Kevin Szafraniec uses RotoViz’s Advanced Stats Explorer to uncover under-the-radar trends at the wide receiver position from the first three weeks of the 2025 NFL season.
The 2025 season has gotten off to a strange start for some of the NFL’s top wide receivers. But for Puka Nacua and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, their stars have continued to rise following massive 2024 seasons. And the crazy thing is, there is still considerable room for both WRs’ seasons to improve, despite already ranking in the top five in PPR scoring at the position.
How is this possible, you may ask? Let’s jump into the numbers and find out!
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 apply to a normal 12-team fantasy league, they will be referenced often throughout the article.
Our current sample of wide receivers to earn a target in 2025 rose to 154 in Week 3, up from 146 in Week 2.
