Don’t blink, a full quarter of the 2025 season (ok fine, slightly less) has already blown past. At this point, we can start making some conclusions about the direction of this season without accusations of knee-jerk reactions.
This week, we’re going to focus on some tough decisions at the wide receiver position, which has been extremely fickle to this point. Essentially the entire second round of redraft leagues has been awful for wide receivers, and dynasty owners aren’t immune to the fallout.
Today, we’ll look at some of the trickiest wide receiver decisions facing owners, and we’ll come out of this with a plan of action for each one. As usual, recommendations differ between roster types. Let’s get started.
Stock Up
George Pickens
Pickens went off in a thrilling shootout between the Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers. For as long as CeeDee Lamb is out with a high ankle sprain, Pickens will remain a powder keg. He’s the top wide receiver in an offense that will spend all season chasing the trail of destruction left behind by its completely inept defense.
With Dak Prescott playing some of his best football, everybody can eat. While Pickens may not be too consistent once Lamb comes back, this is absolutely an offense that can support multiple high-end wide receivers. He’s also still young, as he will play this entire season at 24 years old.
As far as what to do with Pickens, we’ve reached an inflection point where his value to a competing roster is higher for the next couple of weeks than it might be come playoff time. Additionally, Pickens is a highly volatile player who can follow up the high points of his career with meltdowns and poor effort. For this reason, the plan of attack with Pickens is wildly different between contending and rebuilding rosters.
If you are a contending team, the follow-up is easy. Hold him, and start him. Chase those fantasy points and roll towards a first-round bye. If you’re a playoff hopeful, he can help you get crucial wins through the middle of the season.
If you’re rebuilding, things get tricky. It’s really easy to get attached to Pickens when he’s locked in, but he has a highly volatile personality and is liable to leave you with impossible roster decisions whenever he’s at his lows. This is the single best time to sell Pickens. Find a playoff hopeful who has had some bad luck in their receiver room, and sell him on riding the incoming Pickens heater.
While it takes courage to trade away a performing, young player, I argue it’s best to get an insulated asset in exchange for the single most mercurial player in all of dynasty. Target a first-round pick, and be willing to add in other extraneous players if you need to in exchange for lottery tickets coming back. Give yourself outs.
Khalil Shakir
In Week 4, Shakir took a screen pass to the house en route to a 5-69-1 receiving line. At only WR29, Shakir isn’t a flashy name. And to be honest, this is pretty much who he is. There isn’t a reasonable expectation that he’ll breakout and become a high-end WR2 or WR1.
However, Shakir is an ideal glue guy for your rosters. At a point in the season when several notable wide receivers are injured or underperforming, Shakir provides a stable presence to make spot starts and help you slog through the regular season.
In my opinion, Shakir is currently the best glue guy at the wide receiver position. He’s only 25 years old, and he’s locked into a long-term team-friendly contract extension tied to an elite offense and quarterback.
Any team low on depth with playoff aspirations should either offer a third rounder and a solid prospect for Shakir, or potentially a late second rounder with a minor lottery ticket coming back.
As for rebuilders, just forget about his existence. Leave him collecting dust until you’re competing. He’s signed through 2029, and I assume your rebuild won’t take four years. Don’t prioritize offloading him, and definitely don’t feel the need to make offers for him. If you’re rebuilding, you have bigger fish to fry.
Glue guys are highly undervalued in dynasty, as they give you key in-season flexibility and prevent you from having to make desperation moves, which means they pay for themselves time and time again. Shakir does for you what J.K. Dobbins has done for my running back rooms each of the last two years.
Stock Down
Tee Higgins
After an offseason process during which I argued Tee Higgins' value was at its absolute peak, it took all of three weeks to get to rock bottom. With Joe Burrow set to miss three months after undergoing surgery to treat turf toe, you shouldn’t expect Higgins to turn things around any time soon.
This is honestly an easy decision. If you’re a contender who can’t easily replace Higgins’ lost production, you should make a like-for-like swap with a rebuilding team. Grab a slightly older receiver of similar talent, or a slightly less talented receiver of similar age, and let the rebuilder warehouse what’s shaping up to be a lost season for Higgins.
If, on the other hand, you’re a rebuilder, you should be all over acquiring Higgins. He’s a good bet to re-emerge next season as the premier WR2 in the NFL, and his owner is probably willing to offload him at this point.
I would try to make this move with players rather than picks, as it’s likely to be a win-win for both teams.
Malik Nabers
The Nabers torn ACL is tragic, but there isn’t much to discuss here. Every last roster type should be holding him. He’ll still only be 23 next year and will likely be back early in the 2026 season, maybe even by Week 1. At the end of the day, this is dynasty, and Nabers is one of the premier cornerstone assets in the NFL.
Ladd McConkey
McConkey is going through one of the weirdest seasons in recent memory. As far as anybody can tell, he’s getting open with the same frequency as last year’s torrid league-winning stretch. Every charting service and film bro I can find is insisting he’s getting open like one of the best receivers in the NFL.
However, the results aren’t there in the slightest. At this point, we do need to seriously recalibrate our expectations for McConkey. In 2025, it’s unlikely he leads the charge to a fantasy title.
If McConkey were simply playing worse, I might be tempted to sell. However, this seems to be more of an issue with Herbert’s existing chemistry with Keenan Allen, Quentin Johnston taking a huge leap, and good old touchdown variance.
McConkey is still an outstanding talent, and situations tend to take care of themselves for good players. As much as it’s going to suck the rest of the year, you need to hold good football players. Knock on wood, Keenan Allen can’t out-target McConkey beyond this season at 33 years old.
The one exception here is if a younger team makes an aggressive offer to acquire Ladd by dangling an elite piece you need to complete your contending roster. Just be prepared for that trade to hurt down the line. Hopefully, you take home the ‘ship in 2025 to make it worth it.
Travis Hunter
I’m not sure if the Travis Hunter pick has gone worse for dynasty owners or for the Jaguars themselves, but in any case the results have been underwhelming to say the least.
On offense, Hunter is struggling to get lined up, and assuming he figures that part out, he’s still being used like a PPR scam. This is malpractice for a player I thought was an outstanding prospect at X receiver, despite his thinner frame. The results have been equally spotty at corner.
If you’re a Hunter owner, the one thing you have going for you is that the Jaguars are also not happy with the early results, and they are very, very invested in making this pick work out. At some point, there’s going to be a serious conversation in that building about what they need to do to get more out of Hunter.
The one thing I can tell you for certain is that the Jaguars are going to take intentional steps to get more production out of him. I just can’t promise that will happen this year, and I can’t promise it will happen at wide receiver. There will be a ton of variance over the next year, and at this point there is more room for this thing to go up than down.
If somebody surprises you and asks for Hunter as the centerpiece of a package to land a good player, go for it. But as far as I can tell, dynasty owners are a risk-averse bunch, so my best guess is that there aren’t great offers for Hunter around the corner. You’re most likely going to be forced to hold.
Calvin Ridley
I’m calling it on Ridley. There’s no more “oh, he just needs a quarterback upgrade.” He’s just not a good player anymore. Even though the Titans’ offense is certainly in shambles, Ridley is struggling mightily even when the ball does find him. The Titans are aware of this, and they’re actively de-prioritizing him in the offense. His snap share tumbled to a mere 54% in week 4.fl
There is no question in my mind that you should just get whatever you can get for Ridley and cut your losses. My one suggestion is that you wait to see if he gets moved to a more exciting team at the deadline and generates some positive buzz you can leverage into a better return.