2025 NFL Draft Wide Receiver Model

Better model than any you have seen .. probably anywhere. R^2: .47 .... oh and its FREE

Oh, Hey! It has been a while, but it is April and the NFL Draft is approaching. This is a BEAST of a post for the true dynasty nerds. If you have read this far, go ahead and give this a like <3 you can always take it back later if you want.

Thank you for reading this and liking this post. This model took a LOT of work and feature engineering. For some reason, I take a lot of pride in making draft-related models. I make no money from it and just do it for the love of the game. Dynasty content is a bit strange and just as you shouldn’t trust strangers — do not trust models without R^2’s.

The NFL Draft is a holiday in my eyes. It is one of the most beautiful things to see a billion dollar franchise make a mistake that alters the course of their franchise for a decade. I love seeing teams reach for players when every model says “pls don’t do that” and I love when players I love get drafted into situations they can succeed. It also is probably the single biggest day in Dynasty to see swings in player value. Whether a rookie no one has heard of yet lands in Kansas City or that veteran RB we all think has a free top 24 season gets some new competition. Remember when everyone thought Bowers was going to fail lol.

Each year I make a rigorous model for WR, TE, and sometimes RB from scratch. I like to think my models are better than everyone else. I am pretty confident they are because most don’t share their R^2 and the ones that do, I beat. This year, I have access to some pretty awesome PFF data and that alone puts my model in a new tier. As much as i love the draft, i basically consume 0 draft content until its time to build my model. So i usually come in with pretty fresh eyes.

I want to give a quick shoutout to someone that I think “does it right” and that’s Marvin. Marvin uses data from 2010 - 2024 and actually has a training and testing process. I cannot express enough how much “sus” Dynasty content is out there whether the person making it knows or not. Peter is also my dynasty hero who has great process. Highly recommend checking them both out.

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Pre-Model Talk

So, my 2024 model, that i constructed last year, had Bowers as the WR1 (as a UGA fan, i did not bias this i swear), MHJ was WR2, and Nabers was WR3. One thing I think I did poorly in my 2024 model was not accounting for Power 5 or Group 5 enough. This year, I gave a heavy penalty to Group 5 production to omit the “Josh Cephus” problem. I also added some pretty cool NOVEL (as my PhD Econ wife would say) stats to better understand a WR’s production:

• Junk Yards: Yards BEFORE Contact on passes less than 5 air yards. The idea is that these yards are basically schemed/meaningless.

• BEAST Yards: Total Yards on passes 5+ air yards AND where the WR gained more than 5 yards after contact

• Little Bro stat (Deep Contested Catch Yards): Air Yards >= 20 & Contested & Completion. My little bro who is a high school wide receiver said that this was a good measure of explosiveness and turns out that it is!

• Route Versatility Index: You know the Matt Harmon route trees? This was my attempt at simplifying that into a single number. How good are you at running every route versus how every other WR runs that specific route? Add it up into a single number

I am sure many people are initially wondering “HOW YOU GET THOSE STATS???” PFF Ultimate is amazing.

I created many more variables than this, but these were some of the coolest NEW variables i made. I consolidated all my variables into a few main ideas: Production, Explosiveness, PFF, Athletic, and Route Versatility. After manually selecting the most important ones for predictive NFL success based on ACTUAL TESTING (eyes other models). I used a Principal Components Analysis on each category to reduce my overall dimensionality and simplify my model while extracting as much information from the underlying models as possible.

If I haven’t lost you, congratulations, you get to see the best pre draft model on the internet now. That sounds cocky, but show me a pre-draft model with a .47 Cross-Validated R^2 (.686 R) to NFL First 3 YR FPpG on NFL Caliber Players (Drafted players + Players that played a snap in the NFL) (2017-2024 data).

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2025 Model Results

My models can be a bit controversial sometimes. I simply aim for the best cross-validated R^2 I can using an Elastic Net to help prevent overfitting. The results are the results and i stand behind them. Now, I don’t always FULLY agree with everything the model thinks, but the R^2 is the R^2. This model’s Cross Validated R^2 is a .47. Testing set was 2022 with a testing R^2 of .46. Those who know, know this is about as good as it gets in the NFL space.

