects: Tiquan Underwood, Brian Hartline (but smaller)

Wester is a diminutive (5-foot-10, 163 pounds) slot receiver with stellar top-end speed. He had 74 catches for 931 yards and 10 touchdowns last season despite playing alongside Travis Hunter. The season before, he had 108 catches for 1,168 yards and eight touchdowns for Florida Atlantic. Antonio Brown (Central Michigan), Greg Jennings (Western Michigan) and Roddy White (Alabama-Birmingham) are  examples of similar mid-major receivers who turned that production into NFL success.

Wester gets a bump in Playmaker because he had to share the offense with Hunter, but he would be a strong late-round sleeper even if he had come out of Florida Atlantic before transferring to Colorado. Take out the bonus for sharing the field with a first-round prospect and Wester's Playmaker Rating would be 49.5%, which is still excellent for a player currently projected as an undrafted free agent.

Methodology: How Playmaker Score works

Playmaker Score projects NFL success for wide receivers based on a statistical analysis of Division I wide receivers drafted in the years 1996-2023 and measures the following:

• The wide receiver's projected draft position from Scouts Inc.
• The wide receiver prospect's best or "peak" season for receiving yards per team attempt (i.e., a wide receiver with 1,000 receiving yards whose team passed 400 times would score a "2.50").
• The wide receiver prospect's peak season for receiving touchdowns per team attempt.
• The difference between the prospect's peak season for receiving touchdowns per team and the prospect's most recent season for receiving touchdowns per team attempt (this factor is simply "0" for a player whose peak season was his most recent season).
• A variable that rewards players who enter the draft as underclassmen and punishes those who exhaust their college eligibility.
• The wide receiver's rushing attempts per game during his peak season for receiving yards per team attempt.
• A factor that gives a bonus to wide receivers with teammates who played for the same college team, entered the draft for the same year and are projected to be drafted.

Playmaker's primary output (Playmaker Score) projects the average total of regular-season receiving yards the wide receiver will gain per year over the course of his first five NFL seasons. The secondary output (Playmaker Rating) reflects how well the receiver does compared with historical benchmarks without considering projected draft position. Nathan Forster does the annual work on Playmaker Score.