As the NFL offseason got underway, there were rumblings out of Landover, Maryland, regarding star wide receiver Terry McLaurin’s desire to receive a new contract.
McLaurin was drafted in 2019 by the Washington Commanders in the third round and signed a four-year $3.84M deal.
Career Production
After a strong rookie season where he nearly reached 1,000 receiving yards in 14 games, he's accumulated at least 1,000 receiving yards in each of the past five seasons. His impressive production prompted the Commanders to sign him to a three-year, $68.36M extension before the 2022 season. He is entering the final year of that deal, during which he is slated to earn a base salary of $15.5M.
Uncertain Future In Washington
On the heels of another productive season, during which he hit the 1,000-yard mark and added 13 touchdowns, McLaurin wants to get paid more like a true top wide receiver. According to Adam Schefter on the Pat McAfee Show on Monday morning, it does not sound like McLaurin and the Commanders are anywhere close to a deal. Schefter suggests that D.K. Metcalf’s recent deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers is closer to what McLaurin is looking for, or even more.
Contract situations pop up every offseason, and many tend to play themselves out by the time the ball is snapped in early September. These early weeks of training camp, with daily updates and the newly-popular “hold-in” strategy, are all forms of posturing, typically orchestrated by the player’s agent. Regardless, they are worth paying attention to and understanding the fantasy implications of.
Terry McLaurin: Regression Candidate?
Aside from the contract issue, McLaurin will be 30 years old early in the 2025 season. Despite missing a few games early on in his career, he has been healthy since, playing all 17 games in each of the last four seasons. There is no denying that McLaurin is the top receiving option on the Commanders.
While the Commanders may value McLaurin, according to Schefter, “… they love and value him at a different price.” Again, this may be posturing by the team for negotiation purposes, but it’s too early to tell how far they may be willing to budge on their end. Do they value him as a true number-one receiver at a true number-one price tag?
McLaurin was rookie quarterback Jayden Daniel’s favorite target last year, earning 117 targets while the next closest player, Zach Ertz, earned 91. According to PlayerProfiler, McLaurin was seventh in the league in air yards (1,561), eighth in air yards share (40.70%), and seventh in deep targets (26).
Even with these strong metrics, there are some red flags that can’t be ignored. Despite being the number one target on his team, his 117 targets ranked 19th in the league, and his 23.30% target share was good for only 34th. His 117 targets were also the fewest he has had since his rookie year.
The most glaring red flag? Touchdown regression. McLaurin’s 13 touchdowns last season came with a touchdown rate (per target) of 11.11%, tied for the 13th highest per-target touchdown rate since 2010 for players with at least 80 targets. The historical average touchdown rate for wide receivers is closer to 5%, and McLaurin’s career average before last year was 4.11%.
Offensive System & Depth Chart
In Kliff Kingsbury’s system, only prime DeAndre Hopkins earned a target share over 24.43%, and I would argue that McLaurin does not fit the alpha profile of Hopkins. Also, the Commanders acquired another wide receiver from the 2019 draft class in Deebo Samuel Sr. via trade from the 49ers this offseason. Granted, Samuel has had his own issues during his career, but he is arguably the best target competition McLaurin has had in Washington.
Washington was also fifth in the NFL in rush rate at just over 50%, in large part due to Daniels’s rushing and scrambling prowess. One could argue that an additional year in the system could lead to more pass attempts as the second-year quarterback gets more comfortable in said system. However, Daniels’s threat as a rusher is not something I think Kingsbury and the Commanders will deviate from.
Other than Samuel, the depth chart isn’t particularly daunting. Noah Brown is projected as the wide receiver opposite McLaurin, according to Ourlads. They signed once-retired free agent Michael Gallup to a one-year deal, and second-year receiver Luke McCaffery and rookie Jaylin Lane round out the projected two-deep.
This receiving corps shouldn’t be the primary factor dissuading you from drafting McLaurin. The aforementioned Samuel and Ertz will likely be the largest target competition for McLaurin, though I don’t project either earning more than a 20% target share. I see this as a similar situation to the 2024 Green Bay Packers, with no one player receiving a dominant target share that sets them apart.
Fantasy Implications
All this said, there are a few questions to address. First, how concerned am I about McLaurin and the Commanders reaching an agreement before the season starts? My vibes-based answer is probably a 6/10. We are just over a month from kickoff, which is an eternity in contract negotiations. It doesn’t feel great, though, that at this point in the process, the narrative is that the two sides aren’t close to an agreement.
If contract negotiations reach an impasse, then the question will be, what does McLaurin do this year? My observations are that McLaurin has always been a team-first guy, for whatever that's worth. Also, the Commanders’ General Manager, Adam Peters, seems to have a good feel for roster management thus far in his tenure, so if you are a fan of the team, regardless of the outcome, you might find some comfort in that.
All of this is just the starting point to the overall fantasy implications; whether McLaurin plays or not, or plays a partial season, obviously has a huge impact on his fantasy production. But what if he does play the entire season, new contract or not? How should we be navigating this situation?
The metrics I brought up previously do leave me a bit concerned. McLaurin is being drafted as a mid to low-end WR2, which suggests fantasy managers are baking in the possibility of regression and contract uncertainty. Using some of McLaurin’s career averages and using those to project if he were to play a full season, I could see roughly 120 targets, 80 receptions, 1,100 yards, and six touchdowns.
The above stat line would be good for 226 PPR fantasy points. This is about 18 points less than Mike Clay’s projections, that have McLaurin set for about 244 points, good enough for WR15. My projections would put him closer to WR27 based on Clay’s projections, and would have made him WR16 last year. Given that he finished as WR7 last year, it is clear that no one is buying into last year’s production repeating.
He is being drafted at his ceiling in my opinion, and that is assuming he plays a full season. Add in potential missed time due to contract issues or injury, and you’re now looking at a draft day deficit.
The McLaurin situation is an avoid for me. I appreciate him as a player, his consistent year-over-year production, and his history of full-season availability. However, by this point in a player’s career, they tend to show us who they are. Touchdown regression is likely, and that means fewer fantasy points. It is the primary metric from last year’s WR7 production that was an outlier from his historical averages.
One litmus test for fading a player in fantasy is if you think fading them can “burn you” by not drafting them. Given McLaurin’s cost, projected median outcome, contract uncertainty, and historical production, my conclusion is no, McLaurin will not burn me, or you, by avoiding him in fantasy drafts this year.