I gave Travis Hunter a custom PFF rank of 8. His current ranking is #1 because of his WR/CB ability, 8 felt fair for just his WR ability.

NOTE: If you find this useful, you should like it <3 and share it with a friend or friends <3 Remember, this is a free, validated statistical model using some of the best football data in the world

NOT ALL VARIABLES IN THE TABLE CREATED THE MODEL. I JUST PUT A FEW. THERE ARE MANY MORE.

• Model %: The Percentile of a given player’s model output against all drafted players in the dataset

• Career Score % (Complex calculation): Basically, I took season level production metrics and PCA’d them into a single number. I then weighted the number by the players conference, and their age. So an 18 year old in the SEC will get substantially more credit for an elite season than a 23 year old in the MAC. I then used a pretty complex custom weighting to sum up each season for each player. This could honestly have its own 10,000 word write up lol

• Explosive %: PCA of — Deep Contested Catches Per Target, Big Play Score (custom score i made for big plays), YAC per reception, aDoT, Avoided Tackles per reception. PC1 Percentile against drafted players.

• Beast Yards per RR: BEAST yards are a custom metric I made. The basic idea was to capture plays where a player took over the play. BEAST yards are Total Yards on passes 5+ air yards AND where the WR gained more than 5 yards after contact. This is a purely upside metric imo.

• WAA %: PFF’s Wins Above Average metric as a percentile against all drafted players

Note: The model included many more variables than this but table would be super ugly if i included them all.

Now, If you sub to me and like this. I will give you access to almost all the variables used to construct my model for FREE.

Okay… Ill give them to you for free anyways, but I would be so grateful if you subbed and liked this post <3 NOTE: Not all variables were used in the model and some variables i used weren’t included. I can’t be giving away EVERYTHING.

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CRITICAL NOTE: I am not a film dude. I don’t really care about it at all tbh. I think we have good enough data nowadays to capture most of the nuance in film analysis, but film should be like 20% of the process and I don’t have time for that. This analysis is purely on the analytics profile i have for each player

WR1 — Luther Burden III

I know, I know, some people discount his production because he was really good at slot fades, but I checked slot fades in college against future NFL success and it did not matter whether they were included or not in the players production.

Pros:

• Truly Elite career production profile. Think Nabers or Chase level tbh. 97th percentile sophomore season accounting for his age and conference (and conference relative strength… like drafted players and player size/pff grades). 98th percentile overall career score against all drafted players.

• 87th percentile Route Versatility Index is very good, especially considering he’s more known for his YAC ability.

• Just turned 21 in December!

Cons:

• Beast YPRR is fine, but not impressive by any means. Thought he would score a little bit higher in the explosiveness score, but 80th percentile is still very good.

• His career SOS percentile is not amazing (34th percentile). SOS in this case refers to the PFF grade of the coverage units he faced.

• His Teammate quality score was 25th percentile meaning he did not have TOO much competition for targets.

None of these cons are that big of a deal

Overall: Fantastic upside player. Upside is what i care about more than anything in both IRL and dynasty. Burden has the profile of a potential future star akin to poor mans’ Nabers or Chase. However, he lacks in true explosiveness which will hold him back from being at the Nabers or Chase level. via my Season Score metric — Burden’s sophomore season was the 21st best season out of all players since 2016. Personally, I think both him and Tet are both worthy of the WR1 spot, but I strongly prefer Burden’s price and overall upside over Tet’s.

Model’s WR2 — Tetairoa McMillan

Don’t get me wrong, just because he is my model’s WR2 doesn’t mean i think he will fail! I do think he is a smidge overpriced in dynasty right now. I would much rather trade down and take Burden+ all day long.

Pros:

• Very good career production profile, but not in the truly elite territory according to my model.

• I created a Route Participation Index with the goal of proxying for injury, but its also a decent proxy for earning routes as a young player. I predict the amount of routes a player should be running based on their age, conference, etc. Then compare it to how many routes they actually ran. Tet scores in the 97th percentile for this and #1 in the class.

