Those tiny little advantages.
That’s what any and every good fantasy football manager wants on their roster. They come in all different shapes, sizes, and flavors, and everyone has their preference. Trying to find these elusive advantages is a tall task. Because at the end of the day, you’re not the only one in your league on the hunt.
That’s why there are times when you have to dig deep to find something where others aren’t looking. You need to look at some of the players that don’t spark a ton of excitement and try to re-adjust your outlook. This is how you discover those fantasy longshots that seemingly appear out of nowhere.
Today, we are talking about a few of these fantasy longshots at the wide receiver position. These are some players managers would consider cutting in favor of the latest rookie class. But I say give these players a second chance, because you never know how the season ahead is going to shake out.
4 Second-Year Wideouts that are Fantasy Longshots in 2025
Malik Washington, Miami Dolphins
I really liked Malik Washington coming out of UVA. He was incredibly productive in his final year, leading the nation in receptions and finishing top 5 in yards alongside guys like Rome Odunze and Malik Nabers. Despite being smaller (5’8’’, 190), he’s a tenacious runner with the ball in his hands. There was a part of me that really thought he could be a Day 2 guy for a team that desperately needed a tough slot receiver.
Unfortunately, the NFL didn’t see him in the same light as this armchair scout. He fell to the sixth round, where he landed in Miami. At the time, it seemed like a pretty poor landing spot, since he’d be stuck behind Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. And for the majority of the season, that’s exactly what happened. It wasn’t until a Waddle injury that Washington was given an opportunity to prove his worth. His window was short, but there was enough there to instill a little bit of optimism for Miami’s WR3.
There was a chance that he could have faded back into obscurity in that timespan had he not produced any meaningful stats. I say that as though 20 targets through four games are some earth-shattering levels of production. But truly, it just gives us, primarily dynasty owners, something to hold on to.
That, and the foreshadowing of a different type of Miami offense that may play better to his skill set.
In 12 games, Tua threw just 90 passes in the intermediate area of the field (between 10-20 yards) as opposed to his 2023 total of 143. Miami cut back on the deep ball as well, throwing up just 24 attempts past the 20-yard mark as compared to 63 attempts in the prior year. The Dolphins opted to engineer their offense through short passes and passes behind the line of scrimmage. 268 of Tua’s 399 attempts (67%) were close or behind the line of scrimmage – a far cry from 2023, where he finished at 57% in the same metric. We can also look towards Jonnu Smith’s and De’von Achane’s combined 164 targets near and around the line of scrimmage to further build out this case for a new Miami way of play.
How does that affect Washington? 29 of his 36 targets were in this range. Malik Washington led the country in missed tackles forced in 2023. He just needs the ball in his hands to make that happen.
If this offensive transition is sticking around and Miami wants its offense to operate closer to the line of scrimmage, Malik Washington could find himself on the field a lot more than we could imagine throughout 2025.
Roman Wilson, Pittsburgh Steelers
The Steelers’ 2024 third-round selection sat on the sidelines for the majority of his rookie season, leaving us fantasy football managers wondering, “Who exactly is Roman Wilson”? When we are trying to figure out how Wilson fits in this weird-looking Pittsburgh offense, we need to become more theoretical with our thought process. After all, his college stats don’t hold much water two years after the fact, and his five NFL snaps won’t paint a real picture of what he can do.
So, we are left to hypothesize on what Wilson can do inside an Arthur Smith offense. It’s an exercise many fantasy managers have been burnt by before – but maybe it’ll work this time.
Let’s start by guessing where he’s going to play in this offense. Ignoring what I said earlier about college stats, Roman Wilson played predominantly in the slot at Michigan (63% of offensive snaps). Knowing this, we can safely assume that’s where he will end up the majority of the time in Pittsburgh, as they are desperately looking for another playmaker to work inside while DK Metcalf works out wide. Wilson will compete with Calvin Austin and Pat Friermuth to earn the lion’s share of snaps out of the slot, as they led the team last year in that role. Frankly, that’s as good a situation as you could find yourself in, especially coming back from a missed season.
But here’s the big question – how valuable are these slot snaps? Are the Steelers even looking towards the slot?
