Fantasy Football Wide Receiver Target Hogs to Draft (2025)

August 12, 2025

Kevin's fantasy football target hog wide receivers for 2025. His top WR draft targets and league-winners, including Ladd McConkey, Puka Nacua, and more.

Target hogs; we want them, especially in PPR formats. It should be a no-brainer that the best target-earning players are the ones who tend to score the most fantasy points each season. Part of the skill of a pass-catcher is to get on the field, then to run a route, get separation, and then finally, earn a target. It’s the quarterback who decides who is getting the ball, but growing trust with a receiver to run correct routes and get open consistently makes a good receiver a great one.

That translates perfectly into fantasy football, where wide receivers have risen into the first round en masse compared to the 2010s, when running backs dominated the first round. It’s a different league, and the passing game drives much more of the fantasy scoring for wide receivers, tight ends, and running backs who catch passes.

As for the target hogs we’re looking at this season, let’s dive into a few of them here for 2025.

Puka Nacua, Los Angeles Rams

Puka Nacua is an easy pick as a target hog, and we know the Rams are going to throw the ball. His head coach, Sean McVay, is an elite schemer and play caller, so we know that easy “lay-up targets” will be available for Nacua in this offense. Davante Adams was added to pair alongside Nacua, but that’s no reason to fade him this season in fantasy football.

Highest first down per route run rate dating back to 2006 (minimum 250 routes run)

17.8% - Tyreek Hill (2023)
17.0% - Puka Nacua (2024)
16.5% - Wes Welker (2009)
15.7% - Davante Adams (2020)
15.6% - Steve Smith (2008) pic.twitter.com/mHTds7jrRl

— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) July 26, 2025

The Rams have typically been an offense that condenses personnel so that their key players have run all but a handful of snaps and routes per game. There is very little room for WR4s, WR5s, TE2s, RB3s, etc. in this offense, so that’s why we love it for fantasy football. Through the years, Brandin Cooks, Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp, and Tutu Atwell have all been on the field a ton and reaped the benefits of McVay’s scheming and condensed offense.

Nacua has been remarkably efficient, achieving a 35% target share in games he finished, along with a league-leading 45% first-read target rate and 3.88 yards per route run. Honestly, saying he’s been amazingly efficient doesn’t feel like a strong enough statement. In the glut of wide receivers after Ja'Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, and CeeDee Lamb, he’s my clear choice for WR4.

Davante Adams, Los Angeles Rams

A second Los Angeles Rams wide receiver? What is going on? Adams joins the Rams, and that move couldn’t be a better one for him. Adams replaces Kupp and will now be schemed open by one of the best offensive gurus in the NFL. Like we said with Nacua, the Rams are one of the most condensed teams in the NFL in terms of personnel, so as long as he’s healthy, he’s not coming off the field.

Davante Adams was one of just ten Wide Receivers to post 17+ PPG last season

he did so despite playing for two below average offenses

32 years old or not…

Adams with Stafford is a BUY pic.twitter.com/7YmunQwJiH

— DynastyIM (@dynasty_im) July 21, 2025

Adams has historically been one of the best wide receivers in the league, dating back to 2016. In PPR formats, Adams has been a top-12 wide receiver each of the last five seasons and has earned no less than 141 targets in a season. He’s scored fewer than eight touchdowns just once since 2016. It’s safe to say it’s a bankable production from Adams, but what about age concerns?

Yes, Adams is entering his age-33 season in 2025, but he hasn’t fallen off by any significant degree in terms of per-route metrics. Adams’ YPRR came back up over 2.00 last season. He’s still stayed plenty strong in the target-earning department, as he’s earned a look on 25% of his route. He’s as safe as it gets in the mid-to-late third round for a wide receiver that could earn 130-140 targets this season.

And before you ask, no. I’m not worried about Matthew Stafford, who has had back injuries previously to this offseason and has managed them exceptionally well to provide his wide receivers the opportunity to hit ceiling outcomes time and time again. There’s a reason they call him “The Kingmaker,” and Adams should wear that crown in 2025.

Ladd McConkey, Los Angeles Chargers

Ladd McConkey came into Week 1 last season 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 fantasy points and WR11 in fantasy points per game from that point and was a 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 exceptionally efficient as he made the most of his growing opportunities as the season closed. McConkey’s 2.38 YPRR proved he can be massively efficient with the targets he earns, and he can only get better in his sophomore season.

Ladd McConkey has League Winning Upside

Last year among 112 qual WRs
(per @FantasyPtsData)

11th in separation
8th in YPRR
10th in route win rate

What if LAC continues their pass happy ways in 2025?

Last year Weeks 7-18:

8th in neutral passing rate
6th in PROE pic.twitter.com/DZs6c0kqoC

— Derek Brown (@DBro_FFB) June 11, 2025

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

While the Chargers added receivers Tre Harris, Keandre Lambert-Smith, and tight end Oronde Gadsden in this past April’s draft, none of that trio will challenge McConkey’s perch of target supremacy. He’s a rising star, and while you have to draft him in the second round or into the beginning of the third round, getting Justin Herbert’s top target is as safe as it gets in McConkey’s second season.

Rashee Rice, Kansas City Chiefs

For 2025, there is a LOT to unpack here with Rashee Rice from an injury standpoint as well as his standing off the field, but there’s no denying that Rice was a massive difference maker for the Chiefs in the early part of 2024. The Chiefs missed Rice’s ability to move the chains and rack up targets and receptions as the team had to eat their vegetables and acquire DeAndre Hopkins midseason to try to fill that receiving void (unsuccessfully).

I mean, you had to do SOMETHING if your only recourse was playing JuJu Smith-Schuster.

Rashee Rice

Had elite usage & production in his limited 2024 sample

Weeks 1-3
(per @FantasyPtsData)

31.5% target share
3.60 yards per route run
41.2% first-read share
0.188 first downs per route run

— Derek Brown (@DBro_FFB) June 16, 2025

In Rice’s three complete games last season, he averaged 9.6 targets, 8.0 receptions, and 96 receiving yards per game, as well as scoring touchdowns in two of his three games. It’s likely Rice would have continued his ascent and would have been a clear step up in 2024 from a promising rookie campaign. Fantasy managers who drafted Rice were robbed of that thanks to a fluke knee injury on an interception return.

We’re talking a 3.16 yards per route run (YPRR) in a very limited 91-route sample size, plus a 32% targets per route run (TPRR); those are ELITE numbers no matter how you slice it. If Rice is playing a full season in 2024, we would not have to hear about the demise of the Chiefs’ offense because Rice was very likely to spearhead its renaissance.

Rice’s suspension will likely come soon as he’s sentenced by a judge to five years' probation and 30 days of jail time that must be served at any time during those five years. Now comes the NFL’s punishment, which is still up in the air. That said, when he does play, Rice will be one of the best target-earning wide receivers in fantasy, and if we’re talking about third-year leaps, Rice is the poster child of that if given a full season of games.

Even if he plays a truncated amount of games, he’s still going to provide WR1-level production at an affordable price just because you have somebody starting for him on your roster in the meantime.

Update - Rice is expected to have his hearing with the NFL on September 30. As a result, Rice will now likely be able to play in the first four games of the season before any potential suspension is given.

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