2025 NFL Draft: Top 10 wide receivers heading into NFL Combine feature shockingly fast rising and falling star playmakers
The 2025 NFL Combine is here. The NFL Draft is just around the corner. As draft season continues heating up the wide receiver rankings continue to change, as some players continue to rise shockingly fast and others fall quickly down big boards.Our team of NFL Draft contributors at A to Z Sports has been working […]
The 2025 NFL Combine is here. The NFL Draft is just around the corner. As draft season continues heating up the wide receiver rankings continue to change, as some players continue to rise shockingly fast and others fall quickly down big boards.
Our team of NFL Draft contributors at A to Z Sports has been working tirelessly on this 2025 NFL Draft class for several months now, so we decided to update our collective Top 10 ranks for prospects at every position. Eight of our draft analysts ranked their top ten wide receivers for this iteration of this Top 10 Positional Ranking series as we found some brand new consensus on this class that needs to impress at the NFL Combine.
Here's where we landed on the incoming 2025 NFL Draft wide receiver group. If your favorite NFL team needs a wide receiver, you better hope they select one of these top options.
1. Tetairoa McMillan, WR Arizona
Tetairoa McMillan is a 6'5", 210+ pound wide receiver with ridiculous movement skills for his size who put together the most impressive production profile among all the incoming wide receiver prospects in the 2025 NFL Draft. He accounted for over 44% of Arizona's receiving yards in his final season as he averaged more than three yards per team pass attempt and 0.29 EPA per team pass attempt (both elite marks on par with top first round prospects.
It's no wonder that the A to Z Sports NFL Draft team collectively ranked him first overall in the wide receiver class. He makes absurd plays every game, and will likely do much more of that at the NFL level. Unless he surprises with some poor testing at the NFL Combine McMillan is going to be the first wide receiver off the board this spring.
2. Luther Burden, WR Missouri
Luther Burden is another easy first round projection in the 2025 NFL Draft class. Burden kicked off his college career as a five star stud recruit who immediately earned a starting role at outside wide receiver. Mizzou did their best to force feed their star true freshman, but the offense didn't really take off.
Then in 2023 Missouri moved him to slot wide receiver (primarily), and he exploded with over 1200 yards and nine touchdowns on the year. This past year was a bit down for him as the entire Missouri Tigers' offense struggled due to poor QB play, but Burden still impressed.
Thanks to his incredibly early breakout age, missed tackle rates, YAC ability, and athleticism that should wow at the NFL Combine the A to Z Sports team ranked him second overall among wide receivers in this class almost entirely across the board.
3. Emeka Egbuka, WR Ohio State
There is nothing that Emeka Egubka can't do well as a wide receiver, but he's somehow found a way to stay underrated throughout his entire career at Ohio State. Two first round talents around him in Marvin Harrison Jr. and Jeremiah Smith certainly ate into this opportunity some, but regardless of who he was competing with for targets he found a way to produce.
Egbuka is a top notch route runner with excellent ball skills, and when he broke out as a true sophomore with 30% of Ohio State's receiving yards the only other second year player with a better predictive metrics profile than him at the time was Marvin Harrison Jr., his teammate. There was some slight disagreement among the A to Z Sports team on where to rank Egbuka, but he wasn't listed worse than fourth by any of the eight 2025 NFL Draft contributors.
Egbuka needs to prove himself a bit more than the other top tier wide receivers at the NFL Combine if he wants to get early first round NFL Draft capital, but it's certainly possible given his five star pedigree.
4. Travis Hunter, WR Colorado
Travis Hunter is apparently competing with the cornerbacks at the 2025 NFL Combine instead of the wide receivers, but if Hunter does indeed play significant snaps on offense one day soon like he did at Colorado he's still going to be one of the best offensive playmakers in this draft class too.
If he destroys the NFL Combine both by wide receiver and cornerback standards there's a good chance he might actually go first or second overall in the 2025 NFL Draft. If that happens ranking him fourth at any position might seem a bit strange.
However, our A to Z Sports team is still quite skeptical he's given a full workload at wide receiver early in his career, if ever. That's the only thing really holding him back. He has all the talent in the world to be the potential WR1 in this class.
5. Matthew Golden, WR Texas
Matthew Golden has been the fastest rising wide receiver prospect in mock drafts and 2025 NFL Draft projections for the past two months in a row. While most people began the 2024 college football season expecting it to be Isaiah Bond season for the Texas Longhorns that never really happened. Instead, Matthew Golden came on strong down the stretch as the WR1 for the Longhorns.
