- Garrett Wilson could play the Amon-Ra St. Brown role: The New York Jets have a new offensive coordinator who used to coach the Detroit Lions and three new wide receivers, which will lead the room to look very different from last season.
- The pros and cons of Justin Fields: Wilson has experience with Fields and not much competition for targets, but Fields also runs at a high rate and takes sacks at a high rate.
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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.
Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs will impact each player's fantasy football outlook.
Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Thursday, May 15
Player performance
Wilson was drafted with the 10th overall pick of the 2022 NFL Draft. He caught eight passes for 102 yards and two touchdowns in his second game despite a limited role. By Week 8, he was playing in at least 88% of the Jets' offensive snaps on a weekly basis. He averaged 91.6% of their offensive snaps over 2023 and 96.2% of the snaps in 2024.
Most of his stats have remained stagnant rather than improved throughout his NFL career. It’s worth noting that the two pieces of receiving stats where he’s stood out the most are the two that are least dependent on other players. His avoided tackles per game and single coverage open rate have stood out above his other stats that rely more on a quarterback.
The Jets had the lowest team passing grade in 2022 and the third-lowest in 2023. In 2024, Wilson had Aaron Rodgers as his quarterback. His targets went down, and the team didn’t run as many pass plays, but his receptions and receiving yards went up. He doubled his career touchdown total, which helped him to his best fantasy season yet. His receiving grade was slightly ahead of Davante Adams, who was also heavily involved in the passing game.
His three-year grade of 85.4 ranks 22nd-best among wide receivers with at least 500 routes run. A few of the wide receivers ahead of him are older, declining receivers, and some are coming back from injury, so it’s fair to expect Wilson to be considered at least a top-20 wide receiver, if not top 15. His fantasy production made a leap with Rodgers but not enough to suggest that Wilson is among the elite receivers in the league.
Projected role
Wilson has the fourth-most targets among wide receivers over the last three years, and it wouldn’t be surprising if he’s among the top four this season. He finished third on the team in targets last season despite competing for catches with Davante Adams. Adams is now on the Los Angeles Rams, and tight end Tyler Conklin is with the Los Angeles Chargers. The only players remaining on the roster with at least 30 targets last season are Wilson, running back Breece Hall and wide receiver Allen Lazard. There are rumors that Lazard could be traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers if Aaron Rodgers signs there.
New York spent a few draft picks on receivers, including fourth-round wide receiver Arian Smith and second-round tight end Mason Taylor. They also signed a few journeyman wide receivers in Josh Reynolds and Tyler Johnson. None of them will be a threat to Wilson’s target share. New York could trade for a solid WR2 option, but that still probably wouldn’t be enough to get worried about Wilson’s target rate.
Impact of teammates
The Jets have a brand new coaching staff with Tanner Engstrand taking the lead as the offensive coordinator. He’s never been the lead of an NFL offense before, but he’s spent the last five seasons on the Detroit Lions staff. While we can’t fully predict how his offense will look, we can generally expect it to look similar to the Lions.
The Lions utilized a tall X receiver who was fast for his size and a willing blocker, a speedy Z receiver, and a slot receiver who can also play outside and is also fast. While Wilson has primarily played the X role for the New York Jets in the past, it might not make sense in this offense. Josh Reynolds is the most obvious fit for an X receiver, considering he played that role in the Detroit Lions‘ offense for three seasons. If Lazard is on the team, that is also his most natural fit. He is noticeably taller and slower than Amon-Ra St. Brown or Jameson Williams.
Fourth-round rookie Arian Smith, as well as returning receiver Xavier Gipson, are best suited for the Jameson Williams or Kalif Raymond role. While Williams is bigger and Raymond is smaller than both receivers, the key for their Z receiver spot is speed, which both Smith and Gipson have. Wilson isn’t as fast as any of the receivers listed here, but there’s at least a chance he fits this role.
No one perfectly matches St. Brown’s measurables, but Wilson makes the most sense for the slot given the other players on the roster and where Wilson has played well in the past. Wilson is a faster, skinnier player, but he has 1.97 yards per route run from the slot compared to 1.54 out wide. This was also the focal point of the Lions' passing game, and it’s obvious Wilson will be the focal point of the Jets' passing game. This also means Wilson would play on the outside with an X receiver in the base offense. Tyler Johnson also potentially fits the slot role and could potentially be a backup at X if the team moves on from Lazard. This leaves Malachi Corley, whose height and weight put him in the slot, but he lacks the speed. Considering the Jets brought in three receivers to play behind Wilson, Corley could be on the outside looking in.
Wilson will be reunited with his college quarterback, Justin Fields. The two played at Ohio State together in 2019-2020, where Chris Olave was the primary wide receiver at the time. Wilson surpassed Olave in PFF grade in 2021 with C.J. Stroud as their quarterback. Regardless, Wilson was excited by the addition, and the experience together can’t hurt. Fields has a very high rate of either scrambling or getting sacked, as well as a high rate of throwing deep, which isn’t ideal for Wilson, but the lack of other options in the passing game can help make up for this.
It’s worth noting that Fields played noticeably better as a passer in his limited starts with the Pittsburgh Steelers last season compared to his time with the Chicago Bears. He still didn’t grade out as well as Aaron Rodgers as a passer last season, but the situation shouldn’t be as bad as Wilson’s first two seasons with New York.
Bottom line
Wilson will likely be on a Jets offense with fewer targeted passes but a higher percentage of those passes going to Wilson, leaving him somewhere similar to last season. His best shot at improving his fantasy points per game is simply dominating his target rate even more than the earlier parts of his career.
Footnotes
- Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.
- “Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
- Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.
- As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.
- Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.
- Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.
- The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).
- All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.
- Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.
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