Sneaky WR1s Who Cost Less - Fantasy Football Wide Receivers to Smash ADPs

Patrick's favorite sneaky wide receivers to finish as WR1s, but cost much less in 2025 drafts. His top fantasy football breakout WRs with upside to smash ADP.

2025 drafts feel a little different. At the onesie positions, the top-shelf talent is too good to ignore. We’ve got three locked-and-loaded tight ends who are actually worth early capital. There are four, maybe five, quarterbacks who check both the “league winner” and “safe floor” boxes. Layer in one of the strongest rookie running back classes in recent memory, and suddenly you’ve got managers loading up on everything but wide receiver in the first few rounds.

That creates an interesting ripple effect. By the time you finally pivot to WR, the consensus alphas might be gone, but there’s no need to panic. History suggests there’s a handful of wideouts lurking outside the top 15-20 at their position, ready to slip past the velvet rope and make themselves comfortable in the VIP section of WR1s.

So who is sipping on the right cocktail of talent, volume, and QB play this year? Here are five sneaky fantasy football wide receiver candidates who all have a shot of stealing the spotlight and rewarding drafters who have already splurged elsewhere.

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Tetairoa McMillan, WR, Carolina Panthers

ADP: WR29

Five of the last six seasons have seen a rookie wide receiver barge his way into the top-12 of fantasy scoring. At this point, it’s less a trend than a rite of passage, and the most likely candidate to keep the streak alive is McMillan, a 6’5” walking mismatch, who seems tailor-made to vacuum up opportunity in Carolina.

Over the past two seasons at Arizona, TMac led the entire FBS in receiving yards, first downs, and catches of 20+ yards, all after bursting onto the scene with eight touchdowns as a true freshman. He has a catch radius that feels like a Madden glitch and the slipperiness to outclass defenders, finishing third in the nation with 29 forced missed tackles. He also has the versatility to win both on the outside and from the slot, whether facing zone or man.

If Tetairoa McMillan can do this to Derek Stingley, Jr., consistently. all CBs are on notice pic.twitter.com/XuG5joYZaC

— Edgar Salmingo, Jr. ✌🏽 (@PanthersAnalyst) August 14, 2025

Now drop that profile into Dave Canales’ offense. Canales’ rise through the coaching ranks has been predicated on funneling targets through his X-receiver. He was the OC in Tampa for one of the best seasons of Mike Evans’ Hall of Fame-worthy career.

Last year, Diontae Johnson saw nine targets per game before falling out of favor, and Bryce Young finally started looking like a number one overall pick after turning Adam Thielen into his personal security blanket. Neither is on the team anymore, and Jalen Coker is starting the year on IR. Xavier Legette offers mystery box upside, but the talent gap between Tmac and the rest of the room is canyon-wide.

We’ve already seen glimpses of what the Panthers’ offense might look like in 2025, with McMillan drawing targets on 36.5% of his preseason routes with Young under center, putting up a gaudy 3.91 yards per route run.

He’s going to be ultra-involved and extremely necessary when the Panthers’ defense inevitably turns the bulk of their games into track meets. While the team did make some notable additions to that side of the ball, this is largely the same unit that just allowed an NFL record 534 points, so expecting the ’85 Bears might be a bit premature.

With Canales-approved workload on tap, McMillan’s combination of volume, efficiency, and sheer physical ability makes him the likeliest candidate to skip the training wheels phase and land immediately in WR1 territory as a rookie.

Calvin Ridley, Tennessee Titans

ADP: WR31

Ridley was the second-highest-paid offensive free agent of 2024, behind only Kirk Cousins. Neither investment has looked like money well spent so far. Fortunately, Tennessee still has a chance to make it out ahead, and it all hinges on what happens under center.

The Will Levis experiment was a full-blown disaster. Amongst the 32 quarterbacks who started for their team in Week 1, Levis finished in the bottom six in completion percentage above expectation, top three in turnover-worthy plays, and dead last in sack rate under pressure. Every play was a fire drill, but the evacuation plan quickly turned to ash.