Looking through the combined production of Freiermuth and Austin’s 513 snaps from the slot, we can get a general sense of what to expect from someone who, hopefully, can win that starting job. I looked at just the games where either played more than 60% of their snaps in the slot as an attempt to weed out outlier games. Between Austin (11 games) and Freiermuth ( 7 games), the two produced 684 yards and 7 touchdowns on 71 targets out of the slot. Not super exciting at a glance, but it’s important to note that it was Calvin Austin who registered the majority of that stat line with 400 yards and 4 touchdowns. Of the two players, Wilson is almost certainly taking the snaps away from the wide receiver rather than the tight end..
I don’t think 400 and 4 is enough to be a contributor for your fantasy team. I do think that Wilson could be just a better player and demand more attention from the QB at that position than Austin. There’s a world where Wilson steps in, registers around 300 snaps from the slot, and adds 600 yards in his “rookie” year. I’d be more than happy to see a solid first step like that in an offense that isn’t sure who’s playing QB yet.
[Related: 2025 Fantasy Football: Must-Draft Wide Receivers]
Malachi Corley, New York Jets
Much like Malik Washington, Malachi Corley landed in a poor location for him to break out as a rookie. But unlike Washington, Corley never got the opportunity to step up and do something in that offense. Corley had just three catches on six targets through nine games. He would have had a touchdown on one of his rush attempts had he not dropped the ball before crossing the plane. To put it plainly, his rookie season was easily forgettable.
The good news is that Corley enters his sophomore season with a new chance to prove himself. The Jets have totally cleaned house. Rodgers is gone. A new head coach and offensive coordinator are in the building. Davante Adams is moving out west to LA, leaving just Garrett Wilson and Allen Lazard as wide receivers ahead of him on the depth chart (Yes, Josh Reynolds and rookie Arian Smith are here too, but, c’mon). The situation for a second chance has never been more ripe for the picking for the explosive athlete out of Western Kentucky.
I want to jot down Malachi Corley as a sleeper because this wide receiver room is not very good outside of Garrett Wilson. Allen Lazard has been in the league for a bit, and he’s a fine player; he just doesn’t have that same play-making ability that forces him onto the field. He’s going to be 30 this year (and so will Josh Reynolds), and a new-look Jets org might not be as interested in continuing to trot out the older vet as they would be seeing what they have in their 2024 third-round pick. After all, how can a team get a feel for a player when they are only on the field for 91 snaps?
The real question surrounds new QB Justin Fields and his ability to spread the ball around. Back in Chicago, Fields hyper-targeted DJ Moore, giving him 50 more targets than the next receiver. In his short stint in Pittsburgh, he was a bit more conservative as a whole, where he had just two games throwing over 200 yards. Both of these points are concerns for Corley’s value. If Corley can somehow sync up with Fields and become a threat opposite of Wilson, we could be seeing a breakout campaign in New Jersey.
Jordan Whittington, Los Angeles Rams
To round this essay out, I wanted to briefly talk about a guy who looked to be ascending last year but fizzled out before he got rolling. Jordan Whittington was a preseason standout for the Rams, who was able to produce in the absence of Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp. In weeks 4 and 5, Whittington saw 18 targets, which he turned into 13 catches for 151 yards as the primary receiving option. Not too shabby for a 6th-round rookie.
It was such a bummer to see him miss the following five games with a shoulder injury. It killed any momentum he had built up as a trustworthy target for Matthew Stafford. In an already tough spot behind elite receivers like Nacua and Kupp, any missed time hurts his chances of earning those targets.
Now, as we enter 2025, Whittington once again has to fight against some giants to find meaningful targets for fantasy football. The arrival of Davante Adams pours cold water over any bit of excitement that was lingering for Whittington as a late-round value. He’s still worth hanging on to at the end of your bench as he could become relevant at a moment’s notice.
I do see him as the WR3 in this offense, even though the Rams did pay Tutu Atwell at the beginning of the preseason. Whittington will also have to battle newly added Terrance Ferguson for targets, making it harder for him to separate himself from the pack. Folks may know his name a bit more than the rest of the players in this piece, but his path to fantasy success is daunting enough to dub him a sleeper.
