There are so many fantasy football rankings flying around this time of year, stacking those lists of players might seem easy to the untrained eye. And sure, we know Ja’Marr Chase and Bijan Robinson should rightly, obviously be ranked at the top. But not every player finds their slot so simply. Here, Scott Pianowski, Matt Harmon, Chris Allen and Justin Boone reveal the players who’ve been giving them headaches this draft season.
Chris Olave is a WR1 trapped in a WR3s situation. From a volume perspective, he belongs in the “fringe top-12” category of receivers. His target shares of 24.1%, 23.8% and 25.0% have been top-20 marks each season. Olaves seen no less than 30.0% of air yards every year. The opportunity that the former Buckeye commands has had our attention for the last three seasons.
But then his situation lessens our excitement. The Saints have primarily deployed Olave in the intermediate and deep parts of the field. With receiving aDOTs of 13.3 and 14.2 during his first two seasons, Olave played like Mike Evans (14.0 aDOT) and DeAndre Hopkins (14.1) but with a smaller frame.
More importantly, he played like that with worse QB play. His 72.0% and 71.0% catchable target rates were outside the top 40 amongst his peers. Of course, the one season that things changed for the better (e.g., lower aDOT, higher-quality looks), multiple concussions sidelined him. Now, we not only have his health to consider, but the state of the Saints offense with an underwhelming QB battle and a new playcaller, too.
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Olaves shown the talent to overcome a poor environment. But the uncertainty makes it difficult to find the right value for him in 2025. Chris Allen
DJ Moore amassed at least 95 receptions in both of his seasons in Chicago and is just one year removed from being the WR10 in fantasy points per game. However, he failed to top 1,000 yards in 2024 despite catching 98 balls while posting career lows in yards per route run (1.44) and yards per touch (9.3). Since then, the Bears have brought in a new coaching staff and added more target competition with highly drafted rookies Colston Loveland and Luther Burden III. Beat writers have also speculated that Rome Oduze could overtake Moore as the teams top pass-catcher.
Even though Moore has been a fantasy star in the past, its hard not to be concerned about the 28-year-olds ceiling moving forward, given all the young talent around him. For the moment, Ive moved Moore down into the fantasy WR3 range, with Odunze one spot ahead of him. Justin Boone
Jameson Williams has been someone I cant quite get a handle of where I want to rank him. He fits somewhere in my fourth tier of wide receivers a group I very much want to be drafting into this year that usually start coming off the board in Round 5 and can last all the way into Round 7. I just tend to move him around that tier often when updating my rankings. Hes a good player who had a breakout season last year and is an excellent complement to Amon-Ra St. Brown as the No. 2. However, his is a volatile archetype of receiver and my bet is that role in the offense is a bit more sensitive to the changes in the Lions’ ecosystem with Ben Johnson and upheaval on the offensive line. This aint a fade the player call; I want to be in on an ascending explosive receiver who has week-winning upside in what should still be a strong scoring unit. However, I just cant figure out where he belongs in his tier and someone in the draft room usually has a higher imagination when it comes to his theoretical ceiling. Matt Harmon
It’s definitely Christian McCaffrey for me.
Look at his past seven seasons: He’s been a league winner four times and he’s been a team wrecker three times. It’s a little ironic that he got hurt last year while the RB injury rate around the league was shockingly low. Now, don’t misunderstand, McCaffrey is a tough and proud athlete and maybe he’s been unlucky with these maladies. But now that he’s entering his ninth season and running behind an ordinary San Francisco offensive line, I find it difficult to know how to play this. Scott Pianowski