The Titans promptly used the number one overall pick in this year’s draft on Miami quarterback Cam Ward. While he doesn’t have a bazooka of an arm, the sole defining trait of the guy who helped to earn the pick, his pocket awareness, will be a breath of fresh air in Nashville. He keeps his eyes up while scrambling, throws with confidence, and gets the ball out quickly -- all critical keys to unlocking his number one receiver.

Doing all that he could in an offense destined for disaster, Ridley was not the problem last year. In fact, he was actually a little bit great. He led the entire league in unrealized air yards while finishing a brutal 97th in catchable target rate. His open rate versus man coverage was top ten, and he was PFF’s 14th-highest-rated receiver over the final eight weeks of the season.

Last 2 seasons for Calvin Ridley:
- no missed games
- 1,000+ yards receiving @Stephania_ESPN on why she thinks the Titans WR is being overlooked. https://t.co/0ptpSLjafx pic.twitter.com/AyLwrI0uhX

— Fantasy Focus Live (@fantasyfocus) August 18, 2025

In 2024, we saw a veteran wide receiver with frustratingly great tape finally take a fantasy leap after being matched with a rookie quarterback willing and able to get him the ball at the top of his route. Terry McLaurin finished as the WR28 in 2023 and was drafted as WR32 before finishing as WR6 in 2024. Ridley finished 2024 as the WR27 and is currently being drafted as WR31.

If Ward’s aggressiveness and improvisation can mimic what Jayden Daniels brought to Washington, Ridley could be in line for a similar surge. He’s being drafted as if nothing has changed since last year, but his situation is ripe for a rebound. If the Titans’ passing offense stabilizes to anything resembling even league average, Ridley’s blend of separation skills and big-play upside could propel him right back to the elite tier he seemed destined to reach early in his career.

George Pickens, Dallas Cowboys

ADP: WR22

Six of the past seven seasons have seen at least one NFL team produce a pair of top-12 fantasy wide receivers. And while some of those tandems still share a locker room, the league’s newest power couple might reside in Dallas. Nobody is questioning CeeDee Lamb’s chances of finishing the year as a WR1, but Pickens might have landed in the perfect place to keep that streak growing.

Cowboys WRs: KaVontae Turpin, CeeDee Lamb, George Pickens pic.twitter.com/hUfHTB0RST

— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) August 31, 2025

Pickens has never been short on talent, but while in Pittsburgh, he was regularly forced into a steady diet of contested sideline shots with defenses rolling coverage his way. He made his fair share of acrobatic highlight grabs, and he’s commanded a 20+% target share in each of the past two seasons.

Still, with the Steelers finishing bottom-five in pass attempts both years, and the targets coming primarily from Kenny Pickett, Justin Fields, and Russell Wilson, it’s been the fantasy equivalent of using watered-down gas in a McLaren.

Now he walks into Dallas, where the Cowboys have attempted nearly seven and a half more pass attempts per game than the Steelers over that same timeframe. If all Pickens does is maintain his 20% target share, he could flirt with WR1 numbers on volume alone, but more important than the quantity spike he’s fixing to see is the vastly improved quality of opportunity.

In Pittsburgh, every game was a rock fight, often decided by defense and special teams. Now Pickens has gone from dodging pebbles in the schoolyard to sword-fighting on a jet ski. With Dallas recently trading away their biggest defensive difference-maker in Micah Parsons, this offense may need to score four touchdowns a game just to stay above water. And with Javonte Williams currently heading one of the league’s blandest running back committees, that scoring burden is going to fall on the Cowboys’ passing attack.

Thankfully, Brian Schottenheimer’s new look offense pairs Pickens, who last year trailed only DK Metcalf in catches of 20+ air yards, with Dak Prescott, who has been one of the league’s most proficient deep ball throwers, ranking fourth in passer rating on passes thrown 20+ yards downfield since 2022.

With the defensive spotlight squarely on Lamb, Pickens should see some of the softest coverage of his young career. Suddenly, after years of having to don a cape on every target, he can now just play receiver, which is something he’s surprisingly good at. The circus catches and sideline ballet can become a bonus rather than a requirement, and if one NFL team does again produce two fantasy stars at wide receiver, nobody should be surprised if it’s the Cowboys.

