Unveiling the NFL Draft’s Ultimate Deep Threats: Which Wide Receivers Leave Defenders in the Dust?

Here’s a little brain teaser for ya: What do you call a wide receiver who’s so good at shaking defenders that it’s almost like he’s got a cheat code for getting open? Well, in the world of the 2025 NFL Draft, we’re about to find out. Last year we saw a whopping seven wideouts snatched in the first round, setting a high bar. This year? It’s a bit leaner, probably no more than five, even if you toss in the electrifying Travis Hunter, the two-way phenom from Colorado. Now, rather than just eyeballing highlights and hype, I’ve zeroed in on the seven highest-ranked receiver prospects according to the draft industry consensus — and ranked ’em by their 2024 “burn rate.” That’s right, burn rate: a metric revealing how often these guys literally torch their defenders and set themselves up for the big play — no quarterback magic needed. It’s a fresh lens, a quarterback-independent look at who really knows how to get open and make defenses look silly. So buckle up. We’re diving deep into who’s blazing trails (and defenders) in college football, and who’s primed to light up the NFL next. LEARN MORE

We’ve picked out the seven highest-ranked receiver prospects on the industry consensus big board and ranked them by their 2024 burn rate. That’s our measurement of how often a targeted receiver sheds his defender and puts himself in position to make a successful play.

The 2025 NFL Draft class isn’t overflowing with elite wide receiver prospects in the same way the 2024 class did.

There were seven wideouts picked in the first round last year, and this year’s draft probably won’t get more than five, even if you include Colorado’s two-way superstar Travis Hunter as a receiver. 

There’s still a skilled crop of 2025 NFL Draft prospects there for the picking, though.

I’ve picked out the seven highest-ranked prospects on the draft industry consensus big board and ranked them here by their 2024 burn rate, Opta Analyst’s measurement of how often a targeted receiver sheds the defender covering him and puts himself in position to make a successful play.

Burn rate doesn’t tell us everything about a wide receiver, but it provides a good window into the quarterback-independent skill of getting open. I’ve used the burn rate as a top-line ranking and added deeper notes on each receiver’s college performance. 

1. Matthew Golden, Texas (72.9% Burn Rate) 

Of the consensus seven top wide receiver prospects in the draft, Golden is the one who had the burn-iest season in 2024. Playing against strong competition in the SEC and the College Football Playoff, Golden didn’t just have a best-in-class burn rate among these wideouts but also posted a 47.1% big play rate to lead them. (Big play rate is the measurement of how often a targeted receiver generated a 20-plus-yard burn or a touchdown on a burn.)

Golden’s average depth of target was 13.0 yards downfield, and he was sure-handed once the ball got to him: He dropped one ball on 85 targets. Our game-charters tracked Golden at 8 for 9 in contested catch attempts, an incredibly high figure that led the class. 

Would I take Golden over McMillan based on his collegiate career? Probably not. Golden was in a talented Texas offense with a solid group of skill players around him, while McMillan was the only game in town for the Arizona offense. But Golden’s efficiency and explosiveness are awfully enticing, and that’s before you even get to his 4.29-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine. 

2. Tre Harris, Ole Miss (71.8%) 

Harris is a standout in one of our metrics in particular: burn yards per route run. He averaged 6.2, nearly double the average of the top seven wide receiver prospects. Harris ran 192 routes in 2024 and posted 56 burns of defenders, getting himself an average of 6.2 “burn yards” for each route. It’s a way of saying that when Harris burned his man, he turned it into a lot of yards. 

How’d he do that? Harris averaged 7.9 yards after the catch, easily the highest of these wideouts. I think that’s mostly because of how open Lane Kiffin and Co. managed to get him.

Harris averaged 0.197 missed or broken tackles per touch, a below-average rate for this group, suggesting his huge run-after-catch numbers also had a lot to do with Ole Miss scheming him into the open field in the first place.

3. Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State (69.4%) 

Jeremiah Smith rendered Egbuka the best No. 2 wideout in recent college football history. Egbuka would have been the standard-bearer for at least 128 teams, though, and put up nice all-around numbers. Smith was Ohio State’s deep threat and Egbuka was its short-area version, averaging 7.9 yards of target depth compared to the freshman phenom’s 12.7.

Egbuka’s reliability (just two drops) and propensity to run closer-in polished routes led to him posting a slightly higher target share (28.9%) than Smith, something that might surprise even people who watched a lot of Buckeyes games during their run to the national championship. Egbuka was open on 80.6% of his targets. Smith, getting more attention, was open on just 69.5% of his. 

