Everyone is aware of how good Ladd McConkey was as a rookie. But they might not be aware of just how good. The Los Angeles Chargers’ star has all the tools to be a truly elite fantasy football wide receiver. Should fantasy managers invest an early second-round pick on him?
Ladd McConkey Fantasy Outlook
The 2024 WR class gave us two of the greatest rookie seasons in history from Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr. Add in Marvin Harrison Jr. being the most hyped rookie WR in NFL history, and it’s easy for a guy like McConkey to fly a bit under the radar.
McConkey was a second-round pick. So, right off the bat, he’s not on the level of Harrison, Nabers, and Thomas…at least in theory.
As a prospect, McConkey had a lot of good but a very strange profile. He was highly productive per route but wasn’t on the field nearly as much as a player of his caliber should be. That left the door open to the possibility that McConkey couldn’t hack it as a full-time receiver. It’s safe to say he put those concerns to rest for good.
McConkey also started relatively slowly. He wasn’t quite a full-time player out of the gate, failing to reach an 80% snap share until Week 7. He ran over 30 routes in a game just once in the first 10 weeks.
As is often the case with rookie wide receivers, they start slow and finish strong. It’s always a challenge to look back at historic rookie seasons from a 10,000-foot view because we may not remember how those players got to their final numbers.
From Weeks 1-10, McConkey was still figuring things out. He averaged 12.4 fantasy points per game. From Week 11 to 18, McConkey was on another level, averaging 18.67 PPG. It’s also worth noting that the best performance of McConkey’s entire rookie season came in the Chargers’ lone playoff game, with the young receiver catching nine passes for 197 yards and a touchdown, good for 34.7 fantasy points.
McConkey Belongs in the Same Tier As Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr.
I think it’s fair to evaluate McConkey exclusively based on what he did over the second half of last season. Those numbers put him on the same level as Nabers and Thomas. To fantasy managers’ credit, they mostly see it that way, with McConkey’s ADP at WR11, costing a mid-second-round selection.
How rookie WRs played last year, filtering out a lot of noise in the data.
I thought Ladd McConkey, Malik Nabers, and Brian Thomas were very clearly the best rookie WRs on tape, so these numbers are pretty good to use. pic.twitter.com/pKUcGbzqmq
— Hayden Winks (@HaydenWinks) May 19, 2025
I believe McConkey is one of about eight wide receivers capable of finishing as the overall WR1. Of course, he’s not the favorite. But let’s consider what he did in the proper context.
For starters, McConkey was a rookie. He averaged 15.1 PPG while not coming into his own until the second half of the season.
He did this on an offense that was not conducive to big games from wide receivers. Under Jim Harbaugh, the Chargers play extremely slow. They were the slowest team in the league in neutral game script, averaging 30.7 seconds per snap. That was 0.4 seconds slower than the next slowest team and a staggering 4.0 seconds behind the league’s fastest team.
Justin Herbert averaged just under 30 pass attempts per game, which is by far the lowest of his career. To be fair, there’s little reason to expect that to change this year, especially with the Chargers spending a first-round pick on Omarion Hampton, giving their running game a lot more juice than it had last year with J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards.
With that said, the Chargers weren’t as run-heavy as you may think. They had a 56% neutral game script pass rate. After drafting Hampton, their next selection was WR Tre Harris. They should at least throw a little bit more than last season.
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Here’s what we have in McConkey. He’s a sophomore wide receiver, a group that has historically been great to invest in for fantasy football. He’s coming off an elite rookie year. He should be even better with a full season of experience. He has a top QB throwing him the ball. He has no threat to his alpha WR1 status. No, Keenan Allen does not count. And he has room for his 24.5% target share to increase by a handful of percentage points on an offense that should throw a little more.
I have McConkey ranked as my WR10 and would be thrilled to have him as my WR1 on any fantasy team.
Mason LeBeau‘s Ladd McConkey Fantasy Projection
This time last year, I was all in on Ladd McConkey. The Chargers had vacated a ton of targets with their top three leaders in that category, Keenan Allen, Austin Ekeler, and Gerald Everett, all leaving. That left just Quentin Johnston remaining as the staff turned over, which was not promising. Enter McConkey, who was fantastic at Georgia, ready for a heavy workload with a great quarterback. His rookie status and the OC Greg Roman offense scared off plenty, but it seemed like a pretty safe deal to me.Â
He delivered with 82 catches, 1,149 yards, and seven touchdowns. He was only disappointing in that he didn’t immediately ascend to elite production, but for WR11, his value was excellent. Unfortunately, that’s where his ADP lies currently, meaning there is no value in a repeat performance. That worries me.Â
The Chargers ended up passing far more than Roman is comfortable with because the run game simply was not working. McConkey became the centerpiece, but he was always meant to be a complementary weapon, not the unquestioned 1A.
Everything the Chargers did this offseason was to return to that ground-and-pound approach. They didn’t add much more competition, but rookie Tre Harris alone — and the potential return of Keenan Allen — will be more than just Quentin Johnston. Pair that with a stronger rushing attack, and I think there may be even fewer pieces of an already small pie. That doesn’t kill McConkey’s value — I think he’ll still be a very good floor play with a few big weeks. What I don’t expect is for him to exceed his current ADP and turn into a league-winner.Â
