Tetairoa McMillan, WR CAR
2025 stats: 70 receptions on 122 targets for 1,014 yards and seven touchdowns.
Regular Season Rookie Report Card: Week 11
Finishing as the fourth highest scoring rookie and as WR15 was a great start to McMillan’s career. He looked like the best receiver on any NFL team and should only get better with experience. He will likely be a perennial top-15 fantasy receiver, and this season is likely his level. He will only be limited by what the team does at quarterback. Bryce Young stepped up in 2025 and may be better than we thought after his first two seasons in the league, and his emergence will likely be tied to McMillan, so he should force-feed him next season and try to get TMac closer to 150 targets and 100 receptions, which should put him in WR1 territory.
Matthew Golden, WR GB
2025 stats: 29 receptions on 44 targets for 361 yards and no touchdowns with ten carries for 49 rushing yards.
Regular Season Rookie Report Card: N/A
Did you know Matthew Golden was second on the Packers in wide receiver snaps? Despite this, he was tied for fourth in goals and sixth in receptions. I now suspect Golden will be another cautionary tale about reading too much into 40-yard dash times. Is he the John Ross of 2025? He finished ninth overall and rewarded fantasy owners by finishing the season 31st in rookie rating as WR87. Romeo Doubs is 99% gone this season. Christian Watson and Jayden Reed only have one year left on their deals, so perhaps Golden will be their de facto No. 1 receiver in 2027, but his career certainly didn’t live up to the high expectations the fantasy community had.
Luther Burden, WR CHI
2025 stats: 47 receptions on 60 targets for 652 yards and two touchdowns on six carries for 37 rushing yards.
Regular Season Rookie Report Card: Week 3
Burden saw 494 snaps as a rookie and Olamide Zaccheaus saw 617. I would have liked to see what Burden could have done if those numbers were reversed. To be fair, Zaccheaus only saw five more targets and Burden had seven more receptions, but you want your playmakers on the field more often. Burden had an ADP of 13 and finished 19th among rookies as a WR48, so perhaps my B+ for the season is a bit generous. I often see rookie players with a list of fanciful names in front of them and think, “There is no path to production,” and while Rome Ozunze, DJ Moore and Colston Loveland are all theoretically ahead of Burden, a Ben Johnson offense that scores more than 28 points per game in the future could provide plenty of opportunities for everyone to get their piece of the pie.
Jack Bech, WR LV
2025 stats: 20 receptions on 29 targets for 224 yards.
Regular Season Rookie Report Card: N/A
The Raiders all the way everything blown up this season. Once it was a lost year, they should have given rookies Bech and Dont’e Thornton the belts. Now they enter 2026 with two big question marks. Do they need receiver help for next season? They don’t even know now. I liked Bech as a prospect, but we may have to wait until he wears another uniform to see what he is capable of in the NFL. He was drafted early second in rookie drafts and finished 45th in scoring as a rookie. Cheeky.
Isaac Tesla wr. det
2025 stats: 16 receptions on 27 targets for 239 yards and six touchdowns.
Regular Season Rookie Report Card: Week 17
TeSlaa wins the best hair in NFL price, but unfortunately that doesn’t translate into fantasy points. Six touchdowns on just 27 targets? Sure. The Lions clearly have plans for him, which is a good thing. He had an ADP of 40 in rookie drafts and performed better than that, finishing as rookie 29 and WR83 overall. If we were looking at this from a best ball perspective, I’d give him an A grade, but I don’t see how he can ever achieve consistent volume with all the other receiving options in the Motor City. The upside is undeniable, but the opportunity will be a tough one to crack without injuries on the horizon.
Jaylin Noel, WR HOU
2025 stats: 26 receptions on 35 targets for 292 yards and two touchdowns on six carries for 12 yards.
Regular Season Rookie Report Card: Week 17
In two playoff games, Christian Kirk had ten receptions on 15 targets for 164 yards and two touchdowns. He is now a free agent and I believe Noel was drafted specifically to fill Kirk’s vacated role when his contract expired. Yes, Nico Collins got injured in those games, but I could see that was Noel’s ceiling. He was drafted second overall in the rookie drafts and finished about 11 spots lower, so it wasn’t a great start, but that’s often the case for rookie receivers. Noel has low-end WR2/high-end WR3 written all over him.
Don’t’e Thornton, WR LV
2025 stats: 10 receptions on 30 targets for 135 yards.
Regular Season Rookie Report Card: N/A
I really thought Thornton had exciting skills that no one else on the Raiders had, and that he would be able to shock people. A late fourth-round fantasy pick, and often undrafted, he sank along with the rest of the Raiders’ ship. If they can’t use a 6-foot-4, 205-pound receiver who can run a 4.3 forty, they all deserve to be fired. tested off the charts when you factor in size and speed and the stupid Raiders gave him 30 targets despite being third on the team in wide receiver snaps – even behind Jacoby Meyers who only played seven games for the Silver and Black. I’m hopeful that the next regime in Vegas can use him properly.
Jalen Royals, WR KC
2025 stats: Two receptions on three targets for four yards.
Regular Season Rookie Report Card: N/A
Before the Chiefs’ meaningless Week 18 game, Royals saw 43 snaps all season, and then another 43 in that game. His two receptions and three goals for the season all came in that game as well. The fact that Royals only saw 19 snaps with Rashee Rice away tells you most of what you need to know. A fourth-round pick is no small feat, but you’d think the Chiefs would have found a way to use him even a little bit if they thought he had the talent. He was picked late in the second/early third round in the rookie drafts. He did absolutely nothing in year one, and it’s hard to imagine there being a role for him in KC in the future. But he’s still a receiver for Patrick Mahomes, so he gets a “+” in the final grade.
Tory Horton, WR ZEE
2025 stats: 13 receptions on 22 targets for 161 yards and five touchdowns.
Regular Season Rookie Report Card: Week 9
Author Disclaimer: I rank Horton significantly higher than most of the industry. I think he was one of the better receivers in this draft class once you got out of the consensus top five. He got hurt during the pre-draft process and still ran a 4.41 forty-yard dash and had nothing to do with being a late fifth-rounder. Cooper Kupp is likely gone next season, Horton will start on the outside opposite Jaxon Smith-Njigba and will be the beneficiary of opposing defenses who will have to focus on JSN for the next few years. I think Horton has as much upside as any team’s WR2. Not too shabby for someone who is 42nd overall in rookie drafts entering the season.
Isaiah Bond, WR CLE
2025 stats: 18 receptions on 44 targets for 338 yards with five carries for 29 rushing yards.
Regular Season Rookie Report Card: N/A
Bond was rated as a top ten prospect in the 2025 rookie class and only fell out of the draft due to some criminal charges prior to the draft. Once cleared, he was signed as a free agent and finished the season third on the Browns in receiving yards. Scoring on a curve here for an undrafted rookie, finishing as WR104 and rookie WR15 isn’t that bad. Bond could be in line for a significant increase in jobs in 2026 and beyond.
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