• Very good overall explosiveness score. Better than i thought it would be tbh.

• 93rd percentile RVI which is 3rd best in the draft class for top 100 players. If Burdens upside metric was his career score, Tet’s is his RVI.

Cons:

• Biggest red flag in his profile: I created a “YPRR over expectation” metric based on players age, conference, teammate quality, competition etc. Tet scores in the 47th percentile. Burden is 73rd percentile for reference. Not the end of the world, especially since he has an elite career score. Below is a list of 1st rnd players with +/- 10% Tet’s YPRR-OE score.

• Like Burden, Beast YPRR is fine but not impressive

Overall: Really good profile. 46th percentile career SOS by my custom metrics with some very solid production and explosive scores. No real obvious flaws, I do understand why people would put him at WR1. Putting him as WR1B felt like a cop out though. Tet probably has the higher chance at simply scoring more FPpG (Especially in year 1), but Burden has the higher chance of being a close-to-bonified superstar in my opinion.

Model’s WR3 — Emeka Egbuka

Has to be the least exciting OSU WR in a long time. Maybe its just me, but Egbuka just isn’t exciting. I do think he is a safe pick.

Pros:

• Excellent separator. On Egbuka’s 282 career targets, he was designated as “open” on 243 of them (95th percentile)

• Excellent YPRR OE. 88th percentile. He just produces and generally he produces against good opponents.

• Really good true sophomore season. 80th percentile against all seasons. In general, production + youth + big conference is a great sign for future success.

Cons:

• Not super explosive. I care about upside so so much and Egbuka is just average in my explosion metric. He does have ~70th percentile SOS which makes me hopeful, and explosivity isn’t the end all be all.

• Out of players with Elite RAS, Elite PFF Rankings, and Above Average Explosiveness: Egbuka has the worst overall explosiveness and second worst career score. This does not mean he will fail by any means, but it shows you some flaws in his profile.

Overall: There is a decent little tier gap between Tet and Egbuka. This is the first instance in the writeup of a player’s PFF rank pulling up their score. Egbuka is a good player and being able to separate is everything in the NFL. OSU receivers always seem to have safe floors, but I am not sure many have truly hit their ceilings in recent years. Personally, I am not sold on his pure upside, but I am also not an NFL evaluator.

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I don’t feel like writing up EVERYONE so i will just do some players i wanted to highlight.

Jayden Higgins

Higgins barely edges out Tet for the Model’s WR2 in 2025. Higgins is probably the best buy in dynasty leagues that have already done their draft this year. If a WR needy team doesn’t draft a WR in round 1, but drafts Higgins in round 2… oh boy.

having a PFF Rank of “Good” and RVI of “Elite” is my unofficial “sleeper group” keep reading to see why.

Pros:

• ELITE WAA per snap which is PFFs “Wins Above Average” metric. Basically just means he was constantly receiving high PFF grades constantly. PFF grades correlate highly to NFL success. In 2024, Higgins had the 3rd best WAA for all WRs. His WAA is the highest in the class by a full 11 percentile points. Easily his best sign for future NFL stardom.

• ELITE Route Versatility Index. This mostly highlights his ability to gain yards on a wide variety of routes.

• ELITE RAS and size. Possibility of WR1 upside with such a good RAS.

• Higgins falls into a similar profile as Zay Flowers and Xavier Worthy via my metrics. Not saying he is the same player, but his outcomes could be similar. I also, think he could get drafted a bit higher than his current EDP suggests, but who knows what NFL teams are thinking.

Cons:

• His biggest red flag imo is his lack of true explosiveness. He only scores in the 59th percentile for overall explosiveness.

• His Career Score isn’t amazing by any means. It is not awful, but not exactly impressive. His first two years (at Eastern Kentucky) were not great which is really dragging down his career score.

• These are compounded slightly with a career SOS in the 24th percentile the 5th worst in the 2025 “draft class (looking at simply draftable players).

Overall: I love the IDEA of Higgins. Hyper athlete with good speed and versatility, but when looking at other players with similar PFF rankings, athleticism, and college production… the comps aren’t great.

