In the newly run-heavy NFL — with the massively run-heavy Eagles fresh off a Super Bowl — a fantasy football drafter would be excused for using some (or all) of their first few selections on the game’s most dominant running backs.
NFL defenses, after all, are getting lighter and easier to run against in an age defined by defensive coordinators turning the league’s elite quarterbacks into check-down merchants. And those light defenses — inviting the run — are giving up yards after contact at rates we haven’t seen in almost two decades, per football knower and Rotoworld Football Show guest Nate Tice.
If you’re going all in on an RB-heavy top of your fantasy draft, you’re going to need to mine the middle rounds for target volume, for wideouts whose potential opportunity has not been fully incorporated into their average draft positions. This is as relevant to best ball drafters as it is to redraft players ready and willing to embrace the running back grindset in 2025.
Below are five receivers whose target volume might be underrated headed into the season, and therefore make for necessary targets in an RB-first draft approach.
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Calvin Ridley (Titans)
ADP: 58 (WR32)
Ridley has the locker narrative going for him in 2025, which is nice. The Titans placed his locker directly next to superstar QB Cam Ward’s locker. The two have reportedly been inseparable over the past couple months, discussing route concepts, coverages, and taking extra reps together during Titans OTAs.
Ward has dubbed Ridley a “dawg” and a top-five NFL wideout. It’s all happening.
After leading the league in air yards and ranking sixth in downfield receptions last season while catching passes from a totally incompetent quarterback, Ridley in 2025 could convert all that opportunity into fantasy points you can actually use (you can’t feed your family with air yards, as I’ve said).
With no meaningful target competition, Ridley has a real shot to rank among the top five or six target getters this season in a Titans offense that could be surprisingly pass heavy if head coach Bill Callahan trusts Ward to let it rip (all indications are that he will). Only three college quarterbacks in 2024 had more deep ball completions than Ward, who was graded by Pro Football Focus as last season’s fourth best downfield passer.
Jakobi Meyers (Raiders)
ADP: 73 (WR40)
As I outlined during a recent Rotoworld Football Show, I view the Raiders passing offense as one of two or three that might just be vastly underrated in 2025. The additions of Geno Smith and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly, fresh off calling plays for the most brutally efficient college offense in recent memory, create an entirely new environment for everyone in the Vegas offense.
That of course includes Meyers, who last year (quietly) finished 15th in wideout targets and 12th in receptions. Meyers commanded a target on 21.5 percent of his pass routes last season — a solid rate considering Brock Bowers’ pass game domination.
Meyers is adept at getting open too. Since the start of the 2022 NFL season, he ranks 45th out of 225 qualifying in ESPN’s open score, which measures a pass catcher’s separation from defenders. Meyers should shape up as a reliable target for ultra-accurate Geno, who ran ice cold in 2024 and could be set for a bounce back campaign in 2025.
Khalil Shakir (Bills)
ADP: 80 (WR44)
Shakir over the final ten weeks of the 2024 regular season averaged a solid 7.7 targets per game. Only 18 wideouts collected more targets over that stretch. Perhaps more importantly in a Buffalo offense that will never produce a ton of pass volume, Shakir drew a target on 26.5 percent of his routes over those ten weeks, when he emerged as Josh Allen’s de facto No. 1 guy.
I wrote a couple months ago about Shakir as a dominant force against zone defenses, the upshot being that most teams go zone-heavy against Allen. Neither Josh Palmer nor Keon Coleman profile as pass catchers who can take away target volume from Shakir in 2025. He’s something of a must-have for folks who fade elite receivers in the opening rounds.
Josh Downs (Colts)
ADP: 90 (WR49)
Downs, like Shakir, commands targets at eye-watering rates against zone schemes. His overall target per route run rate in 2024 wasn’t all that bad either. At 28 percent, it was actually quite good. We like guys who command targets.
Here’s a sentence I don’t like writing: The hope for Downs is that Daniel Jones wins the Colts’ Week 1 starting gig over Anthony Richardson. There’s no universe in which Richardson — with his league-worst intermediate-area accuracy and his penchant for taking off from the pocket — can support Downs or Michael Pittman as top-30 fantasy options. Maybe Jones can. That’s the hope anyway.
I suppose Pittman, going eight picks after Downs, would also qualify as a receivers whose target volume might be underestimated in 2025.
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Luther Burden (Bears)
ADP: 96 (WR51)
Burden, who’s already fighting injuries, should be a mainstay in Chicago’s three-wideout sets alongside DJ Moore and Rome Odunze when he’s healthy. Hopefully for the rookie’s sake — and for the sake of best ball folks going in on Burden — that’s sooner rather than later.
Ben Johnson’s offense in Chicago will reportedly lean on screen passes a year after Caleb Williams led the league in screens (and was accurate, completing 94 of 99 attempts). Probably that’s a plus for Burden, a screen merchant at Missouri who can be electric after the catch.
Burden proved to be a notable target commander during his final collegiate season, seeing a target on 28 percent of his pass routes. During his breakout 2023 campaign at Missouri, Burden’s target per route run rate stood at an eye-popping 33 percent. That is quite the rate.
Keenan Allen’s departure from the Bears leaves 27 percent of the team’s targets and 31 percent of the team’s air yards up for grabs. Even in the (likely) case that Burden doesn’t inherit Allen’s entire role in the Chicago offense, his target commanding ability should be enough to get him into WR3 territory in PPR formats. He could prove critical to drafters who use their high leverage picks at running back in 2025.