Wide Receiver Sleepers For 2025 Fantasy Football: Keon Coleman, Rashid Shaheed, And More
Kendall Valenzuela, Dwain McFarland, Ian Hartitz, and Matthew Freedman collaborate to identify their top wide receiver sleepers for fantasy football 2025.
If you're reading this, you likely have a draft coming up this weekend. Or have one (or more) coming up next weekend. Seriously, Fantasy Football Draft SZN is almost as fun as the regular season itself. And this article is here to help you in the deep portion of your draft, to help you stay sharp when your leaguemates might have one or two too many "beverages" and are picking kickers and defenses before the last two rounds.
Like we've done with quarterbacks and running backs the past few days, we're now setting our focus on wide receivers, and four of our Fantasy Life ranker—Dwain McFarland, Matthew Freedman, Kendall Valenzuela, and Ian Hartitz—joined forces to identify their WR sleepers for the 2025 season.
2025 Fantasy Football Wide Receiver Sleepers
Keon Coleman | Bills
- Consensus ADP: WR47
- Consensus Rank: WR49, 122
Ian: Keon Coleman appeared to be coming on strong as a rookie with 4-125-0 and 5-70-1 performances in Weeks 7-8, but a midseason hand/wrist injury sidelined the second-round pick for four weeks, and he would only only 10 total passes during his final seven games upon returning.
That said, Coleman sure seemed to earn Josh Allen's trust as a jump-ball specialist (look at this shit!) and he also displayed some surprisingly fun after-the-catch ability on his way to joining some pretty damn good company to lead the position in Next-Gen Stats' YAC above expected per reception.
The departures of Mack Hollins and Amari Cooper should solidify Coleman as a near every-down player in 2025. Throw in an existing hamstring injury to Khalil Shakir, and there's a non-zero chance that it's actually Coleman who winds up leading this offense in targets. Hell, even the return of a perfectly healthy Shakir would still likely leave the 22-year-old talent as the frontrunner for team-high marks in red-zone and deep-ball opportunities.
Coleman is available at sub "prime" Gabe Davis prices across the industry. This is about the last tier where I'm down to draft a WR with any level of high expectations, why not make it the second-year contested-catch artist expected to see the most fantasy-friendly end-zone and downfield opportunities from, you know, the reigning NFL MVP?
Rashid Shaheed | Saints
- Consensus ADP: WR53
- Consensus Rank: WR48, 115
Ian: Rashid Shaheed, put simply, is a dawg. Give him the football and good things happen:
- Shaheed managed to post four top-18 PPR fantasy finishes in just six games last season. Somehow, that mark tied Tyreek Hill, DJ Moore, Marvin Harrison Jr., and Garrett Wilson, and was more than guys like Jaylen Waddle, George Pickens, DK Metcalf. Not too shabby!
- The Saints' field-stretching maven has averaged 15+ yards per reception while catching at least 20 passes in each of the last three seasons—‚something only Pickens has also managed to achieve across the NFL. Nobody has more TD catches on passes thrown 30+ yards downfield than Shaheed (7) over the past two seasons.
- The former first-team All Pro returner is also electric when bringing back punts as well as sneaky solid on the ground (7.2 career yards per carry on 17 attempts!).
The Saints' WR room continues to profile as a two-man band between Shaheed and Chris Olave. While the latter talent is expected to lead the way, preseason slot and low-ADOT trends point toward easier paths to production in 2025.
At the end of the day, Coleman and Shaheed are just about the cheapest WRs you can draft in fantasy land and feel somewhat good about their Week 1 upside. This makes them pretty, pretty, pretty great targets for drafters who spent the early rounds loading up at RB and the onesie spots.
Luther Burden III | Bears
- Consensus ADP: 150, WR59
- Consensus Rank: 146, WR59
Dwain: We are using a cutoff of 109 to qualify as a sleeper for this piece, which disqualifies several guys who have climbed past that in recent weeks. Still, be sure to check these players on your site—some still go right around or after this cutoff:
- Matthew Golden | Packers: Drafted on 24% of my 131 teams.
