After a career year in 2024, Terry McLaurin was supposed to build upon it in 2025, his second season with Jayden Daniels as his quarterback. Instead, everything went wrong, and McLaurin wound up being one of the worst picks in fantasy football. What should fantasy managers expect in 2026 and beyond for the Washington Commanders WR1?
Should You Draft Terry McLaurin in Fantasy Football?
For pretty much his entire career, McLaurin has been one of the most consistent producers in fantasy football. Has he been elite? No. Never. But he’s always been good to pretty good.
From 2019 to 2023, McLaurin averaged between 12.3 and 14.9 fantasy points per game every season, with four of them coming between 12.3 and 13.7. Perhaps he always had the talent for more and was held back by Washington’s quarterback situation. We’ll never know for sure. The fact was, if you drafted McLaurin, you knew you weren’t getting a bust, but you also weren’t getting a difference maker.
That all changed in 2024 with the arrival of Daniels. Suddenly, McLaurin was posting borderline WR1 numbers. After an entire career of being a mid WR2 at best, McLaurin was suddenly at 15.8 PPG, right at the 16.0-point threshold that typically signals WR1 production.
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Despite this, McLaurin was one of my top fades for the 2025 season. Why? Nothing changed about his volume, usage, or production. The only difference in 2024 was that a guy who had scored exactly four or five touchdowns in each of the previous four seasons spiked to 13.
McLaurin’s PPG jumped 3.5 points from 2024 to 2025. Yet, his season was nearly identical. He saw 13 more targets, caught three more passes, and had 94 more yards. It was very easy to spot him as overvalued with a third-round ADP.
Sure enough, McLaurin only averaged 11.4 PPG, solidifying him as an unquestioned bust. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he couldn’t stay healthy either. For the first time in his career, McLaurin battled injuries.
Prior to last season, McLaurin hadn’t missed a game since 2020 and had only missed a total of three games in his career. He missed seven last year and exited early in two more.
As if that wasn’t enough, the nightmare was further exacerbated by Daniels’ own injury concerns. A combination of knee, hamstring, and elbow injuries limited the second-year quarterback to just seven games.
So, to recap, we had a player already overvalued due to an outlier touchdown season who was injured for most of the year, catching passes from a backup quarterback most of the year. Things couldn’t have gone worse. Naturally, one would think I’d be fading McLaurin this season. Quite the contrary.
McLaurin’s Redraft Fantasy Football Value
The fantasy community continues to prove how much smarter it gets every year. 5-10 years ago, McLaurin’s disaster 2025 season would’ve seen him banished into the middle rounds. Instead, his ADP is still up in the fourth round. But he’s going off the board as the WR24. That’s just way too cheap.
We want to fade age 29+ wide receivers who show signs of decline. Conventional wisdom would suggest McLaurin, now 30 years old, would be a fade coming off the worst season of his career. Here’s the thing about McLaurin’s 2025 season, though. He was actually awesome.
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McLaurin did not show a single shred of declining ability last year. He simply wasn’t healthy, and his quarterback wasn’t either.
Even in a year where everything went wrong, McLaurin still averaged 2.29 yards per route run, good for 13th in the league. His 9.7 yards per target ranked 16th. And one of the most predictive metrics for wide receiver production, first downs per route run, bodes incredibly well for McLaurin. His 0.13 first downs per route run was fifth.
Not only did McLaurin not show signs of decline last year, but he was also arguably better than ever. It was the injuries. All injuries.
This year, McLaurin looks like a screaming value. He doesn’t need to score 13 touchdowns again to be a great pick at cost. He just needs to land somewhere in between his career average of 4-5 and the outlier season.
While regression was inevitable last year, there’s no reason to think he shouldn’t be more in the 8-10 touchdown range playing with the best quarterback of his career. And the offensive situation as a whole should be even better.
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McLaurin is the undisputed WR1 for the Commanders. Behind him are journeymen and a rookie third-rounder. Even if the Commanders sign someone like Stefon Diggs or Brandon Aiyuk, they are absolutely no threat to McLaurin’s target share, which has plenty of room to grow from 23.3% in each of the past two seasons.
We can reasonably project McLaurin for a typical WR1 target share in the 25-28% range. Even if nothing else changes and he hits his usual career markers, plus the increased touchdown rate due to the improved offense, he should be around 14.0 PPG. Dare I say that’s his floor?
McLaurin is WR18 in my consensus rankings, firmly ahead of ADP. I am very high on Scary Terry, and he is spearheading the list of “my guys” for the 2026 season.
McLaurin’s Dynasty Fantasy Football Value
As excited as we should be for McLaurin this year, dynasty is a different story. At age 30, we’ve seen plenty of wide receivers post high-quality seasons. The same is true at age 31. But at 32/33, that’s when we really start to see a meaningful decline.
McLaurin’s skill set is one that should age reasonably well. Nevertheless, we’re talking about a player who is undoubtedly near the end of his career. That’s why McLaurin is down at WR31 in our dynasty rankings.
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A rebuilding dynasty team doesn’t have much use for any wide receivers over 30. Although if you believe your team can contend as early as 2027, McLaurin should still be near the top of his game for at least one more season.
Contending teams should be looking to acquire McLaurin as the type of piece that can put them over the top. His age makes him attainable, and he’s not so old that he’s truly just a one-year mercenary. McLaurin is the perfect final piece for that championship push.
