Fantasy Football Wide Receiver Breakout Candidates for 2025 Drafts: WR1 Projections and Outlooks

John breaks down his top sneaky fantasy football WR1 candidates for 2025. Which players could surprise and finish as top 12 wide receivers in fantasy football in 2025?

Fantasy football is inherently unpredictable, mainly because it features humans playing against other humans. We know that they'll try their best to play as hard as they can and produce as well as they can, at least. Those who don't usually find themselves out of the league very quickly.

Some of them stick around, like maligned quarterback Deshaun Watson, to absolutely ruin their franchise. Yet, QBs are a different beast altogether. Wide receivers who show a lack of effort don't tend to stick around.

And there are at least a few ways we can identify potential breakouts and sleeper players who have a reasonable path to producing WR1 numbers. It's impossible to accurately predict all of them each year, and often too many factors are out of everyone's control, but I'll try to point you in the right direction for at least a couple. Let's dive in!

Editor's Note: Discover RotoBaller’s top Fantasy Football Sleepers to gain an edge in your drafts. Our free who to draft tool and expert picks spotlight undervalued players, breakout candidates, and late-round gems for all league formats.

Ricky Pearsall, WR, San Francisco 49ers

UPDATE: Deebo Samuel Sr. was traded to the Washington Commanders. 

So, if the San Francisco 49ers trade away or cut Samuel, and they definitely should, it gives one of his backups, soon-to-be second-year wideout Ricky Pearsall, a chance to shine. He looked excellent in limited action, which is remarkable, considering he was shot in the chest before the regular season started.

Pearsall didn't play in the first six games of the season, and when he returned, he joined a highly inconsistent offense that was decimated by injuries and poor offensive line play. There's a solid chance the injury luck is better in 2025 and that the 49ers address the offensive line, which slowly became a huge problem.

Ricky Pearsall teasing the slot fade to win the out route pic.twitter.com/jepxVpLPC8

— Receiver School (@ReceiverSchool) January 9, 2025

One of the easiest ways to identify underrated players is to scrutinize what you think would have happened had they not dealt with injury issues. And Pearsall started his season inconsistently, but when he was given a good target volume, he produced very well with it.

Imagine if he had played in the first six games and his two-game stretch at the end of the season became an eight-game span of healthy play. In Weeks 17-18, Pearsall caught eight of his 10 targets for 141 yards and a TD (Week 17) and nabbed six of eight targets for 69 yards and one score in the final week.

San Francisco 49ers rookie WR Ricky Pearsall's debut was delayed, but he made some plays to close out 2024!

He finished with 210 receiving yards and 2 TDs in the final two games of his rookie season! pic.twitter.com/S3lyID4AWt

— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) January 7, 2025

Yet, his ADP is still very low. Samuel's poor 2024 play could be a sign that he's declining, and while he suffered from pneumonia and wasn't the same after he caught it, he's now 29 years old. And WR Brandon Aiyuk, the team's clear WR1, tore his ACL and MCL in 2024 and isn't likely to be 100 percent again until the 2025 season.

Pearsall is ridiculously underrated right now. His ceiling is very high in Kyle Shanahan's system, which has consistently been one of the best in the league when the injury situation allows for it. Pearsall put great play on tape and improved markedly to close the season, which is what you want to see in rookies.

Smash pick him in both redraft leagues and dynasty startups. He'll be tied to quarterback Brock Purdy for some time moving forward, who is a great QB to catch passes from.

Tre Harris, WR, NFL Draft Rookie

Many in the fantasy community likely scoff at the idea of Ole Miss Rebels wide receiver Tre Harris finishing as a WR1 overall in 2025. After all, he's not even the consensus best WR in this year's draft class; that would be Arizona wideout Tetairoa McMillan.

Many in the fantasy community likely balk at the idea of Louisana State University wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr. finishing as a top-12 WR overall in 2024. After all, he's not even the consensus best WR in last year's draft class; that would be Ohio State Buckeyes wideout Marvin Harrison Jr.

As you can see, sometimes consensus gets things wrong. Yet, the majority of the community naturally flocks together and follows consensus rankings, which naturally leads to the idea that the "lower-tier" guys, or those guys who are further down the ladder of fake, arbitrary tiers, can't possibly produce better in their first year in the league than the guys who are ranked higher.

WRs in college football against Man coverage this season (min. 50 targets).

Tre Harris...lol pic.twitter.com/ZIukHsSLVT

— Tyler Brooke (@TylerDBrooke) February 5, 2025

Yet, the last time a wideout crushed efficiency metrics this massively in college football, he became a league-winner in his first season. And even his yards per route run statistics weren't as chart-nukingly atomic as Harris's. He dominated man coverage to a historic degree.

And though he played much of his time against poor competition, he dominated nearly every game he played in. Were it not for injury issues, he'd probably have ascended to the consensus WR1. Instead, the biases of the analyst community at large decide that he isn't as good because he didn't play in as many games.

I'm extremely high on Ole Miss WR Tre Harris.

Every ball is Harris's ball, and he brings that same competitive mindset after the catch. He's adept at beating press coverage, and while not an elite separator, he runs routes that consistently put him in position to make plays. pic.twitter.com/ekyKaBQCRo

— Brandon Carwile (@BCarwile_NFL) February 19, 2025

Harris does virtually everything better than McMillan -- and by that, I mean he does everything better except be taller, which he can't control. His route running, explosiveness, short-area quickness, effort, consistency, jump-ball skills, and contested-catch capabilities are all superior to TMac's.

No matter how many times consensus gets it wrong and willfully turns a blind eye to a player's deficiencies, it still largely drives how people select players in fantasy football drafts. Yet, it takes only about six games into a season before people start to realize how wrong it can be. This time, it's very wrong yet again.

If Harris lands on a good team with a good quarterback, like the Los Angeles Chargers or Washington Commanders, he should finish the year as a WR1, or at least very close to it if he can stay healthy. Either way, he's an amazing pick in redraft fantasy leagues and best ball.

Rashid Shaheed, WR, New Orleans Saints

New Orleans Saints wide receiver Rashid Shaheed showed himself to be the favorite target for quarterback Derek Carr in his final few games before going down with an injury. It will be hard to accept for those who have faith in or own shares of WR Chris Olave, but the trend became clear early in the Saints' season.

Rashid Shaheed had a 31% target share in Week 4 and hasn’t been below 20% in any game.

He reached 20% twice in all of 2023 https://t.co/Lnus1mmEkR

— Alex Johnson (@a_johnsonFF) September 30, 2024

Shaheed's breakout was driven not only by his excellent and developing talent but also by his target share, which lapped his 2023 percentage. And his first-read target share also bested Olave's in the games they played together -- when both WRs were on the field and running a route on any given play, Shaheed was more likely to be read first by Carr.

It's, thus, strange to see Shaheed's ADP so low and Olave's so much higher, especially considering the latter's injury issues, most notably his concussion history. At the very least, it should be a lot closer. But if Shaheed can get a full season in without injuries, having improved as much as he has, and continue to build chemistry with Carr, he could have a monster season.

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