- Emeka Egbuka | Buccaneers: 21%
- Cooper Kupp | Seahawks: 21%
OK, back to Burden. A preseason injury put him behind, allowing Olamide Zaccheaus to take over the starting slot role for the moment. You will need patience with Burden, but he has the perfect run-after-the-catch skill set to operate from the slot in Ben Johnson's offense.
Burden is an ideal sleeper target in deeper leagues where you have room to stash a high-upside WR6 you don't need in your lineup immediately. Burden is on 19% of my teams.
Kyle Williams | Patriots
- Consensus ADP: 158, WR62
- Fantasy Life consensus rank: 164, WR63
Kyle Williams hasn't taken over a starting position yet, but the competition is extremely weak behind Stefon Diggs. While they are functional NFL players who do specific things well (i.e. Mack Hollins blocking), none of them are high-end target earners.
That gives the third-round pick a chance to expand his role as the season progresses. There is a world where Williams is the No. 2 or maybe even the No. 1 target on the Patriots by the end of September.
Similar to Burden, Williams isn't a plug-and-play Week 1 option. He is an upside WR6 stash option for deep leagues that I have taken in 13% of my drafts. If that is what you need, I recommend going with Shaheed, whom Ian did a great job summarizing above.
Jayden Reed | Packers
- Consensus ADP: WR47
- Consensus Ranking: WR44
Freedman: What if I told you that you could get a WR—outside of the top 40 at the position—who was on a top-10 offense, was entering his third season, and had led the team with 1,932 yards and 17 TDs from scrimmage in his first two years?
And then what if I told you that he was a proven playmaker (9.8 yards per target, 9.1 yards per carry) who contributed not only as a pass catcher, but also a runner (31 carries in NFL) and specialist (25 punt returns)?
Would you be interested in that?
That's what Jayden Reed is.
Sure, he had only 75 targets last year—but that's why he's not going in Round 4.
At his current cost, he's all upside—and he has displayed a ton of upside since his 2023 rookie season.
Marvin Mims (Broncos)
- Consensus ADP: WR56
- Consensus Ranking: WR56
Freedman: Marvin Mims is one of my favorite 2025 fantasy bench picks. I've talked about him a lot this summer, including on the recent Fantasy Life Show on WR draft strategy.
As a first-team All-Pro returner (like Tyreek Hill, Cordarrelle Patterson, and Rashid Shaheed early in their careers), Mims is a talented guy.
On top of that, he has factors that I like: He's entering his all-important third season. He has second-round draft capital. He has produced with his aerial opportunities (10.4 yards per target). He has gotten the ball as a runner (22 carries in two years).
And this preseason he has played as a starter with the first-team offense.
If there's any fall off from No. 1 WR Courtland Sutton in his age-30 season, Mims could get a big workload boost in the ascending Broncos offense.
Josh Downs | Colts
Consensus ADP: WR46
Consensus Ranking: WR46
Kendall: Whoa, whoa, do not boo this pick! I understand that the quarterback situation is … less than desirable. But when the Colts decided to go with Daniel Jones as the QB1, they were also going with the better passer. Anthony Richardson has a 50.6 career completion percentage compared to Jones’ 61.4%. I believe the quarterback situation and his current hamstring injury is baked into his ADP.
In his second season last year, Downs had 72 receptions for 803 yards with 5 touchdowns on 107 targets in 14 games. He also had seven weeks as a top-20 receiver in PPR. There is an obvious tier break when we get down to the bottom of drafts, especially at the receiver position, but I find myself queuing up Downs if given the chance. Last season, he also created great separation and was targeted on 27.9% of his routes. He can get open and he gets yards after the catch. Of Downs' 1,574 career receiving yards, 767 are after the catch, and he has a career 68.3% catch rate.
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