Top 10 Wide Receivers in the NFL Entering 2019
By Jeff Weisinger
Wide receivers make up the third part of a team’s star-powered offense, after quarterbacks and running backs.In today’s game, however, receivers have become more important and a star wideouts production has skyrocketed in recent years with the addition and evolution of the spread offense in the pro game.
With that said, here are our top five pass-catchers in the NFL.
10. Cooper Kupp
Kupp was on his way to what would’ve been at least his first 1,000-yard season last year before tearing his ACL midway through. However, he proved his value in the first half of 2018, catching 40 balls on his 55 targets (72.7 catch percentage) for 566 yards with six touchdowns, including a 70-yard score, easily outdoing his performance from his 2017 rookie campaign.
9. Keenan Allen
Keenan Allen exploded back from injury in 2016 and seemingly picked up where he left off. In the last two seasons, he’s racked 2,589 yards on 199 receptions (295 targets) with 12 touchdowns. While he’s picked up his productivity in the last two seasons, if he can increase in end zone production in 2019, he should fit his way into the top-five receivers in the NFL.
Right now, as great as he is, he’s only caught six touchdowns in each of the last two seasons, and just four in both 2014 and 2015 before missing 2016 with an injury. But he still handles every team’s top corner extremely well, and at least once per game makes a defensive back look silly with his elite route-running and footwork.
8. Adam Thielen
Adam Thielen is an absolutely solid and reliable wideout. He’s started every game for the past two straight seasons after exploding onto the scene in Minnesota in 2016. In two full seasons, he’s racked about 1,300 yards per campaign and scored a career-best nine touchdowns last year. He continues to improve and continues to make his targets count, catching 113 balls on 153 targets last year.
Given his slim stature and lack of explosive plays, it’s easy for Thielen to fall by the wayside when making these rankings. But his route-running in tandem with his hands make him one of those guys who will always get open, and his name deserves to be mentioned alongside the best pass-catchers in the league.
7. Odell Beckham Jr.
OBJ needs no introduction. In fact, he’d probably just do it himself. He might’ve considered himself the straw that stirred the Giants drink, but outside of the antics, Beckham Jr. is easily the most explosive, electric receiver in the league– especially when he wants to be and things are going his way.
He’s racked over 1,000 yards receiving in four of his five seasons with the Giants – he missed a majority of the 2017 season with injury – and over 1,300 yards through the air in his first three seasons. Now, in Cleveland with another stud wideout opposite of him in Jarvis Landry and a quarterback like Baker Mayfield, we may see OBJ 2.0, which may be a bit scary if all goes right in Cleveland. A banged-up 2018 causes him to drop for now, but no one would be surprised to see him force his way back into the conversation as a top-three receiver in the NFL.
6. Juju Smith-Schuster
In his first full season as a starter, opposite Antonio Brown, Smith-Schuster made his case as a rising, elite receiver in the NFL. He racked 1,426 yards on 111 catches (166 targets) with seven touchdowns. He matched his longest reception from 2017 (97 yards) and his touchdown total from his rookie year while building heavily on his yardage total.
This season will be his biggest test, however, as almost all of the defensive attention will come his way with Brown now in Oakland. The 2019 season should spark the true beginning of the Juju-era in Pittsburgh.
5. Tyreek Hill
Tyreek Hill is fast. Like, Dante Hall on RedBull fast. Many guys with straight-up speed don’t run routes extremely well compared to others, but that isn’t the case with Hill. He caught a career-high 137 balls last year, up from his 105 from 2017, for 1,479 yards with 12 touchdowns, his first double-digit touchdown season.
He gives Beckham Jr. a run for the league’s most explosive player and is a perfect pairing with gunning QB Patrick Mahomes. As many incredible athletes there are in this league, Hill is truly one of a kind. Touchdowns seem to just come fast and easy.
4. Michael Thomas
Michael Thomas, to me, is one of the best receivers in the league and may fly under the radar at times because he plays with Drew Brees– which is a huge boon, surely, but shouldn’t take away from his talent. He’s been a 1,000-yard receiver in each of his first three seasons in the league, improving on his numbers in each year.
He led the league in receiving last year with 125 balls on 147 targets, and is the go-to-target for Brees. His catch rate is absolutely absurd for how many targets he received. People are only talking a
3. Antonio Brown
What can we say about Antonio Brown that we haven’t said yet? He’s one of the best receivers in the game and the best pure route-runner by far. Productivity wise, he’s racked over 1,100 yards in seven of the last eight seasons, over 1,200 in the last six straight, and 1,500 or more in four of those.
He’s scored 10 or more touchdowns in four of the last five years. In ways, you can see shades of OBJ in Brown in terms of their explosiveness and threat to score on every play. He’s just older and with his own dance moves. Brown is suffering a downgrade from Ben Roethlisberger to Derek Carr, but he’s good enough that you don’t want to bet against him putting up similar numbers in yet another outstanding year.
2. DeAndre Hopkins
DeAndre Hopkins is one of the best receivers in the game, plain and simple. He’s racked over 1,500 yards receiving in two of the last four seasons and just under 1,400 in 2017. He’s also scored 11-or-more touchdowns in three of the last four years.
Where he lacks in speed he makes up for with an insane catch radius and his ability to make contested catches. Michael Thomas has an excellent argument for best hands in the league, but Hopkins catches passes at a similar rate and has a half-dozen highlight-reel catches every year to back up his own claim to that throne. As Deshaun Watson is now fully healthy and two years off of his knee injury, Hopkins’ production should only increase in 2019.
1. Julio Jones
Hopkins and AB are both outstanding, but neither tops the sheer dominance of Jones. Over 1,400 yards through the air in the last five straight seasons he led the league in receiving yards twice in the last four. No one averaged more yards per game in three of the last four years. He’s also beating double and triple teams on a weekly basis to achieve this.
Like Hopkins, Jones’ range is seemingly unlimited, but it’s his size and sheer power that gives him the edge over Hopkins, and he’s been more consistently dominant yardage-wise as well. Hopkins has only gone over 1,500 twice where Jones has done it three times and hasn’t recorded less than 1,400 yards in each of the last five years. Jones’ also racks up a higher yards per game average, racking at least 100 per game in three of the last four years. Hopkins has never eclipsed the century mark in that stat in his career. Barring injury, Jones is the undisputed alpha at wide receiver in the NFL.