Kevin Szafraniec utilizes RotoViz’s Advanced Stats Explorer to uncover hidden trends at the wide receiver position from the first 17 weeks of the 2025 NFL season.
It is safe to say few people believed that Christian Watson was destined to return in the middle of the 2025 season and produce at a borderline WR1 level. Yet, here we are.
After making his way off of IR in Week 8, Watson has been one of this season’s most welcome surprises. After scoring 11.7 PPR/GM as a rookie, Watson saw his production slip in each of the following two years, bottoming out at a lowly 7.2 PPG in 2024. But in 2025, Watson is up to 13.2 PPR/GM and has become the best version of himself we have seen since he entered the NFL.
Should fantasy managers be expecting Watson’s production to carry over into 2026, or are there still too many confounding variables at play in the Green Bay offense to trust that his 2025 numbers will continue?
Before we get into the latest information available in the Advanced Stats Explorer, just a few quick reminders about the article.
- Early in the offseason, I updated my deep dive into the past six years of wide receiver data available in the Advanced Stats Explorer and broke it down into four separate articles: Routes and Targets, Intended Air Yards, Yards After the Catch and Evasion, and Catchable Targets, Drops, First Downs, and Touchdowns.
- When working through the six-year sample, I found that the 90th percentile and above generally included most of the top 24 wide receivers for each metric in any given season. The 75th percentile and above included the top 55 to 60 WRs in any given metric per season. Given that these two cohorts easily fit into a typical 12-team fantasy league, they will be referenced throughout the article.
The number of wide receivers who earned a target in 2025 increased to 228 in Week 17, up from 226 in Week 16.