Golden's overall predictive metric profile is a bit lackluster in terms of his "yards per" any and everything numbers. However, his last six weeks of the 2024 college football season have NFL decision-makers intrigued. From the week before Thanksgiving to the end of Texas' College Football Playoff run Golden caught 29 receptions for 570 yards, looking unstoppable much of the time.
That impressive run jettisoned his expected draft stock upwards, starting an unbelievable hype train too powerful to ignore. He's a top five wide receiver for the A to Z Sports staff now. No one here ranks him below WR8.
6. Tre Harris, WR Ole Miss
Tre Harris was on an absolutely absurd pace in early 2024 as he averaged more than five yards per route run, literally double what would be considered impressive for power conference wide receivers. The A to Z Sports staff have a few athletic questions on Harris, so the NFL Combine will be crucial in proving he can land top tier NFL Draft capital, but he has the raw talent.
Harris is a little bit older for a rookie, but he began breaking out as a true sophomore back when he was still playing for Louisiana Tech. There will be some skeptics with Harris given his late career injury, athleticism questions, and age, but he should still be a ready-made day one starter in the NFL with excellent ability to read and adjust to defenses pre and post-snap.
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7. Isaiah Bond, WR Texas
The shine has worn off quickly with Isaiah Bond. He began the 2024 college football season considered by most to be a first round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Now he's fallen completely out of the Top 50 in recent mock draft data, with all the momentum continuing to point downward.
Bond just never put together a truly elite season at any point throughout college. He's a former five star talent who started at Alabama, flashing significantly as a sophomore in 2023, making big plays in several critical moments. However, just as he began stacking some great games in a row he suffered an ankle injury against Oklahoma.
Bond's first five weeks of 2024 he piled up 20 receptions for 364 yards and three touchdowns. Battling through injury nonstop, Bond managed just 14 catches the rest of the season. The talent is still there, and a strong NFL Combine might remind many of this. He just needs to stay healthy.
8. Elic Ayomanor, WR Stanford
Elic Ayomanor is a strong day two wide receiver who might just have a limited ceiling. Out of our entire A to Z Sports staff, all but one of us ranked him in between 7th and 10th among wide receivers in this draft class. That range typically means something like, "There's absolutely no chance at first round capital, but he's still good."
Ayomanor is a limited route runner who dominates in a few specific ways. He absolutely destroys defensive backs on in-breaking short to intermediate slants and digs as he boxes them out with his physicality and powerful first step out of his breaks. Ayomanor also has strong success rates on go routes and fades, again dominating with physicality at the point of catch. Typically wide receivers like this don't test very well, so the NFL Combine might bring his stock back down to earth for anyone expecting 2025 NFL Draft capital inside the Top 50 picks.
9. Tez Johnson, WR Oregon
Tez Johnson embarrassed the competition at the Senior Bowl with his impressive speed and smooth separation ability. Despite being extremely tiny, he's been an unavoidable fast riser up the rankings for many because of his dominance in Mobile. If he impresses at the NFL Combine with absolutely wild speed and agility like many believe he can his ceiling might find its place somewhere on the edge of round two draft capital.
The A to Z Sports staff finally all rank him just inside the Top 10 wide receivers in the class, but only one of our experts have him rated higher than 8th.
10. Ja'Corey Brooks, WR Louisville
This is the one wide receiver the A to Z Sports staff have ranked far above consensus, and we're completely fine being wrong on if he does indeed miss. However, there's still certainly some disagreement as he ranks as high as 6th, but as low as 14th among our team. Why the variance?
Brooks had an up-and-down career that began at Alabama as a five star wide receiver. In fact, he was widely considered a five star recruit as early as age 14 when he was starting varsity football at the age typical of some 8th graders. Brooks always had special talent, and he began to prove that as a true sophomore as Bryce Young's go-to wide receiver down the stretch in 2022.
Unfortunately, the reason why many have questions with Brooks is that he got into Nick Saban's dog house early in 2023, and was essentially benched for the entire year in 2023. The good news? He immediately became the best wide receiver in the ACC after transferring to Louisville last season. He put up over 1000 yards, scored nine touchdowns, and made ridiculous plays every week like the insane catch you can see in the post below. Brooks is the ultimate "sleeper" in this class that ranks outside the Top 150 for many.
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We'll be back with more NFL Draft and College Football coverage here at A to Z Sports all year long! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news!
And if you want to see why the A to Z Sports NFL Draft team is so high on Ja'Corey Brooks just check out some of his best 2024 season highlights in the video below!
