Diving into the NFL Draft isn’t just for the Dynasty fantasy football crowd anymore. Numerous rookies make an impact in regular redraft fantasy football leagues every season. Just look at Malik Nabers, Brock Bowers, Ladd McConkey, and Jayden Daniels in 2024, to name a few. Leading up to the NFL Draft, we’ll look at one or two of the top prospects at their position in each Rookies to Know post. We’ll ensure you know which rookies to keep an eye on when your fantasy football drafts roll around.
The third edition of the Rookies to Know series shifts the focus to the receiver position. The 2025 receiver class might not have the high-end talent of Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers, and Rome Odunze that we saw a year ago. Still, this class of receivers will at least produce a few quality pass-catching options that can impact your fantasy football team this season. Let’s hit on a receiver who many draft pundits project as a high first-round pick.
Tetairoa McMillan
Hometown: Wainainalo, Hawaii
6’4, 219 pounds
Combine Numbers:
40-yard dash: 4.55 (pro day)
10-yard split: 1.58 (pro day)
Background:
The soon-to-be 22-year-old grew up in Hawaii before moving to Southern California when he was 12 years old. A five-star recruit out of Servite High School in Anaheim, California, the same as potential top-five pick Mason Graham from Michigan, McMillan was named the 2024 Polynesian College Football Player of the Year.
Regarding his 40 time, I’ve seen a range of 4.48-4.55 depending on where you look. Dane Brugler of The Athletic noted he was told 4.55 from two NFL scouts, but McMillan was never expected to break records with his speed anyway.
Strengths:
As a big-framed 6’4″ and 219-pound receiver, McMillan wins in a lot of ways on the field without needing breakaway speed to do so. His superior ball-tracking abilities and prowess to haul in contested catches down the field are a few of the biggest reasons that make him a potential top ten pick. He can compensate for his lack of high-end speed with his body control and skill to track the ball in the air to help create explosive plays, something that potentially can translate well to the NFL. If you invest in him in fantasy football, you’re not relying on him to just run by NFL defensive backs with pure speed, something that only a handful of elite receivers are going to do anyway. While he’s not going to create much separation, he can be considered a guy who’s almost always open. With his ability to snag tough catches via his excellent hands, he doesn’t need much separation to tally up the yardage totals.
T-Mac brings value to any team that drafts him via his positional versatility. His size profiles as a more traditional outside X receiver, but he also moved around the formation and lined up in the slot at times at Arizona. For fantasy football purposes, his experience lining up all over the field should allow his future NFL offensive coordinator to get creative in how he utilizes McMmillan in his offense, creating more ways for him to get the ball and put up numbers. Speaking of ways for his future coaching staff to utilize him, McMillan can run several different routes and isn’t just pigeon-holed to go routes or patterns that keep him close to the line of scrimmage, for example.
A notable aspect of McMillan’s strengths is his ability to work back towards the football and fight through contact, as this film breakdown highlights around the 15:30 mark. He doesn’t wait for the ball to come to him and instead goes and gets it himself, another part of his toolbox that he can take to the NFL on day one and will help him make an immediate impact.
The former five-star recruit also makes up for his lack of high-end speed with his recognition in space and his polished route running. Once he gets the ball in his hands on short and intermediate routes, he puts the jets on and figures out how to slither away from defenders.
His production also shouldn’t be overlooked. Sometimes during draft season, excuses can be made for why a player’s numbers were lacking, but with McMillan, there’s no need to do that. He instantly impressed at the beginning of last season when he put up a 304-yard, four-touchdown game on 10 catches against New Mexico. He finished 2024 with 1,319 receiving yards on 84 catches, leaving Arizona as their leader in all-time receiving yards. He did this without exceptional quarterback play–more on that later–and the NFL is a different level of competition, but McMillan left no questions about his ability to fill up the stat sheet.
Weaknesses:
We’ve hit on his lack of elite speed, but he can also improve his release package off the line of scrimmage. He’s not overly aggressive getting into his routes, sometimes lacking first-step explosiveness as he gets into the play. I mentioned that his lack of separation didn’t hurt him much in college, and hopefully, that will continue in the NFL for fantasy purposes, but his lack of ability to separate from defensive backs could initially create a difficult transition. It could take some time for him to figure out how he can manufacture his ability to find some space from good man-cover cornerbacks at the next level. Ideally, with better quarterback play and as a result better ball placement, his transition to the NFL will be a relatively smooth one.
Team fits/fantasy football ADP:
As mock draft season has gone into high gear, it makes sense to take a glance at where most draft analysts have McMillan landing. According to nflmockdraftdatabase.com, which compiles data from the most recent mock drafts across multiple platforms, the consensus is the #9 pick to the New Orleans Saints for McMillan’s landing spot. From a fantasy football viewpoint, I think I’d have mixed emotions if the Saints end up being the team that pulls the trigger on T-Mac. Chris Olave has established himself as the team’s number one option at receiver over the past few years, but he suffered two concussions during the 2024 season. The fact that he has some real questions regarding his ability to stay on the field, along with his name finding itself in trade rumors recently, makes the Saints an intriguing landing spot for McMillan. Derek Carr is at least a competent starting quarterback who can support a WR1 in fantasy, as we saw with Davante Adams in 2022 when they were teammates on the Raiders. Olave also finished as WR16 in 2023 with Carr at the helm in full PPR leagues. The former first-round pick’s presence would force defenses to take some attention away from McMillan, and if Olave did find himself battling injuries again in 2025 (or on another team), it would open up a significant amount of targets that could go T-Mac’s way.
The #6 pick to the Raiders may be where the conversation starts for McMillan’s draft selection. Geno Smith‘s arrival makes the Raiders a much more attractive option for T-Mac. Smith’s play under center helped Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba break out in 2024 to become an extremely productive receiver in the fantasy football world. The Raiders lack a true number one wide receiver, as Jakobi Meyers functions much better as a #2. Brock Bowers was great as a rookie, but he can’t be the only difference-making offensive weapon if the Raiders hope to compete at all in the AFC West. The Raiders would provide a good blend of a team that has a decent starting quarterback who has shown the ability to lead fantasy-friendly offenses, along with a weapon that can take some attention away in Bowers. At the same time, they don’t have a dominant receiver, allowing McMillan to come in and have plenty of opportunities to make plays.
According to playerprofiler.com, McMillan’s early average draft position in Underdog best ball leagues is 48.3, putting him at the end of the fourth round. That was a bit higher than I expected considering the questions regarding his speed and explosiveness, but clearly, the fantasy football community is bullish on McMillan being able to make an impact in 2025. His ADP will likely change once we know his landing spot, but it appears you’ll likely have to invest some decent draft capital to secure T-Mac for his rookie season in best ball formats, giving us a guide for where he may go on average in regular re-draft leagues.
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