WR/CB Matchups to Upgrade and Downgrade - Week 5

Corbin analyzes fantasy football WR/CB matchups to find sleepers, targets, avoids for Week 5 of 2025. His WRs to upgrade based on cornerback matchups data.

Welcome back to our WR/CB Matchups for Week 5 of the 2025 fantasy football season. We have a decent sample of four weeks in the offensive and defensive advanced metrics. Injuries have taken a toll on the wide receiver and cornerback positions. For those unfamiliar, this weekly series looks at fantasy football matchups for wide receivers versus the cornerbacks who are projected to cover them. We're using a similar data-driven process to quantify the offensive and defensive matchups based on underlying metrics.

The data we access for offensive and defensive players continues to skyrocket. Though we mainly focus on offensive players, the defensive matchups and coverages sometimes take a backseat. However, the goal of this weekly column is to cover the potential wide receiver upgrades and downgrades based on the weekly WR/CB matchups for fantasy football.

Most teams mix in defensive backs all over the field, with very few cornerbacks shadowing an opposing top receiver. The main takeaway involves not overreacting to a weaker matchup if the receiver is a high-end to near-elite target earner and producer in their respective offense. Based on the weekly matchups, we'll use various tools to find several matchup upgrades and downgrades for the opposing receivers.

WR vs. CB Chart Details

The WR/CB Matchup Chart is back again for 2025! You can find it below! We'll have the most favorable and unfavorable matchups based on several metrics. We used weighted averages to create an adjusted offensive and defensive score. Some inputs include yards per route run, fantasy points per route run, and targets per route run.

We'll have a weekly matchup score with those adjusted scores by subtracting the defensive number from the offensive one. The caveat would be the limited data due to injured offensive and defensive players, possibly skewing the matchups to be more or less favorable. Since this is a newer process, there might be some slight tweaks along the way. With more data from the 2025 season, we'll learn what matchups to target and ones to temper expectations.

We're at a point in the season where we can understand a player's role and usage based on the underlying metrics, which should inform how to project players moving forward. Players can underperform and outperform in a given matchup based on luck and skill factors. There are multiple layers to consider in these matchups, especially since team defenses tend to shift their coverages based on the opposing offenses.

How to Use The WR/CB Chart

WR/CB Matchups Chart: Alphabetical

Below, we'll see the WR/CB matchups for Week 5 sorted alphabetically. The Falcons, Bears, Packers, and Steelers have a bye week during Week 5. We also have players marked differently to indicate a new (bold) or injured player (orange text) to monitor.

The red numbers indicate a more challenging matchup for the receiver, and the green numbers mean favorable matchups (or the defender allows a high rate of the given metric). The visual below shows offenses from the Arizona Cardinals to the Detroit Lions.

The visual below shows offenses from the Houston Texans to the Minnesota Vikings.

The visual below shows offenses from the New England Patriots to the Washington Commanders.

Best Projected Week 5 WR/CB Matchups

Worst Projected Week 5 WR/CB Matchups

Week 5 WR/CB Matchup Upgrades

Xavier Worthy vs. Jarrian Jones

Worthy returned from a shoulder injury and showed us that the Chiefs need him in their offense. The Chiefs ranked 24th in EPA per dropback in Weeks 1-3, which jumped to 10th in Week 4. He leads the team with a 35 percent targets per route rate and 3.19 yards per route run. They like to involve him with some end-arounds, generating 38 rushing yards on three attempts in 2025.

Expect Worthy to see his usage uptick in the coming weeks, with better production coming since he averages 11.5 expected fantasy points per game, nearly three points above his actual output in the small 2025 sample.

Admittedly, the Jaguars defense has been better than expected, ranking fourth in EPA per dropback, 15th in adjusted yards before contact per attempt, and 15th in pressure rate. The Jaguars defense ranks first in turnover percentage, meaning 28.9 percent of the opposing offensive drives ended in a turnover, ahead of the Steelers (22.5 percent) and Bears (19.6 percent).

The Jaguars' pass defense runs zone coverage at the sixth-highest rate while allowing the seventh-fewest fantasy points per dropback. They specifically deploy two-high looks at the ninth-highest percentage and Cover 6 at the highest rate in 2025.

Worthy has been more productive (4.31) in yards per route run against man coverage compared to zone (1.56) in 2025, but he garners the highest target rate among their primary pass-catchers.

In the small 2025 sample, Worthy's numbers against two-high looks haven't been fruitful. That's evident by Worthy garnering a 17 percent target rate and 0.75 yards per route run. For context, Marquise Brown (25 percent, 1.71 yards per route) and JuJu Smith-Schuster (18 percent, 1.98 yards per route) have been the two best receivers against two-high coverages in 2025.

