Garrett Wilson is widely viewed as one of the more talented wide receivers in professional football, but those skills have yet to translate in a big way to our fantasy football world, and his abilities are at risk of once again being neutralized due to his environment.
Is this the year to take the dive at cost and invest in New York’s clear-cut WR1?
Should You Draft Garrett Wilson in Fantasy Football?
Wilson’s ADP is 40.4 in PFN’s Free Fantasy Mock Draft Simulator. His rank is WR22, which is a combination of me and my colleague Kyle Soppe, and we project him for 14.2 fantasy points per game. How do we feel about Wilson this year?
This is the year we should draft Wilson early in fantasy drafts, in the first four rounds, and he’s going to produce at that level. That’s what we said for the past three years. Every year, Wilson is going to be the guy we all expect him to be. We saw him have that stretch of 17-plus points per game as a rookie when anyone other than Zach Wilson was starting, and we’ve been chasing that ever since.
He’s entering his fifth season now, and we have yet to see him post a fantasy points-per-game output higher than 14.8. He caught 101 passes for 1,104 yards and 7 touchdowns in his best season. That’s a great year, but again, 14.8 points per game.
Last year, we had the excuse. The Jets were starting Justin Fields. They moved to Tyrod Taylor. Wilson got hurt and was banged up, and everything went wrong for the Jets. But again, even with injuries playing a role, he was still at only 14.2 points per game last season.
Is this the year it finally gets better? The volume is there. Last year, he saw an absurd 34.3% target share and was targeted on 26.2% of his routes run. His usage can’t get any better.
Here’s the problem for me. I like to do historical research to gauge the value of players. The reality is we’re now entering year five of Wilson’s career, and he doesn’t have a single WR1-caliber season, which we view as 16-plus fantasy points per game. Since 2000, just 18 wide receivers have hit 16-plus points per game for the first time in their career in year five or later. Of those 18 wide receivers, only 5 of them were round 1 selections in the NFL Draft.
It makes sense that round 1 receivers would be doing this less, because typically if a player is breaking out that late into their career, he’s probably a Day 3 or a UDFA guy. Someone like Adam Thielen, or maybe what we see with Parker Washington this year: those are the types of guys we see break out late, because they don’t get the red carpet laid out for them and that opportunity early on. They have to earn it.
Of the round 1 guys, though, of those 5 players, 4 had a season of at least 15-plus points per game during their first four years. Once again, Wilson has not. So if he were to suddenly post a 16-plus points-per-game season in 2026 or later, he would not just be a late bloomer; he would be one of the most significant historical outliers in the history of fantasy football.
That’s not to say he can’t do it. There’s a lot to like this year. Frank Reich stepped in as offensive coordinator. I’m not super confident in him turning this into a great offense, but I do think Geno Smith brings a lot more than the quarterbacks did last year.
I also think Reich is going to throw it back to this: Wilson’s our top guy. He referred to him as a bell cow in a press conference recently. Maybe he’s going to feed him 180 targets. If he does that, I don’t care how bad the offense or the quarterback play is. He’ll be worth his value in fantasy drafts.
I’m not fading Wilson as much now as I was maybe a month or two ago, but the historical data doesn’t lie. I think he’s a shaky bet to outperform his ADP expectation by that much.
FANTASY RANKINGS: PFN’s FREE Fantasy PPR, Half-PPR, and Non-PPR Rankings
Garrett Wilson’s Week 1 Fantasy Outlook
Analysis provided by PFN Analyst Kyle Soppe.
The plan early last season was to get Wilson the rock, and I don’t expect things to be any different any time soon. He hauled in at least 6 passes in 4 of 5 games to open 2025: this isn’t a quantity concern as much as it is a quality concern.
In theory, he gets a bump up with Geno Smith calling the shots, but don’t confuse “bump up” with “good.” Smith hasn’t had a triple-digit passer rating in 3 consecutive seasons, and he turns 36 years old in October.
I intentionally avoided this offense during draft season, and I’m lower on Wilson in Week 1 than most … but for a rather unique reason by Jets standards. I think they are going to be competitive against another bottom-dweller, and that means we might not see 30 passes thrown by Smith, something that naturally limits his top target.
Add in the fact that there are two rookies vying for looks, and I have Wilson hovering in that low-end WR2/flex territory: still a starter in most spots, but not someone I’m overly optimistic in for this week or this season.
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Where Wilson Ranks Among 2026 Wide Receivers
- DeVonta Smith | PHI
- Ladd McConkey | LAC
- Emeka Egbuka | TB
- Terry McLaurin | WAS
- Tetairoa McMillan | CAR
- Garrett Wilson | NYJ
- Luther Burden III | CHI
- Parker Washington | JAX
- Christian Watson | GB
- Jameson Williams | DET
- Rome Odunze | CHI
See PFN’s 2026 PPR Wide Receiver Rankings for more.
