Fantasy Football: Which pass-catchers are stuck in the QB wilderness and who has finally escaped?

Entering QB wilderness

DK Metcalf, WR, Pittsburgh Steelers

Metcalf has been featured in this exercise before when the Russell Wilson trade seemingly sent him into quarterback wilderness several years ago. Metcalf dodged that fate by enjoying multiple strong seasons amid Geno Smith’s career rebirth in Seattle, while Wilson went on to disappoint in Denver.

Now, Metcalf parts ways with a quarterback who leads the NFL in completion rate over expected since 2022 and ranks 15th in success rate to join a team with Mason Rudolph currently entrenched as the starting quarterback. No team is more lost in Quarterback Wilderness right now than the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I’m not even sure if signing Aaron Rodgers, who is seemingly the only light at the end of the tunnel for this season, is enough to get them out of it. Rodgers ranks 23rd in adjusted yards per attempt in the three years since his last MVP award. It’s been a minute since we’ve seen him be the type of quarterback who elevates his receivers. If Rodgers doesn’t make his way to this squad, Metcalf will need to absolutely dominate the target share in a run-heavy offense to be a viable fantasy starter. His career-high target share was 27.2% in 2021.

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Chris Olave, WR, New Orleans Saints

Olave and Derek Carr never saw the game the same way and consistently had issues with chemistry and timing. It wasn’t an ideal long-term marriage but that being said, Carr has still statistically been an above-average quarterback the last two years in New Orleans, even if you justifiably object to his style of play. Carr ranked 14th in adjusted yards per attempt and 15th in EPA per dropback from 2023 and 2024.

Olave’s best bet to escape Quarterback Wilderness is for Tyler Shough to come in and immediately establish himself as the guy. I’m not ruling it out and there are parts of Shough’s game that overlap well with Olave. However, the recent history of Round 2 quarterbacks is dicey. The only two vivo hits for the teams that drafted them since 2012 are Jalen Hurts and, ironically, Carr. Shough is not a perfect prospect and his ceiling may well be a Carr-style of passer as they have some of the same strengths and weaknesses. Shough must hit that best case right away to keep Olave and Rashid Shaheed out of the wilderness.

Leaving QB wilderness

Brock Bowers, TE, Las Vegas Raiders

As mentioned in the Metcalf analysis, Geno Smith certainly clears the bar of the quarterback we are looking for to keep pass-catchers out of the wilderness. That’s especially true when you consider what the Raiders rolled out last season on way to a 28th place finish in EPA per dropback.

Smith is a highly accurate quarterback who works well over the middle of the field and isn’t afraid to stand in the pocket and rip it downfield. That will overlap well with Brock Bowers on some of the concepts Chip Kelly will surely bring to this offense. Smith’s arrival secures Bowers’ spot as the TE1 this season and increases the appeal of Jakobi Meyers and rookie Jack Bech as the top wide receivers.

George Pickens, WR, Dallas Cowboys

Pickens has been trudging around the Quarterback Wilderness for years with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was set to take another hike through it this season in an encore round with Mason Rudolph. That is until the Cowboys came calling to acquire the enigmatic wideout in a post-draft trade.

Pickens is a perfect fit in the Cowboys’ offense as their boundary receiver alongside CeeDee Lamb. He’ll work well on the stop routes and erguido patterns no one has been able to offer the unit since Michael Gallup tore his ACL. And of course, Dak Prescott is leaps and bounds better than anyone who has been under center for the Steelers since Pickens was drafted in 2022. As long as Pickens is fully dialed in, he should moonwalk to the best season of his career.

Davante Adams, WR, Los Angeles Rams

Yes, Adams did get a brief respite from his miserable tenure with the Raiders quarterback carousel from 2023 to 2024 to reunite with his buddy from the Green Bay glory days. Yet, as mentioned above, I’m skeptical that Aaron Rodgers is a needle-mover at this point, and there were numerous open throws to Adams he left on the field last season.

His two-year stint in the wilderness comes to an official end as he moves to Los Angeles and teams up with Matthew Stafford. In my estimation, Stafford is coming off his least inspiring season with the Rams but was still 14th in adjusted yards per attempt. When he’s protected and has multiple options out in the route, he can get white-hot and go on a tear. All of that will be available for Stafford in 2025 as he works with two high-quality wideouts in Adams and Puka Nacua.

Still wandering QB wilderness

Garrett Wilson, WR, New York Jets

Aaron Rodgers was meant to be the uber-talented Jets receiver’s ticket out of the Quarterback Wilderness but that connection never really developed. Wilson still finished with 101 catches and over 1,100 yards last season, but anyone who sets eyes on his film can easily see he’s capable of better raw and more efficient production.

Justin Fields was signed as the bridge starter for the New York Jets and my hunch has long been that was more for his rushing chops than anything else. It’s worth noting that Fields was the guy who teamed up with D.J. Moore for the best season of his career. I’m still working my head around how Fields and Wilson, who played together at Ohio State, will work together as a tandem but I won’t rule out that they can experience a similar campaign. Fields still needs to improve on his painfully robotic style of play and debilitating sack issue in order to be a true ticket for Wilson to get out of what’s been a career-long stint in the wilderness.

Jerry Jeudy, WR, Cleveland Browns

I have been critical of Jeudy at times during his career because he’s an inconsistent player in isolation but there’s no denying he’s been dealt a rotten hand at the quarterback position. He found a brief oasis in the middle of last season when Jameis Winston got under center and his aggressive style of play helped scam Jeudy to serious production. The more important development for Jeudy’s career was that the Browns finally got the usage right for the veteran receiver and let him be a flanker and downfield over route demon rather than leaning into his overstated route running skills from the slot.