While Worthy's skill set might not be made to pop off against the Jaguars' coverage tendencies, he should find success as the Chiefs' top receiver if Smith-Schuster and Brown were fairly productive on a per-route basis against two-high looks.

Worthy moves all over the field, but Jarrian Jones projects as the primary coverage cornerback. Jones allows the 14th-most fantasy points per route and the 25th-highest yards per route run.

Furthermore, Jones has the second-worst quarterback rating allowed among the Jaguars' cornerbacks and the 42nd-highest passer rating overall. Jones possesses the straight-line speed (4.38 40-yard dash) to keep up with Worthy, though we'll trust Worthy's usage as a Week 5 WR/CB matchup upgrade.

Wan'Dale Robinson vs. Isaac Yiadom

Are we really chasing Robinson again in Week 5 after a boom performance against the Cowboys in Week 2, then a down week in Weeks 3 and 4? However, Malik Nabers suffered a season-ending knee injury, which leads to more playing time and targets for Robinson, Darius Slayton, and Jalin Hyatt.

There's an argument that the Giants' passing offense could become less efficient without Nabers, given the significant talent drop-off in their receiving group.

Robinson earns the second-highest targets per route rate and the second-best first-read target share on the team. Though Robinson primarily plays in the slot, his route percentage remains relatively high and will stay that way.

The Saints deploy zone coverage at the 13th-highest rate, and opposing offenses destroy their zone coverage. That's evident in the Saints' defense, which allowed the most fantasy points per dropback against zone coverage in 2025.

Robinson leads the Giants in yards per route run against zone, where he thrives compared to struggling versus man coverage. He tends to find the soft areas of the zone, often playing out of the slot, which can potentially lead to easy completions for Jaxson Dart. Furthermore, the Saints deploy Cover 3 at the fourth-highest percentage in 2025.

Robinson garners the second-highest target rate (27 percent) and the third-most yards per route run (1.57) among the Giants receivers against Cover 3. He trailed Nabers in target rate (32 percent), but Slayton leads the team in yards per route run (2.90) compared to Nabers (2.32) against Cover 3 in 2025.

Robinson projects to face the Saints' slot cornerback, Alontae Taylor, who allows the 38th-most yards per coverage snap and the 11th-highest passer rate while playing in the slot out of 81 slot cornerbacks. Taylor allows the third-most fantasy points per route and the 14th-highest yards per route run.

The Giants passed at the 28th-highest rate (40 percent) during neutral game scripts, and they ran no-huddle at the second-highest percentage in Week 4, but it was a one-game sample.

For context, the Giants had the seventh-highest neutral game script pass rate and the lowest (zero percent) no-huddle percentage in Weeks 1-3. Robinson should provide a safe floor with some upside as the team's primary first-read against a favorable WR/CB matchup in Week 5.

Josh Downs vs. Darnay Holmes

Tyler Warren has been pushing the Colts' team lead for the highest target rate (26 percent) while running routes at nearly 80 percent of the dropbacks. That's wide receiver-type usage for Warren, leading to Downs losing routes and first-read targets, so this might be somewhat of a risky play to roll out the Colts slot receiver in Week 5.

For context, Downs ran a route on 72.9 percent of the dropbacks with a team-high 30 percent first-read target share in 2024. Michael Pittman Jr. was the primary source of competition, with Alec Pierce being the other primary outside receiver last season, as seen below.

The Raiders have been a soft pass defense to attack. They use zone coverage at the highest rate, over six percentage points higher than the Cowboys. With the Raiders using tons of zone, they also allow the seventh-most fantasy points per dropback. Interestingly, Downs earns targets and produces more against man than zone coverage, while Pittman and Warren have been the better options when facing zone defenses.

Additionally, the Raiders defense deploys Cover 3 at the highest rate (54.4 percent), ahead of the Panthers. Downs boasts a 28 percent targets per route rate, 2.22 yards per route run, and a 17.4 percent first-read target share against Cover 3. He ranks second behind Warren in target rate (34 percent) while trailing him (4.62), Adonai Mitchell (5.36), and Pierce (2.63) in yards per route run in Cover 3.

Downs projects to face Raiders slot cornerback Darnay Holmes, who allows the 20th-highest yards per coverage snap and the 24th-highest passer rating in the slot. With the bye weeks, fantasy managers may need to rely upon Downs as a boom-or-bust WR3 who could take advantage of his per-route opportunities in Week 5.

Week 5 WR/CB Matchup Downgrades

Marvin Mims Jr. vs. Adoree' Jackson (Kelee Ringo if Jackson misses)

After 10 targets in Weeks 1-3, Mims had six in Week 4 against the Bengals. It's been a roller-coaster ride in guessing which Broncos receiver will be the WR2 or WR3 in their offense. Troy Franklin has been running a route on 72.8 percent of the team's dropbacks, with Mims at 46.4 percent.

