In this article series, I’m looking back at outlier statistics from the 2024 season and attempting to answer the question, “Was this an anomaly, or is it the new norm for this player moving forward?” I’ve already covered QBs and RBs. In this edition, I’ll be examining WRs.
2024 Recap
This article had mixed results last season. Tyreek Hill went from his most efficient season to the worst of his career. George Pickens still had a high yards/rec (15.3) but certainly didn’t break out. I did correctly predict Courtland Sutton’s TD rate to drop, though he still had the best fantasy season of his career. Brandon Aiyuk, Chris Godwin, and Rashee Rice all had season-ending injuries, so we didn’t get their final results.
On to 2025.
The Stats
This series utilizes efficiency numbers to eliminate volume-based statistics and focus on player talent. For WRs, it makes the most sense to use per-route, per-target, and per-reception stats. Since the most talented WRs demand the most targets, I’ve filtered the stats to include wideouts who saw at least 50 last season. The wideout stats featured in this article, and the average among those who saw 50+ targets the last two seasons, are shown in the table below.
| Statistic | 2024 Average | 2023 Average |
| Yards/RR | 1.74 | 1.72 |
| Yards/Rec | 12.9 | 12.9 |
| Yards/Tgt | 8.2 | 8.2 |
| Targets/TD | 17.8 | 20.5 |
Unlike the RB numbers in 2024, the WR efficiency stats have been fairly consistent over the past two seasons.
Puka Nacua: 3.56 Yards/RR
Puka is good at the game. His end-of-season counting stats were nerfed by the fact that he played more than 50% of the snaps in just nine games, but his efficiency metrics were off the charts. He was the only player with a yards/RR average above 3.0 (AJ Brown was so close at 2.99), and he did it in every way possible.
Puka Nacua was insanely effective last season 🙌 https://t.co/gWORh2NufH pic.twitter.com/dNOQLcamRQ
— The 33rd Team (@The33rdTeamFB) July 9, 2025
He finished the season as the WR25 overall in 11 games played, but he was the WR6 on a per-game basis.
Anomaly or New Norm?
Averaging above 3.5+ yards/RR is elite. Tyreek Hill did so with an insane 3.82 yards/RR in 2023, and the next most recent example is Steve Smith in 2008. Hitting that mark again in 2025 will be a tough task for Nacua, who averaged a respectable 2.59 yards/RR during his 2023 rookie season. We can expect him to be among the best in the league, but 3.5+ yards/RR is not the norm.
Alec Pierce: 22.3 Yards/Rec, 22.8 Yard aDOT
Pierce put up his best numbers to date in year three last season. He only caught five more passes than he did in his second season, but he turned them into 310 more yards. That was thanks to his league-leading 22.3 yards/rec.
“I wanna go fast.” – Alec Piercepic.twitter.com/BAJ2fPwgQL
— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) July 8, 2025
He was the definitive boom-bust player, finishing as a top ten fantasy WR in four weeks but outside of the top 50 eight times, including two goose eggs. He finished as the WR37 overall.
Anomaly or New Norm?
Over the last decade, only six players have topped 20 yards/reception for a season, and nobody has done it twice. Pierce’s 22.3 yards/rec is the highest of the group. Christian Watson’s 21.4 yards/rec, also from 2024, is the next closest, nearly a full yard/rec lower. Pierce will still certainly see more deep shots than most wideouts, but over 20 yards/rec is likely unsustainable.
DJ Moore: 9.9 Yards/Rec
Moore was the opposite of Pierce in 2024, at least when it comes to yards/rec. He was ninth in the league with a career-high 98 receptions, but just 20th with 966 receiving yards. He was one of only six receivers to average below 10 yards/rec on 50 or more targets, as seen in the table below.
Not exactly the players we’re scrambling to draft in fantasy football, as you can see by looking at their fantasy finishes. I could have singled out Wan’Dale Robinson for his ridiculously low yards/rec, but it isn’t shocking given his historical usage.
Anomaly or New Norm?
Before this season, Moore averaged 14.3 yards/rec, and his lowest single season was 12.4 yards/rec in 2021. Last year, the Bears’ offense started dreadfully with Shane Waldron calling the plays. It didn’t get much better when he was fired midseason.
But there is hope that with Ben Johnson in town, Chicago’s offense can make massive improvements, especially with second-year QB Caleb Williams. Given DJM’s history and a potentially better offensive system, we will likely look back at his 9.9 yards/rec in 2024 as an anomaly.
Terry McLaurin: 9.0 Tgt/TD
McLaurin caught a career-high 13 TDs in his sixth season, nearly doubling his previous career high of seven. It was largely due to rookie Jayden Daniels exploding onto the NFL scene. No other WR in Washington had more than three TDs, while TE Zach Ertz hauled in seven. McLaurin finished as the WR5 on the season, with the next closest Commander wideout, Olamide Zaccheaus, checking in as WR73.
Anomaly or New Norm?
McLaurin wasn’t the only receiver to catch TDs at a single-digit target/TD rate last year, but he was the only one to do so with over 100 total targets. You can see the full list in the table below.
Of the players above, McLaurin is the only undisputed top target on his team. The thing is, those 117 targets were his fewest since his rookie season. Those 13 TDs? They were more than half of the 25 thrown by Daniels that season. This seems like an unrepeatable TD season from McLaurin.
However, it’s worth noting that Daniels could improve in his second season, and the only TD competition Washington brought in was Deebo Samuel, who has only averaged 3.7 TDs/season for his career. Repeating the TD efficiency for Scary Terry may be difficult, but it can’t be ruled out.
Marvin Mims: 12.2 YAC/Rec
Mims had an underwhelming rookie season in 2023, and his second year started pretty much the same way. That changed in Week 13, when he finished as the WR6. He would go on to finish as a top-six fantasy WR twice more in the final four weeks of the season. A lot of his end-of-season production came through big plays, as evidenced by this bomb against Cleveland in Week 13.
This angle of Marvin Mims’ 93-yard touchdown will never get old!
pic.twitter.com/hdm0FHX00B— Predominantly Orange (@PredomOrange) July 27, 2025
Mims finished as the WR54 on the season, but was the WR14 in fantasy points/game from Week 13 on.
Anomaly or New Norm?
I wrote more about Mims’ YAC/rec (and a lot of other things) in my “25 WR Stats from the 2024 Season” article back in January. Even at the time, I didn’t realize just how historical his 12.2 YAC/rec was. Since 2018, which is as far back as Pro Football Reference has the data, Deebo Samuel is the only other wideout to average in the double digits, exactly 10.0 YAC/rec in 2021. Nobody else has averaged above 9.0 YAC/rec.
Mims might be able to put up similarly high YAC/rec in the future, but it will be more difficult if his usage increases. At 52 targets last season, he barely met the 50-target threshold I used for this article. Even when he caught fire, Mims never saw more than half of Denver’s offensive snaps and only commanded above a 20% target share once. He ran the fifth-most routes on his team last season, behind guys like Lil’Jordan Humphrey and Troy Franklin.
If Mims sees his usage increase, it’s impossible to envision his YAC/rec repeating. However, he has shown that he can be one of the most exciting players with the ball in his hands after the catch. If his usage does increase, his YAC/rec doesn’t need to be historical for him to be fantasy relevant.