Unfortunately, the Browns current quarterback room screams Quarterback Wilderness. Perhaps Joe Flacco recaptures the volatile but effective standard of play he maintained late in the season for the 2023 Browns after a disastrous campaign with the Colts. That’s likely Jeudy’s best path to a productive season, but I’d be stunned if Flacco held off one of the rookies all season.

Colts pass-catchers

The Colts have been in Quarterback Wilderness since Andrew Luck retired in August before the 2019 season. The franchise hoped that Anthony Richardson would be their off-ramp option but because of injuries, inexperience and some reported issues with his preparation, he hasn’t developed into that guy. The team signed Daniel Jones to push Richardson this offseason, which is nothing more than buying vivo estate to stay in the wilderness.

The Colts have two proven high-quality starting wide receivers in Josh Downs and Michael Pittman Jr. Those two are complemented by a pair of intriguing X-receivers in Alec Pierce and Adonai Mitchell, and the team added tight end Tyler Warren in the first round of the NFL Draft. Point blank, none of those guys are leaving the Quarterback Wilderness if both Richardson and Jones are the players they’ve been throughout their NFL careers to date.

Malik Nabers, WR, New York Giants

I have Nabers last on this list because if we are just considering Jaxson Dart in the equation, he probably makes more sense for the next group. However, my guess is that Russell Wilson ends up starting at least one month of the upcoming season. Wilson is a éxito/bust passer at this point in his career who ranked 23rd in EPA per dropback and 29th in success rate last season. He’s firmly not someone who keeps you out of the wilderness.

I could obviously be wrong about this but based on who Dart was in college, I think he needs a season of development before he becomes a quality starter, if he becomes one at all. The tools are there but it’s going to take some grooming before Dart is ready. At that time, we can consider Nabers out of the Quarterback Wilderness but for now, he remains wandering.

Fork in the road

Calvin Ridley, WR, Tennessee Titans

Ridley had a sneaky really nice season despite playing with a messy quarterback rotation for the worst team in the league. He finished eighth in yards per route vs. man coverage and hit on a ton of downfield plays. He’s still very much a good receiver and stands alone as the clear No. 1 target on this team.

He’ll now get to pair up with the first overall pick in Cam Ward. The Miami product is ready to start right away and while rookies are never a lock, he is a great option to get Ridley and the Titans out of the wilderness. His aggressive style fits well on some of the downfield in-breakers that Ridley ran in 2024.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba, WR, Seattle Seahawks

As mentioned many times in this article, Geno Smith is a good quarterback and he was traded by the Seahawks this offseason. While he’ll face less target competition from this version of Cooper Kupp than DK Metcalf, the quarterback change does complicate Smith-Njigba’s projection.

The addition of Sam Darnold doesn’t necessarily paint a less complex picture, either. Based on last season’s data, Darnold looks like a clear solution. He was seventh in adjusted yards per attempt and 16th in EPA per dropback; not perfect but clearly above the line. It’s difficult to untangle those results from a pristine Minnesota ecosystem and that’s what makes Darnold an unclear wilderness or not designation. Overall, I think Smith-Njigba should be able to remain highly productive as a strong separator with a guy in Darnold who prefers to see it before he throws it.

Drake London, WR, Atlanta Falcons

Much like the other top receivers from the 2022 NFL Draft class we’ve touched on here, London has spent all of his NFL career wandering the Quarterback Wilderness. It looked like Kirk Cousins presented him a chance to get out of the mess, as the two were dynamite on in-breakers last season but the veteran quarterback fell apart down the stretch. That made way for Michael Penix Jr. to get into the mix as the starter in Atlanta’s final three games.

It wasn’t a perfect audition for Penix, who completed fewer than 56% of his passes in two of the games, both Falcons’ losses, and threw a pick in all three. Atlanta is extremely confident in Penix making a leap but viewing him as a certainty would be a mistake. However, I loved what I saw out of Penix delivering erguido shots to London in tight coverage and they had a clear connection on out-breaking routes. That alone makes me optimistic for London’s 2025 outlook, even if Penix isn’t a known commodity just yet.

D.J. Moore, WR, Chicago Bears

An annual wanderer, Moore merienda again finds himself at the fork in the road with a path out of the Quarterback Wilderness. If we’re just looking at last season’s results, Caleb Williams isn’t a guy to get Moore and some of these other pass-catchers out, considering he was outside the top-20 in every efficiency metric and was outrageously sack-prone. Of course, that doesn’t have to define him forever and we should all be optimistic that Ben Johnson can help turn this ship around.

At the very least, running it back with Williams will be the first time Moore has had the same Week 1 starter in consecutive seasons. I’m pretty confident that Williams will end up being someone who gets the Bears out of the wilderness, so it’s up to Moore to play better in isolation after a disappointing season with bad vibes throughout.

Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison, WRs, Minnesota Vikings

Tough one here. Am I worried about Jefferson or Addison in particular this coming season? No. However, that says more about my faith in Kevin O’Connell and the ecosystem he’s built in Minnesota than anything else.

From a bottom-line perspective, the Vikings let one of the most productive quarterbacks from last season walk and are replacing him with a second-year player who missed his entire rookie campaign with an injury. It would be disingenuous to put Drake London in this category because of Michael Penix Jr.’s unknown variable and not include the Vikings’ wide receivers with J.J. McCarthy taking over. My view of the Vikings’ offense is that it’s too good to fail, especially with some interior offensive line additions. However, we don’t know who McCarthy is at this stage so it would be unfair not to at least mention the Vikings’ receivers in this section.