That suggests the Broncos prefer to rotate their third wide receiver in their offense, though we projected Mims to take a step forward after garnering many schemed-up screens and touches in 2024.

Besides the usage being poor for Mims in the first four games, he'll tease us against an Eagles defense that deploys man coverage at the 13th-highest rate while allowing the sixth-lowest fantasy points per dropback.

Mims leads the team in yards per route (4.83) and average separation score against man coverage. That's not far from the underlying metrics against man in 2024, with 4.43 yards per route and a 35 percent target rate. This might be a risky gamble to downgrade Mims because the Eagles use Cover 1 at the ninth-highest rate, yet he produces efficiently on a per-route basis.

Mims (25 percent, 3.75 yards per route) trails Courtland Sutton (47 percent, 4.07 yards per route) in target per route rate and yards per route run against Cover 1. There's a higher probability that Sutton explodes in Week 5 while Mims remains a risky option. Mims has been used more on the outside on a per-route basis, and he was projected to face Kelee Ringo, one of the Eagles' outside cornerbacks.

Ringo played in one game in 2025 for the Eagles in Week 4. However, Adoree' Jackson looks healthy heading into Week 5, which typically has been an area to attack the Eagles' secondary since he allows the 15th-most fantasy points per route run and second-highest yards per route.

Throughout Ringo's brief career, he allowed 0.15 fantasy points per route run, which would rank 20th in 2025. Furthermore, he has allowed a 70.7 passer rating in his career, which would rank 41st out of 139 qualified cornerbacks with 10 or more coverage snaps. Be cautious if fantasy managers might be chasing Mims in Week 5.

Brian Thomas Jr. vs. Jaylen Watson

The Jaguars' defense has been playing better than expected, but the opposite seems true for the offense. Thomas leads the team in air yards share, first-read target rate, and expected fantasy points. Besides Thomas, Brenton Strange and Travis Hunter have been trailing Thomas among their primary pass-catchers.

The Chiefs' pass defense utilizes man coverage at the 11th-highest rate while allowing the fourth-lowest fantasy points per dropback. Thomas (2.67) trails Strange (3.20) and Parker Washington (4.07) against man coverage in 2025. Theoretically, Thomas should perform well against the Chiefs, and this might present a buy-low opportunity.

The Chiefs' defense uses Cover 0 at the highest rate, with Cover 2 at the third-highest percentage in 2025. It's rare for teams to use Cover 0, so we'll combine the underlying metrics for the Jaguars receivers against Cover 0 and 2. Theoretically, Thomas should fare well, evidenced by a 25 percent target rate and 4.42 yards per route run against Cover 0 and 2.

Besides Thomas, Strange (33 percent, 3.22 yards per route) and Washington (38 percent, 2.25 yards per route) have been helpful options for the Jaguars' passing offense against Cover 0 and Cover 2. Jaylen Watson allows the 14th-fewest fantasy points per dropback and the 11th-highest passer rating among the 102 qualified cornerbacks with 50 or more coverage snaps.

We've seen receivers explode over the past two weeks when we include them as a downgrade, and Thomas might boom in Week 5.

Jerry Jeudy vs. Byron Murphy Jr.

Joe Flacco will be benched for rookie Dillon Gabriel in Week 5 against the Vikings. Even without Cedric Tillman, who landed on injured reserve (hamstring), Jeudy's projected outlook against the Vikings might be more of a downgrade. However, Jeudy led the Browns in air yards share (44 percent) and first-read targets (26.5 percent) while running routes at the highest percentage of the team's dropbacks.

The Vikings defense loves to use zone (No. 4) and two-high looks (No. 1). Harold Fannin Jr. has been garnering targets (27 percent) and producing yards per route (2.12) against zone coverage on the Browns. However, Jeudy's 16 percent target rate and 1.00 yards per route run against zone might be something to latch onto without Tillman and a new quarterback.

Jeudy has a mediocre 19 percent target rate and a team-high yards per route run (1.63) against two-high coverages. For context, only Fannin (1.24) and David Njoku (1.06) were the only other pass-catchers who produced over one yard per route against two-high in 2025.

Byron Murphy Jr. has been the Vikings' second-best one behind Isaiah Rodgers. DK Metcalf took a short pass for an 80-yard touchdown while Aaron Rodgers was lined up across from him, but Metcalf and Rodgers found the soft spot in the zone last week. Murphy allowed the 28th-lowest fantasy points per route run, yet he gave up the 15th-highest passer rating, making it somewhat controversial.

This matchup between the Browns and Vikings projects to be a more defensive-focused contest, with the lowest over/under in Week 5. Be cautious with Jeudy until we have at least 1-2 weeks of data with Gabriel at quarterback.

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