Tre Harris

There are 3 players that fall into my “Elite RAS” , “Elite Career Score” , and “Elite Explosiveness bucket. This is a pretty hard bucket to get into and the players that do are generally very good. Ja’Marr Chase, Malik Nabers, and Tre Harris. Tre Harris is older at the time of the draft than the other 2, but still an elite bucket.

Keep this in mind before i type it “Process over Results” Tre Harris is a little bit like a more explosive, slightly older Elijah Moore. Moore had a phenomenal profile coming out of college and was my models’ WR3 that year. Harris is significantly more explosive and that matters for NFL success.

Pros:

• Tre Harris has the 4th best season score in my dataset. Posting an insane 4.11 YPRR excluding “Junk Yards” (defined earlier) in his senior year. This was the #1 Non Junk YPRR in my dataset.

• Tre Harris has an elite BEAST YPRR. Only Tee Higgins and Hakeem Butler have better metrics than him in my dataset. Tre Harris is #1 for players with at least a 90th percentile career score. right above Ja’marr Chase.

Cons:

• 63rd RVI percentile which is lacking.

• Old man (just turned 23), but did produce when he was young

Overall: I realllllllllllllllllllllllllyyyyy like his upside and at his current dynasty price. He is worth the gamble. He is probably just a more correctly valued Treylon Burks, but his upside could be tremendous.

Matthew Golden

What are we doing? I really don’t want to deep dive on Golden, but i shall do a quick one.

The Model cares a lot about PFF’s ranking of players. Golden has a rank that is dragging up his very poor analytics profile. Without including his PFF ranking, his model percentile falls to the 40% range. I don’t get the hype?

Pros:

• He run fast i guess… thats just about it

Cons:

• Terrible career score. Terrible BEAST YPRR. Middling Explosiveness (for a good athlete). 11th percentile YPRR OE. Bad RVI and WAA.

Overall… I don’t get it…

Best case: Jaylen Waddle? Worst Case: Andy Isabella. Its a bad profile.

Xavier Restrepo

Model don’t care about that 40 time as much as everyone else. Restrepo is being pulled up by his RVI which is in the 95th percentile. This is interesting, but one of the critical grouping in my model relies on hit rates for a player’s PFF Rank and their RVI group. “Good” and “Elite” respectively have produced a LOT of pretty good players without producing many bad ones. This is also pulling up Jayden Higgins.

I am getting tired of writing up players and need to start on the next model:

• Jalen Royals: This year’s Puka??? When looking at players with decent career scores and hyper explosiveness. His group is not too shabby.

• Elic Ayomanor: Great profile that could have been even better with better QB play. Great production as a young player with some solid explosiveness.

• Andrew Armstrong: Deep sleeper. Old man tho. Really like his profile outside of his age.

• Dont’e Thornton Jr: DEEP DEEP sleeper. He is just an explosive athlete. I would be interested in taking a shot on him later in the draft as an NFL team. More than likely, he will never produce, but he is big, fast, and explosive.

• Travis Hunter: Pretty solid career score and decent explosiveness score, but nothing truly impressive. Rough RVI, SOS, and teammate quality percentiles. Now, dont get me wrong, he is probably being held back by playing both WR/CB, but standalone his WR profile isn’t super impressive. I would still give him some massive bonus points if a team drafted him to be a full time WR.

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Past Models

All Time (Sorted by Model %)

All Time (Sorted by FPpG)

2024

Troy Franklin 2025 breakout year (eyes emoji)

2023

Puka is being drug down by that PFF rank cry.

2022 — This was my testing set for the ones who care.

Sad Skyy Moore never did a thing

If you read this far, you really are a sicko. Please give it a like and share. Whatever you can do to help grow my audience would be much appreciated <3

I have a Patreon that is $1 a month. It simply exists to support my content. I will put an excel file with lots of my data that i used for the model up. It is also available FOR FREE here. It is NOT PFF Ultimate data, it is my custom dataset with career summary information on each player that i used for my model.

Thank you so much for reading this. I hope that it helps you out in whatever you use it for. Gonna go start working on the next model.