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    Top fantasy football WR sleepers for 2025

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    Shhh… quiet! If you’re too loud about these sleeper wide receiver picks, the general public won’t be sleeping on them anymore.

    To prepare for fantasy football season, USA TODAY Sports has compiled a list of some of the top wide receivers with real sleeper potential in the later rounds of fantasy drafts. If these receivers get the opportunities and/or improved quarterback play we expect, they could prove to be absolute steals once the season is in full swing.

    Here are five of the top fantasy football wide receiver sleeper picks, featuring veterans and one rookie:

    Fantasy football WR sleepers for 2025

    The wide receiver position could have some sneaky good players to choose from in later rounds. Here are a few WR sleeper candidates for 2025:

    Note: ADP is from FantasyPros and in half-PPR league formats.

    Khalil Shakir, Buffalo Bills

    ADP: WR43 | 2024 fantasy points: 144.5

    Shakir didn’t quite have the breakout 2024 season some expected after the Bills traded Stefon Diggs to the Texans and let Gabe Davis walk in free agency. However, there were promising signs that the best is yet to come for Shakir.

    For one, despite the “share the love” mentality the Bills had with their passing game last year, Shakir led the team in almost every significant pass-catching statistic.

    His 100 targets led the Bills’ passing offense, so much so that he had more catches (76) than the second-most targeted Bill, tight end Dalton Kincaid, had targets (75). Shakir’s 821 receiving yards also led the team by a wide margin – Kincaid was second with 556 receiving yards.

    Furthermore, the Bills demonstrated their faith in Shakir by signing him to a four-year extension. After a third season in which he set career-high marks across the board – targets, receptions, yards and touchdowns – Buffalo wasted no time in locking up their leading receiver.

    Though the Bills made moves to improve their receiver group at the margins – free agents Joshua Palmer and Elijah Moore, plus seventh-round pick Kaden Prather – none are projected to challenge Shakir for the top spot. The Bills’ wideout is in a good spot for a true breakout as the team’s definitive leading receiver in 2025. Even with a high ankle sprain at training camp, Shakir should be ready to go as his team’s WR1 by Week 1.

    Ricky Pearsall, San Francisco 49ers

    ADP: WR45 | 2024 fantasy points: 78

    Pearsall is poised to become a much more important part of the 49ers’ offense in 2025.

    The second-year receiver missed the first six games of his pro career while recovering from a gunshot wound he suffered during an attempted robbery late last August. In the 11 games remaining, Pearsall showed a few flashes of being the difference-maker the 49ers hoped he’d be when they drafted him.

    That was especially true in the final two games of the regular season, when he tallied 14 catches, 210 yards and two touchdowns to close out his rookie year.

    Now that Deebo Samuel is gone – traded to the Washington Commanders in the offseason – Pearsall looks set to step right into the No. 2 receiver gap behind Jauan Jennings, at least until Brandon Aiyuk is back from his ACL tear recovery.

    Even after the 49ers (theoretically) get fully healthy at receiver when Aiyuk returns, there is a spot for Pearsall’s skill set in the passing game. If his Weeks 17 and 18 performances were any indication of what’s to come, the second-year player could be gearing up for a true breakout in 2025.

    Rashid Shaheed, New Orleans Saints

    ADP: WR62 | 2024 fantasy points: 69.8

    Shaheed was on pace for a monster season in 2024 until a torn meniscus ended it early.

    Extrapolating Shaheed’s stats in six games over a full, 17-game season gives him projections of 57 catches for 989 receiving yards and eight or nine touchdowns. That would have put him in range of WR20 last year, right around the Tyreek Hill, Nico Collins and Jordan Addison group.

    This year, Shaheed will be back healthy and may have a better situation at quarterback to work with, depending on how rookie Tyler Shough looks in his first season. If all else fails, his offensive play-caller will be head coach Kellen Moore, who just helped orchestrate the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl win as their offensive coordinator.

    Shaheed may not reach up into WR1 territory, but there’s clear WR2 upside in his game entering the 2025 season. And for a guy projected to be picked after 61 other wide receivers, that’s some good value.

    Michael Pittman Jr., Indianapolis Colts

    ADP: WR50 | 2024 fantasy points: 131.3

    Pittman was failed by poor quarterback performance in 2024.

    After three straight seasons of catching at least 68% of his targets, that number plummeted to 62.2% last year. It wasn’t because of drops, as Pro Football Focus’s metrics show that Pittman had the lowest drop percentage of his career (4.2%) and just three total all year.

    Pittman’s poor catch percentage last year reflects far more on quarterback Anthony Richardson, whose throw accuracy was inconsistent at best and downright abysmal at worst. Despite the handful of highlight reel-worthy throws, Richardson’s completion rate last year was 47.7%.

    In 2025, the Colts have brought in competition for Richardson in the form of Giants cast-off Daniel Jones, hoping the fire of competition will bring out the best in both quarterbacks.

    If Pittman could get just even a bit more help from improved quarterback play, he should be able to return to the wideout who recorded at least 85 catches, 900 yards and four touchdowns in each of his three seasons before 2024.

    Tre’ Harris, Los Angeles Chargers

    ADP: WR54 | 2024 fantasy points: N/A

    A product of Ole Miss, the rookie Harris could be lined up for a big fantasy breakout in 2025 thanks to the quarterback he’ll be paired with in the NFL.

    Harris was a deep-ball monster in his two years at Ole Miss. The good news for him is that his new quarterback is Justin Herbert, a guy more than capable of throwing the deep ball.

    Harris’s main problem in fantasy terms is that he’ll be competing with last year’s rookie breakout, Ladd McConkey, for targets. The counterpoint to that is the Chargers don’t have much else in the way of competition for him in the passing game, especially if Quentin Johnston continues to drop 8.3% of his targets like he did last year, per PFF.

    So while McConkey has all but secured the lead spot in the Los Angeles passing offense, Harris is lined up to be a potentially explosive second option, perhaps akin to the player Jameson Williams has become in Detroit.



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