All of that raises interesting questions about what Egbuka’s life will be like in the NFL. Egbuka is not a classically sized slot receiver at 6-foot-1, 202 pounds, nor is he a downfield burner who will run past everybody. He is, however, a producer, and some team should find a wise way to deploy him. 

4. Elic Ayomanor, Stanford (66.1%) 

Ayomanor’s most famous college performance came in 2023. He matched up against an exhausted Travis Hunter at cornerback (more on him shortly) and slam-dunked the future top pick and other Colorado defenders throughout the night en route to a 13-catch, 294-yard breakout in a double overtime win for the Cardinal.

Ayomanor never got much due as one of the best players in college football, but he was a money player in prime-time moments. In 2024, he basically won a game for Stanford by beating an overmatched Syracuse cornerback on the biggest play of the game to set up a decisive field goal. 

Ayomanor prefers to go after big chunks. He was dead last among these receivers in yards after the catch (3.5) and first in average depth of target (14.2 yards). He was the least sure-handed of these seven wide receivers in 2024, with five drops and a 0.875 catch rating that trailed the group’s 0.934 average on a 0-1 scale.

His contested catch rate was 60%, which for this group was a hair below average. (Not that this area is not a strength of Ayomanor. This class of wide receivers just has a lot of contested catch artists.) 

5. Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona (63.2%) 

McMillan will probably be the first receiver selected in the draft. He was third in the FBS with 1,319 receiving yards, and he was efficient despite every defensive coordinator in the Big 12 knowing QB Noah Fifita had very little interest in throwing the ball to anyone other than No. 4.

He averaged 13.0 yards in terms of depth of target, tied for second-most among the top seven wide receiver prospects, and put up his numbers in a difficult environment with defenses double-teaming him on what often felt like every snap.

McMillan’s 71.4% open rate is the lowest of this group, but no serious person thinks that’s because McMillan can’t get open. Once he had the ball in his hands, he averaged 0.286 missed or broken tackles forced per touch, only trailing the next two players in this ranking.

I wouldn’t worry much about the lackluster burn rate; he still finished with the fifth-most total burns in the FBS.

6. Travis Hunter, Colorado (60.2%) 

Hunter may or may not play wide receiver in the NFL, and his two-way workload in college makes him an apples-to-oranges comparison to everyone else on this list. Hunter was a great college receiver and won the Biletnikoff Award in 2024, but I think his cornerback exploits and general Superman vibe made a few people overstate his pure wide receiver game just a bit.

He was merely an elite, No. 1 college receiver, not, in my opinion, the best pass catcher in the whole country. That was Ohio State’s Smith, and you could even make a cogent case for Bowling Green tight end Harold Fannin Jr. 

Still, Hunter can ball at wideout. Of note, his 0.296 missed or broken tackles per touch were the second most among the seven top wide receiver prospects. Hunter was a bit better at shaking defenders with his quick feet after he had the ball than beforehand, and that makes some sense given his average target depth of 10.3 yards – plenty deep down the field, but not so much by the standards of this group, which averaged 11.4.

7. Luther Burden III, Missouri (58.2%) 

What’s Burden doing at the bottom of this list? It’s an interesting question. Ask any college football fan to name the most electric route runners in the sport over the past two years, and Burden’s name will come up quickly. He certainly doesn’t feel like the seventh-best wideout in his draft class at burning defensive backs. But some context about Missouri’s offense can help explain what we’re seeing here. 

Mizzou did not like to air the ball out much when targeting Burden. His average depth of target was 8.9 yards, a bit less than the national average for wide receivers of 9.1. For a player of his talent, that’s a bit surprising. But Mizzou had a limited (and sometimes injured) quarterback in Brady Cook, and the Tigers made a determination that they’d like to get the ball into Burden’s hands relatively quickly and let him do his toasting of man coverage after he already caught it.

Burden’s burn rate is low, but his 86.1% open rate leads this group of receivers. (There’s a correlation between a shallower depth of target and being open more often, as you might expect.) Burden’s 0.429 missed or broken tackles per touch is nearly double this group’s average and about triple the national average for receivers. 

Ultimately, Burden wasn’t that efficient in 2024 compared to the other names on this list. His 7.7 expected yards per target lagged the much bigger totals of his deeper route-running peers. In the NFL, Burden’s coordinator might feel more freedom to use him expansively as a downfield target. I hope we get to see that, because a Burden who’s allowed to run deep routes is a scary Burden.

Ask South Carolina, or consult his 83.3% contested catch rate last season. 

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