Each year I’ve done this newsletter, I have done a deep dive into quarterbacks and what makes a Top-6 or Top-12 fantasy option at the position. It’s been a staple of mine and is part of what kicked off my journey to become a more research-style, data-based newsletter early last year.

This particular column, which you are currently reading, was the first one I published when I picked things back up in March of last year, and I decided it would be fun to have it make a return.

It was born out of the conversation surrounding Jalen McMillan this time last year. He appeared in numerous podcasts, articles, and videos after bursting onto the scene at the end of the 2024 season. Instead of being purely subjective in my takes surrounding McMillan and others, I wanted to see if there were any indicators when a young breakout star could “make it stick” in the following seasons. What does the data say about end-of-year (Note: I will also use EOY) breakouts?

That’s when “Ballout or Fallout” became a thing. 🏈

I kept the same parameters for this study as I had last year. A receiver needs to fit these criteria:

Why do I have criterion # 2⃣ the way I do? I don’t want to discredit guys who might have been solid, but turned their game up a notch in the back half of a season. And despite his down season in 2025, Brian Thomas Jr. is the poster boy for this example. BTJ was the WR24 in PPG in the first half of the season, a great number for a rookie. However, he was the WR2 in PPG during the second half of the season. He was already doing well to begin with, but I want to give players like him not only for doing well but also for becoming absolutely dominant.

As for the other criteria, I wanted to make sure I was getting younger players, partially for the sake of matching the discourse surrounding McMillan (and others). It’s a bit arbitrary, I know. Quite frankly, that comes with the territory. Everyone has their own way of defining what a breakout is. And even then, breakouts can have subsets, and that’s what we’re dealing with today.

🐯 For example, Ja’Marr Chase broke out in his rookie season much like Brian Thomas Jr. The difference between the two is that Chase was dominant the entire year. This article is concerned about guys who broke out/elevated their game in the second half of a season.

From 2018 to 2024, we’ve had 25 receivers fit the criteria; they make up our historical sample. We want to see how those receivers did the year following their breakout (Y+1), and where applicable, the year after that (Y+2), in fantasy PPG. The 2024 breakouts only have a single season under their belt post-breakout, so they will lack Y+2 data. I switched from using straight-up WR finish to PPG, because I think it tells us a little more about the true impact a player had, vs having (or not having) injury luck helping or hurting them in the WR standings. 🏥

Let me just say, 2025 was a crazy year. The kind of year where I look at fairly large historical samples, given the current meta of the NFL, and make predictions off of it only for the season to go against everything I had thought I learned. It’s part of what makes football fun and frustrating. You can try to do the math and build yourself a sound process, but sometimes weird stuff happens. 🤷‍♂

It’s no different for our 2024 breakouts who entered our historical sample. Guys like Ladd McConkey, Brian Thomas, Xavier Worthy, and the aforementioned McMillan all failed to hit 12+ PPR PPG for some reason or another. McMillan suffered a serious neck injury in the preseason, so I’m taking that into context. Worthy himself suffered a dislocated shoulder on the first drive of his first game of the year, and that likely did him in given the nature of it. BTJ and Ladd both had struggles in their offense due to competition, new schemes, team situation, and the like. ⚡

All four of them could come back this season and put up a great 2026 and change our breakouts data. Because I’m going to be honest with you, having zero of the five 2024 breakouts who are now in the sample failing to keep the momentum going heavily influences the data set.

Still, we are concerned with how receivers do the following year, aren’t we? Just because these guys struggled or had injuries and could change our dataset next season, it doesn’t make 2025 worth nothing. We still drafted them one way or another based on their previous season, didn’t we? We will apply some subjectivity where needed.

With that out of the way, I grouped players into three categories ⬇

Let’s examine the first group. Of our sample of 25, 15 fit into this category. 10 of the 15 finished with fewer than 40 receptions in their rookie year and nine had fewer than 60 targets. Ladd, BTJ, and Worthy were all above that mark, but failed to have a 12+ PPG season in Y+1. McMillan was under the 40 reception mark, but again, he was hurt.

Eight of the 15 had fewer than 500 yards in their rookie season. 11 had 600 or fewer. Once again, Ladd, BTJ, and Worthy were above that mark. Another notable name in this category with better rookie target, reception, and yardage marks is Jayden Reed, who just missed the 12+ PPG cut with 11.6 in 2024 before having his Y+2 season derailed due to injury.

This isn’t a perfect science; not every player’s season is the same, but in general, you want your EOY breakout to finish his rookie season, regardless of a rookie or second-year breakout, to have more 60+ targets, 40+ receptions, and 600+ yards. Aka, you want them to have a backbone of work behind them.

Next, let’s examine the second group, those who broke out in Year 2 and succeeded. This is our smallest sample set, containing four names, so keep that in mind. Every receiver in this group had at least 71 targets, 46 receptions, and 584 yards in their rookie year. All three of those benchmarks were set by Hollywood Brown. Three had at least 96 targets, 60 catches, and 748 receiving yards (Brandon Aiyuk, Tee Higgins, and Devonta Smith). This just goes to show that a backbone of work tells us a lot about a player if they are a year two breakout.

Lastly, let’s examine the six rookies who broke out and succeeded. Every receiver in this group had at least 84 targets, 52 receptions, and 680 yards. It’s worth noting that until I switched from a pure WR36 or better finish to a PPG mark, Jayden Reed was part of this group.

So, all told, a good mark for your receiver to hit, regardless of whether they broke out as a rookie or second-year player, is about 70+ targets, 46+ receptions, and 580+ yards. It’s not a perfect benchmark (Leviska Shenault hit all of those and is part of group one!), but it’s a pretty good one.

Who are the 2025 breakouts who are joining this list? You’ll have to tune in next week to find out. 😏

Before I let you go, I’d like to show you one last thing…

I took a poll on the RotoBanter Discord to see if you guys would like to have some prospects included at the end of each newsletter. And as I expected, the answer was yes! Running back seems to be the choice of whom I should cover first. We all know Jeremiyah Love, but who’s behind him that might have potential?

Emmett Johnson could be that guy. He’s a small-ish back, 200lbs, but has nice speed. Bijan is a lofty, dare I say crazy comp, especially since Johnson is not projected to be a first-round pick. But his production profile is nearly identical. I included names like Charbonnet and Edmonds in the graphic to tone things down a little (those are still good players, btw). Other names that have a yards per team play and yards per team pass attempt above 2.3 and 0.96, respectively, are Omarion Hampton, Ashton Jeanty, and Cam Skattebo. Good heavens. 🤯

If you are curious what that S240 score is about, that is the name of the model I built to help prospect running backs and wide receivers, and I’m currently beta-testing a QB model. All of them have shown better hit rates than the NFL gold standard: draft capital. My goal is to put these profiles and more into an e-book for you guys to get your digital hands on.

That’s going to do it for me today! I can’t wait to show you Part 2 next week and bring another prospect profile out. Cheers!