Davante Adams, Los Angeles Rams

ADP: WR19

Since leaving Green Bay in 2022, the best quarterback Adams has played with is Derek Carr. The Aaron Rodgers that Adams left in Lambeau wasn’t the one he reunited with in New York, and even mixing in a season with Jimmy Garoppolo and Aidan O'Connell, Adams has still finished as the WR3, WR11, and WR14 the past three years.

Now that he’s in Los Angeles, the title of best quarterback he’s had since leaving the frozen tundra will be reclaimed. It’s no coincidence that Matthew Stafford was the trigger man behind the two most prolific receiving seasons in NFL history (Calvin Johnson in 2012, Cooper Kupp in 2021), as well as Puka Nacua’s record-breaking rookie campaign in 2023.

Part of what fueled Kupp’s historic triple crown run was ruthless red-zone efficiency, and that’s exactly where Adams has made his living. While Sean McVay’s Rams have actually run the ball on over half their plays inside the 20 since 2022, it seems unlikely that we won’t at least see a recalibration this year. Bet on one of the league’s best offensive minds to remind everyone how unfair a slant or fade to Adams can still be.

A dime to Davante. 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/rQVPt3woGr

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) August 21, 2025

Or we could see Adams and Nacua become interchangeable hammers near the stripe, as both can win inside, outside, or on manufactured touches. In Nacua, Adams admittedly faces the stiffest target competition of his career, but over the past two years, Stafford has shown an extraordinary ability to keep multiple alphas fed.

In the 26 full games that Puka and Kupp played together, at least one of them went nuclear on most occasions, and only ten times did the lower-performing of the pair finish a game with fewer than 50 yards or zero touchdowns, three of those being the sad coda to Kupp’s Rams career.

Worries of Adam’s ever-reliable ceiling being capped by Nacua are valid. Although it’s worth considering that the same fearless, wrecking-ball style that makes Nacua one of the league’s most fun players to watch is also the reason he missed six games last season. Should everything break right for the Rams this year, Adams belongs in the conversation as a WR1 candidate. If Nacua should miss another stretch of games, though, the conversation suddenly becomes about the WR1.

DK Metcalf, Pittsburgh Steelers

ADP: WR20

Perhaps the wisest fantasy investment this season isn’t in any particular player, but rather in stocks of Ben-Gay. You’ll want to specifically look for whichever supply chain services the greater Pittsburgh region, because Rodgers is about to pepper Metcalf with targets until they’re both taking up residence in the ice bath.

Over the first six weeks of the 2024 season, Rodgers fed his top receiver, Garrett Wilson, with a 29.9% target share. After a midseason trade brought Adams to the Jets, the final 11 games saw Rodgers hyper-fixated on his old pal, and it was Adams who then saw a 29.7% target share – right in line with the 30.0% he enjoyed in his final season in Green Bay.

Even in an offense with other viable options, Rodgers has never been shy about locking onto his number one receiver. In Pittsburgh, there are no other viable options. The Steelers’ initial 53-man roster features Metcalf and four other receivers whose combined production over the past two seasons totals 1,093 yards and eight touchdowns, numbers nearly achieved by Metcalf on his own in what was considered a disappointing 2024 season.

Andy's Pick: DK Metcalf@andyholloway pic.twitter.com/z0A99B7XYz

— Fantasy Footballers (@TheFFBallers) August 28, 2025

The cocktail napkin math tells us that if Rodgers maintains his career-long tendency of force-feeding his WR1, Metcalf could be on the receiving end of nearly 170 targets. Even a conservative figure of a 25% target share gets him to 150 looks, which would be a career high. And for one of the most efficient receivers in the league, that sort of volume could be league-winning.

Metcalf has failed to eclipse 15 yards per reception only twice in his six-year career, and he’s converted nearly 7% of his targets into touchdowns, putting him on a very realistic path to 1,300+ yards and double-digit scores.

Metcalf’s ADP currently reflects a solid WR2 with upside. That’s too low. Rodgers has made a fantasy WR1 out of every true alpha he’s played with, and a quick Google image search should remind you of DK’s alpha credentials.

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