Fantasy Football: How do wide receivers perform after serious injuries?

• Expect a relatively healthy return from wide receivers who suffer serious injuries: Our 10-player sample averaged 69 catches for 894 yards and five touchdowns at 2.02 yards per route run for 188.4 PPR points in their returns from injury. That’s enough for the WR25 in 2025.

• Older wide receivers, understandably, have a tougher time bouncing back: Eric Decker and A.J. Green were nearing the end of their careers after suffering serious injuries.

• 2026 NFL Draft season is here: Try the best-in-class PFF Mock Draft Simulator and learn about 2026’s top prospects while trading and drafting for your favorite NFL team.

Estimated Reading Time: 8minutes

In our latest edition of this post-injury series, we’re taking a look at wide receivers.

Malik Nabers and Tyreek Hill are the standout pass catchers who will be looking to make an impactful return to the field once they’ve completed their lengthy rehab process. But what should be the level of expectations for admittedly two very special talents at the wide receiver position?

Much like our previous articles, we’ll be looking at players since 2015 (with one exception), when PFF started tracking fantasy data, and taking 10 names to build a baseline.

Those 10 players, in order of the season in which they got injured, are:

Julio Jones (foot fracture in 2013), Jordy Nelson (torn ACL in 2015), Eric Decker (2016), Keenan Allen (torn ACL in 2016), Odell Beckham Jr. (fractured ankle in 2017 and torn ACL in 2020), A.J. Green (ankle ligament injury in 2019), Chris Godwin Jr. (ankle injury in 2024), Christian Watson (torn ACL in 2024), Rashee Rice (torn LCL in 2024) and Stefon Diggs (torn ACL in 2024).

Jones is the only exception, as his return season from injury came in 2014. But he was so special that it felt like malpractice to cut him off by just one year.

Like always, let’s look at the numbers for the players in the games until injury struck, or the season before if they missed an entire season.

Pre-Injury

*Allen technically played in the 2016 season, but it was for only one half before he tore his ACL in the 2016 opener, so we’ve used his 2015 numbers.

Averaging out the above 10 names produces a stat line of 44 catches for 599 yards and four scores at 2.69 yards per route run. It’s basically an impressive half-season and would have resulted in a WR48 finish in 2025, with 127.9 points — the exact amount Luther Burden III recorded for the Bears this past year.

When splitting those averages out for just Nelson, Allen, Watson and Green — we’re using numbers from the season before they got injured due to early injuries — we get an average of 60 catches for 890 yards and six touchdowns and a healthy 2.37 yards per route run. That would have landed them at the WR27 with 185 points for the 2025 season, a much healthier perspective.

When taking the six players who didn’t feature as heavily, the average is 32 catches for 406 yards and three touchdowns at 2.91 yards per route run. The 17-game pace is 111 catches for 1,380 yards and 10 scores, which would have finished as the WR5 in 2025 with 309.0 fantasy points — a truly elite (hypothetical) player.

Before his injury against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 4 of this past season, Malik Nabers was the WR9 overall with 53.1 PPR points. Granted, a large part of that was his 37.7-point outing in Week 2 against the Dallas Cowboys. That week, Nabers led all NFL wide receivers with 167 receiving yards and earned the fifth-highest PFF overall and receiving grades among his peers (85.7 and 84.3, respectively). 

Though his season was heavily shortened, Nabers registered a 71.4 PFF receiving grade on the season, in large part due to his 52.4 and 56.9 PFF receiving grades in Weeks 3 (against the Kansas City Chiefs) and 4, respectively.

Tyreek Hill also played in only four games in 2025, seeing his season ended by a dislocated kneecap and a broken leg. Before the injury, the Dolphins receiver logged 21 catches on 29 targets for 265 yards and a single score, with an 81.0 PFF receiving grade.

Hill was having a bounce-back season in several metrics in 2025, including yards per route run, which was up from 1.75 in 2024 to 2.55 in 2025. His average depth target went from 11.9 to 13.1, albeit on a much smaller sample than his 81-catch 2024 campaign.

All that to say, the two were on course to put together high-level fantasy seasons for their managers before their injuries.

But there is hope for those dynasty managers who had to place them on injured reserve. 

Of the 10 listed names above, Allen, Beckham, Watson and Diggs all posted better PFF receiving grades after returning than they did even the year before their injuries. Allen went from posting 67 catches for 725 yards and four scores in 2015 to putting up a massive 102 catches, 1,393 yards and six touchdowns in 2017, finishing as the WR3 overall.

Jones recovered from his broken foot to snag 104 balls for 1,593 yards and six touchdowns at a massive 15.3 yards per catch in 2014, the fourth-highest mark of his illustrious 13-year career. His 88.0 PFF receiving grade for that campaign was the sixth-highest figure of his career and the seventh-highest grade of qualifying receivers in 2014.

Watson didn’t just post a better season than in 2024; he returned from a torn ACL to log an 88.5 PFF receiving grade and transform the Green Bay Packers‘ offense once he was fully up to speed in 2025. Given his progress as a complete receiver since entering the league in 2022, and his explosive, big-play threat, it’s not inconceivable that he could be a top-10 fantasy wide receiver in 2026.

That said, you will have noticed that it is the minority of players who bounced back from serious injuries to have better seasons than they did pre-injury. Let’s take a look at the numbers for all 10 in the seasons after their injury.

Post-Injury

Averaging out the stat line for all 10 players nets 69 catches for 894 yards and five touchdowns at 2.02 yards per route run for 188.4 PPR points. That’s enough for the WR25 in 2025, sitting right outside of WR2 territory, ahead of D.K. Metcalf (WR26) and Ladd McConkey (WR29), two players who were being taken as WR2s for many a fantasy roster.

There are obvious anchors to the numbers, however. Green never truly recovered his elite form and went from a WR1 to a droppable asset seemingly overnight. Decker’s stellar 2015 campaign with the New York Jets would be his last one of true note across his eight-year NFL tenure.

While Beckham did log another 1,000-yard receiving season in 2019 with the Cleveland Browns, his 69.4 PFF receiving grade that year showed a stark decline from his previous elite marks. It turned out to be his last season of any week-to-week fantasy relevance.

The bottom line is that you can expect a relatively healthy return from wide receivers bouncing back from serious injury, but treat it with caution, as in some cases, that season may be their last at an elite or even serviceable level.

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If the wide receiver in question is older — Eric Decker and A.J. Green, for example — then in dynasty formats, you may have to accept that the asset you have is at best damaged and at worst distressed. Start planning for the future. Don’t assume they will come back better than ever. Consider investing premium draft capital at the position via the rookie draft or trading for a veteran. You never want to be caught cold at a position that can so often carry fantasy rosters.

I wanted to take a moment to say the death of former Purdue, Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons and Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Rondale Moore is a tragedy and that our hearts are with all those grieving.

If you’re struggling or need support, talk to a loved one, call 988 or visit the National Institute of Mental Health.