Second-Year Fantasy Football Wide Receiver Risers and Draft Targets: 3 Undervalued WRs

Kevin Tompkins' fantasy football wide receiver breakouts for the 2025 season. His biggest wide receiver breakouts in 2025 at the wide receiver (WR) position.

We're always looking for the next great star wide receiver in fantasy football, and finding some of these players who hit immediately can supercharge your fantasy teams and propel them to a championship. Players like Justin Jefferson, Ja'Marr Chase, Malik Nabers, and Brandon Aiyuk come to mind as players who immediately took the NFL and the fantasy football world by storm.

We've been spoiled by the immediate impact of these wide receivers, and we forget that the majority of receivers take another season or two to get integrated into the NFL, learn their playbooks, and get used to the rigors of the league. For the receivers we'll be talking about today, many of them showed flashes of stardom and are looked at very favorably in their second season. They have a lot of things going for them in terms of projecting increased production for 2025.

Let's take a look at a handful of wide receivers entering their second season in the NFL who could make a big leap from their rookie season to this season, with all ADP from RotoBaller.

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Ladd McConkey, Los Angeles Chargers | WR14

Ladd McConkey came into Week 1 with a lot of buzz and after some sporadic weekly production, he turned into a beast from Week 8 until the end of the season. McConkey was WR8 in total points and WR11 in points per game from that point and was mainstay in the slot for the Chargers, totaling 70% of his total snaps there in 2024.

With double-digit PPR games in all but one played game from Week 8 through the rest of the 2024 campaign, McConkey was incredibly efficient as he made the most of his opportunities.

McConkey’s 2.38 YPRR was good for ninth in the NFL among receivers with at least 150 routes and second among rookies, just behind Brian Thomas Jr. There currently isn't a challenge to McConkey’s new reign as the top target in the passing game.

Out is Josh Palmer; in is the returning Mike Williams, and that’s a net positive for McConkey. Also, in is tight end Tyler Conklin, but that addition is negligible for McConkey's value. Quentin Johnston was solid last year after a dismal rookie season, but his fantasy value was mostly derived from touchdowns, with 27.4% of his fantasy scoring coming via getting into the end zone. Besides Will Dissly’s 61 targets last season, the next highest remaining target total from last season’s Chargers is Derius Davis’ 15.

The Chargers added Tre Harris in the second round of the 2025 NFL Draft and added a fifth-round receiver in Keandre Lambert-Smith. Add in fifth-round rookie tight end Oronde Gadsden II from Syracuse, and the cupboard is stocked for Justin Herbert. Despite those additions mixing in with the veterans, nobody will challenge McConkey for target supremacy.

McConkey is a rising star, and while you have to draft him at the end of the second round or into the beginning of the third round, getting Herbert’s top target is as safe as it gets in McConkey’s second season.

With short and intermediate skills and maintaining a downfield presence, being able to win at all levels puts McConkey into rarefied air as a fantasy wide receiver. I wouldn't be shocked if McConkey takes a further leap into being a first-round receiver in 2026.

Marvin Harrison Jr., Arizona Cardinals | WR23

Considering where Marvin Harrison Jr. was drafted -- from the end of the first round to the middle of the second round -- and his NFL Draft capital, where he finished in 2024 was disappointing.

It's not his fault; the entire fantasy community anointed a star before even seeing him play one NFL snap and failed to realize some of the downside risk in that. Harrison had a fine rookie season when all was said and done, but compared to his draft capital at the end of the first round, it was disappointing.

If Harrison’s name were “Fred Smith,” he probably wouldn’t have been a borderline first-round pick in fantasy. Because he's the son of a Hall of Fame wide receiver, he came into the league with baked-in expectations that may have been a bit too unrealistic. Still, Harrison has a ton of upside as an early first-round wide receiver from Ohio State and was a consensus WR1 in rookie drafts ahead of Malik Nabers.

Look, the year-end results weren’t bad for a rookie: 21% targets per route run and 1.63 yards per route run. His inflated average depth of target of 14.2 was slightly problematic, but earning 114 targets at that aDOT was nice. It was an odd utilization for Harrison by offensive coordinator Drew Petzing, but shortening Harrison's aDOT in 2025 should help him get more targets and help the offense even more.

The vibes at the top of the target tree aren’t the super greatest for trying to prognosticate the Cardinals going forward. Watching this Cardinals team last season, they chronically underachieved all season. Still, Trey McBride felt more like the top target in the offense with Harrison as a shakier second option. Turning Harrison into Rashod Bateman isn't the way to capture stardom from a wide receiver who has the bloodlines and opportunity to be a star.

In 2025, Harrison's ADP is much more reasonable, and in RotoBaller's rankings, he comes up as WR23. He can most definitely pay off a low-end WR2 price, and there's still quite a bit of room to maneuver in terms of upside. Last season, we projected Harrison and were way over our skis. This season, we're still projecting, but the price may be right to buy into a superstar at an excellent price in drafts.

Ricky Pearsall, San Francisco 49ers | WR44

Ricky Pearsall’s rookie campaign had all the twists and turns of a hit summer movie, from being selected 31st in the 2024 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers to being shot just before Week 1 and losing the first six games of his rookie campaign.

However, as his rookie season went on, Pearsall found his footing and ended 2024 on a high note that has fantasy managers excited for his second season in the red and gold.

From his debut in Week 7 to the end of the season, Pearsall never ran less than 64 percent routes per dropback in any game, so he got his rookie growing pains out of the way. In Weeks 17 and 18, he asserted himself with two quality outings where Pearsall earned 10 targets and posted an 8-141-1 line against the Lions and then a 6-69-1 line in the season finale against the Cardinals.

The 49ers receiver room is wide open with Deebo Samuel Sr. traded, plus Brandon Aiyuk’s ACL injury recovery potentially opening up things for Pearsall and Jauan Jennings. There's a solid chance that Aiyuk's injury could land him on the PUP list to start the 2025 NFL season, but even if he doesn't, Pearsall could find a home in the slot and push Jauan Jennings to a role on the outside. A slot role would be awesome for Pearsall's PPR upside and insulate him from any issues related to Aiyuk's return.

With Pearsall’s first-round draft pedigree and opportunity that could be wide open in an offense that can use the playmaking from his final two games, getting him at WR44 is a pretty cheap entry point to buy into Pearsall at his floor and get way more in production than his draft-day price would normally allow.

If everything breaks right and the end-of-season production from Pearsall continues, we'll have a true breakout wide receiver on our hands at bargain-basement prices.

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