• DeMario Douglas shows potential despite his statistics: While Douglas has three career touchdowns and no 100-yard games, some of his statistics suggest he could play very well if given a larger role.
• Josh McDaniels’ return: McDaniels returns to the New England Patriots, where Wes Welker and Julian Edelman became fantasy star receivers. Douglas has a similar size and plays a similar role, which is a big reason for optimism for Douglas’ fantasy value.
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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.

Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs

Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Saturday, June 21

Player performance

DeMario Douglas was a sixth-round pick by the New England Patriots in 2023. He was expected to be the backup slot receiver to free agent addition JuJu Smith-Schuster. In Week 1, Smith-Schuster played more offensive snaps because he played in two-receiver sets. Douglas took more snaps than Smith-Schuster in three-receiver sets. He played fewer in snaps in Week 2, playing less than one-third of New England’s offensive snaps in the following four games, and he missed Week 6 due to a concussion.

His role notably increased on his return with Smith-Schuster missing a game. He caught four passes for 54 yards while playing 100% of the 11 personnel snaps. He played better in that game than any game Smith-Schuster had played to that point, so Douglas kept his role and played at least 70% of New England’s offensive snaps in every game he was healthy the rest of the season. Along with taking nearly all of the 11 personnel snaps, he started taking a majority of snaps in two-receiver sets. He peaked in Week 10 in terms of his stats with six receptions for 84 yards. He missed two games due to injury. The last two weeks of the season, he played 94% and 97% of the snaps, respectively, but that didn’t lead to much receiving production.

The Patriots moved on from Smith-Schuster in the preseason, but the Patriots’ new coaching staff had a different plan for Douglas. He played 90% of the snaps in 11 personnel, which was similar to a lot of last season but only 19% of the snaps in two-receiver sets, which was a significant downgrade from the end of last season. He ultimately ran more routes per game, but it was fewer routes per game compared to the end of last season. His target rate declined, which ultimately led to a decrease in yards per game. Douglas scored three touchdowns, which was more than his zero from his rookie season. He caught six passes for 92 yards and a touchdown in his best game but was held to 20 yards or less in seven games.

His 0.235 avoided tackles per reception has ranked sixth-most among wide receivers over the last two seasons. He also has one of the highest single coverage open rates. He’s also had very high single coverage open rates the last two seasons. This suggests he could be a very good wide receiver given more opportunities.

Projected role

The Patriots made multiple changes to their wide receiver room. New England kept its three other top wide receivers from last season, as well as 2024 fourth-round pick Javon Baker. They added Stefon Diggs and Mack Hollins in free agency and Kyle Williams in the draft.

The good news is that none of them should be significant competition for Douglas in the slot. None of the returning wide receivers played significantly in the slot last season. Williams and Hollins have primarily played on the outside. Stefon Diggs was primarily a slot receiver last season for the Houston Texans, but he primarily played on the outside with the Buffalo Bills. Diggs had a higher yards per route run on the outside while Douglas earned more in the slot, so it makes sense for both players to play where they’ve performed better.

This means we will likely see Diggs as the X receiver, a competition between Bourne, Williams and Hollins as the Z receiver, and Douglas in the slot in three-receiver sets. The big question is how much Douglas will play in two-receiver sets. The Patriots changed coaching staffs again, so what the Patriots did last season doesn’t matter. Douglas has generally graded better than Bourne and Hollins, and it’s fair to think he can beat out a third-round rookie.

Douglas is 5-foot-8 and 192 pounds, which isn’t the typical size of an outside wide receiver. Taylor Gabriel, Olamide Zaccheaus, Kalif Raymond and Tank Dell have been some notable exceptions. It has become increasingly common for wide receivers 5-foot-8 or shorter and sub-200 pounds to play on the outside. From 2009 to 2013, there were 600 snaps or fewer for wide receivers of that size lined up on the outside each year. From 2014 to 2017, the number increased to 750-1,200 snaps. From 2018 to 2020, it ranged from 1,250 to 1,500, and from 2021 to 2024, it was 1,700 to 2,200.

Impact of teammates

The Patriots have added Josh McDaniels as their new offensive coordinator, which is a big reason to be optimistic about Douglas’ production. Wes Welker and Julian Edelman had three 1,000-yard seasons each in McDaniels’ offense. They were both roughly the same size as Douglas and also primarily played in the slot. Douglas is notably faster, as he performed better in the vertical and broad jumps, but both Welker and Edelman were elite in the 20-yard shuttle while Douglas was only above average. Welker and Edelman were both top-15 fantasy wide receivers in each of their 1,000-yard seasons. In four of those six seasons, they only graded in the 70.0s but simply had a lot of volume.

While McDaniels’ offense may feed Douglas similarly to how they fed Welker and Edelman, and Douglas doesn’t necessarily need to improve his quality of play, he will be catching passes from Drake Maye instead of Tom Brady. Maye’s 67.8% short pass accuracy has been strong and better than Brady’s at the end of his career but not as good as Brady’s peak. It was better than Brady’s 65% in 2019 in Edelman’s final 1,000-yard season but not as good as Brady’s 73.1% in Edelman’s middle 1,000-yard season in 2016. Maye also had a very high rate of either getting sacked or scrambling, which wasn’t true with Brady.

However, even if Maye isn’t quite as good as Brady, which therefore doesn’t put Douglas in the top-15 range, there is still plenty of room for significant improvement in Douglas’ stats, making him a top-30 wide receiver, which would make him a big value at his current ADP.

Bottom line

Douglas has very rarely finished as a top-24 wide receiver in any week, but there are metrics to support that he’s a better receiver than his raw stats show, and new offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels has a history of featuring receivers like Douglas. He is one of the best late-round wide receiver options, if not the best.

Footnotes

• Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.
• “Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
• Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.
• As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.
• Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.
• Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.
• The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).
• All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.
• Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.