Measured, well-researched and balanced takes are frequently the name of the game in fantasy football analysis. However, this piece will award me the opportunity to let my hair down, figuratively speaking, since I’m bald. There are levels to hot takes, and like tasty wings, I’m breaking the following three hot takes for the 2025 fantasy football season down into three categories, starting with medium, followed by hot and concluding with atomic. While I didn’t set out for the takes to all focus on wideouts, that’s where they landed. Let’s look at some hot takes that could come to fruition in 2025.
Fantasy Football Hot Takes
Medium
Courtland Sutton Has 1,200-Plus Receiving Yards and Double-Digit Touchdowns in 2025
The Broncos appear to have found an answer at quarterback in last year’s NFL Draft, selecting Bo Nix with the 12th pick. Denver had an outstanding offensive line, and they’ve added Evan Engram, RJ Harvey, J.K. Dobbins and Pat Bryant to the squad in the offseason. The reinforcements can help the offense, but Courtland Sutton remains the top dog in the passing attack.
Sutton will turn 30 years old in October, but he’s coming off one of the best years of his career. Sutton’s 1,081 receiving yards and eight receiving touchdowns in 2024 were his second-highest marks in each category, trailing 1,112 receiving yards in 2019 and 10 receiving touchdowns in 2023. Sutton has bested 1,000 yards just twice in his seven-year career, and he’s reached double-digit receiving touchdowns only once. Sutton would need to set a career high for receiving yards and at least match his career high for touchdown receptions for this hot take to come to fruition. However, the arrow is pointing upwards for the veteran wideout.
According to Pro Football Focus (PFF), Sutton’s 1.88 yards per route run (Y/RR) in 2024 were his most since he tore his ACL in his only game in Week 2 of the 2020 season.
Sutton got off to a slow start in Nix’s rookie season, tallying only five receptions, 64 receiving yards and zero touchdowns on 16 targets in his first two games in 2024. According to the data suite at Fantasy Points, Sutton had the following stats from Week 3 through Denver’s Wild Card loss.
- 78.6% route participation
- 13.8-yard average depth of target (aDOT)
- 46.2% air yards share
- 24.4% target share
- 0.27 targets per route run
- 32.8% first-read rate
- 7.9 targets per game
- 81 receptions (5.1 receptions per game)
- 1,092 receiving yards (68.3 per game)
- 2.37 Y/RR
- 14 end-zone targets
- eight receiving touchdowns
Sutton’s 17-game pace from Week 3 on would have resulted in approximately 1,160 yards and 8.5 receiving touchdowns, putting him on the brink of 1,200 yards and 10 receiving touchdowns. If Nix can take a step forward in his second season in the NFL, Sutton can reach those thresholds in 2025.
Hot
The Bears Don’t Produce a Top-36 Wide Receiver in Points Per Game in Half-PPR Formats in 2025
Caleb Williams didn’t live up to the generational talent label used by some pundits, which is an overused label. Williams’ apologists have excused the rookie season by blaming everyone but him. Still, even in an underwhelming rookie season, Williams was competent enough for DJ Moore to finish as the WR29 in half PPR points per game (11.1) among wideouts who played more than six games, Keenan Allen was tied for the WR35 in half PPR points per game (10) and Rome Odunze was the WR63 in half PPR points per game (6.9).
The Bears hired offensive guru Ben Johnson as their head coach, and the hype cycle for Williams and Chicago started all over again. The training camp reports haven’t been positive about Williams, though, including retired offensive tackle Terron Armstead speaking positively about Williams’ ability to spin it but criticizing his ability to process in Chicago’s joint practice with the Dolphins.
Fmr. Saints and Dolphins LT Terron Armstead on Caleb Williams and the Bears offense during joint practice with Dolphins on Friday pic.twitter.com/zXOobykOe1
– j (@jordanhay__) August 10, 2025
Per PFF, among 40 quarterbacks with at least 200 dropbacks in 2024, Williams had the fifth-longest time to throw (3.03 seconds) and the second-highest pressure-to-sack rate (28.2 P2S%). Armstead’s assessment of Williams’ slow processing aligns with last year’s numbers.
Williams’ unimpressive start to his first year in Johnson’s offense isn’t creating warm and fuzzy feelings about Chicago’s passing attack. Additionally, the Bears will likely throttle down their passing volume with Johnson calling the shots. According to RotoViz’s pace app, the Bears were tied for the eighth-highest situation-neutral pass rate (56%), and the Lions were tied for the eighth-lowest situation-neutral pass rate (52%) last season.
Moreover, the Bears added more mouths to feed targets with their first two picks in this year’s NFL Draft, popping tight end Colston Loveland with the 10th pick and Luther Burden with the 39th selection. The substantial investment in Loveland and Johnson’s ability to help Sam LaPorta have a historically good rookie season for a tight end are intriguing for Loveland’s fantasy football outlook, but he could significantly cut into opportunities for Moore, Odunze and Burden, making it difficult for any of the three wideouts to crack the top-36 in half-PPR points per game this year. As a result, I’m not interested in Chicago’s wideouts at their respective ADPs, and I’m boldly predicting none of them finish as top-36 WRs in half-PPR points per game.
Atomic
Ja’Marr Chase Becomes the NFL’s First 2,000-Yard Receiver in a Single Season in 2025
Who doesn’t love history? Obviously, the NFL’s schedule has increased the number of games over the years, but no one has ever cracked 2,000 receiving yards. Calvin Johnson came the closest. Per Pro Football Reference, Johnson’s 1,964 receiving yards in 2012 were the most in a single season, followed by Cooper Kupp‘s 1,947 in 2021. They are the only two players with more than 1,900 receiving yards in a season, making a 2,000-yard prediction for Ja’Marr Chase an atomic hot take.
Still, it’s within the realm of possibility. Chase was a world-beater last year, tallying the following stats.
- 96.7% route participation
- 9.0-yard aDOT
- 32.9% air yards share
- 26.4% target share
- 0.25 targets per route run
- 34.5% first-read rate
- 10.1 targets per game
- 1,708 receiving yards (100.5 per game)
- 2.45 Y/RR
- 9.93 yards per target
- 22 missed tackles forced
Chase is a target hog, a vertical threat and a weapon after the catch. Furthermore, his high target share is all the more impressive because of Cincinnati’s extreme pass-happy tendencies. Their 66% situation-neutral pass rate last year was four percent higher than the second-highest rate. According to the nfelo app, Cincinnati’s 8.2% pass rate over expected (PROE) was also three percent higher than the second-highest rate in 2024. The Bengals also had the second-highest PROE (5.6%) in 2023 and the second-highest (7.7%) in 2022. So, last year wasn’t an outlier. Instead, letting Joe Burrow chuck the pigskin is their offensive identity.
Cincinnati’s lousy defense in 2024 also put a ton of pressure on Burrow and the offense to chuck it to stay in games. The Bengals replaced defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo with Al Golden, but the coordinator change alone isn’t likely to fix what ails the defense.
Cincinnati’s defense was also putrid against Philadelphia’s reserves in their first preseason game, getting picked apart by Tanner McKee. The Bengals will likely be in shootouts again this year, and they prefer to pass in close contests anyway. Chase should have a massive season, and if he is the first player to reach 2,000 receiving yards in a single season, suffice to say he’d likely be worth his 1.0 average draft position (ADP) in half-PPR leagues.
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Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.
