finished WR10 in total points on 126 targets with a clean touchdown rate, priced WR39, behind the teammate he outproduced by 40 spots. The Brissett downgrade is the only real caveat.
Michael Wilson 2026 Season Preview — a WR10 finish at a WR39 price
Show notes & transcript▾
Michael Wilson finished as the number-ten receiver in total points last season. He's the thirty-ninth receiver off the board — priced behind his own teammate who finished forty spots lower. The market is buying the name; the data is buying the production. The Muffed 2026 preview.
The 2025 season was a genuine breakout: seventy-eight catches on a hundred twenty-six targets for a thousand six yards and seven touchdowns, thirteen a game, WR18 per game and WR10 in total, all seventeen games. The signature was an eleven-catch, a hundred forty-two-yard, two-touchdown explosion against the Rams in Week 14. He stepped up when Marvin Harrison Junior struggled and was the Cardinals' most productive receiver.
The arc is an ascending role: eight-eight a game, seven-eight, and now thirteen — a third-year jump into genuine alpha volume, a hundred twenty-six targets.
What the data says: that target volume is the sticky, foundational kind, and his touchdown share — nineteen percent — is clean, no luck to give back. By production, this is a top-eighteen receiver per game, a top-ten in total, priced like a backup. There's no fade pattern anywhere near him.
The situation, per the reports, is the honest caveat: Arizona released Kyler Murray, who's now in Minnesota, and the Cardinals are expected to open with Jacoby Brissett under center in a new Mike LaFleur offense. That's a quarterback downgrade, and it's the real risk — a hundred-twenty-target role is worth less with weaker quarterback play. But even discounting for that, the gap between a WR10 total finish and a WR39 price is enormous.
The price: pick eighty-nine and a half, the thirty-ninth receiver. Verdict: LEAN — underpriced. He finished WR10 in total on alpha volume with a clean touchdown rate, and he's priced WR39, behind a teammate he outproduced by forty spots. The market is paying for pedigree over production. The counter: the Brissett-led offense is a real downgrade from Kyler, and the target competition with a healthy Harrison is genuine. But the discount more than covers both.
September watch: the target share with a healthy Harrison in the room — does Wilson stay the alpha; and the quarterback play, the tide that lifts or sinks the whole passing game. Your guys, every week. Next preview's queued.
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2025: 78 catches for 1,006 yards, 7 TDs on 126 targets (17 games)
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2025 ReviewMay 11, 2026Michael Wilson 2025 Season in Review
WR10 on the season — 17 games, 13.0 PPR/game
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Michael Wilson 2025 Season in Review
WR10 on the season — 17 games, 13.0 PPR/game
Show notes & transcript
Michael Wilson finished 2025 as the number 10 wide receiver in total PPR scoring — but only the number 19 wide receiver in PPR per game among players with at least six games played. Read those ranks together and you've got the headline: Wilson played all 17 games for a three-and-fourteen Cardinals team, and the volume he soaked up over a full season pushed him into the top ten by total points even though his per-game average tells a much more modest story. This was the year Wilson went from rotational option to a featured piece of a broken offense — the guy Jacoby Brissett kept looking for when the script went sideways, which in Arizona was most weeks. He cleared a thousand receiving yards, found the end zone seven times, and quietly became the team's clear number two target behind Trey McBride. The question isn't whether Wilson produced. It's what kind of producer he was.
Now let's dig into the numbers. Wilson turned 126 targets into 78 catches for 1,006 yards and 7 touchdowns — a 19 percent average target share, a legitimate every-down role, and a 31 percent average air yards share that pegs him as Arizona's downfield guy, not a possession piece. He averaged 13.0 PPR points per game, but that average lies. This was boom-or-bust, cleanly split. Through the first nine weeks Wilson cleared 10 PPR points exactly once. Then starting Week 11 he posted 33.5, 21.8, 6.6, 37.2, 16.4, 13.2, 19.9, and 20.9 — seven double-digit weeks in his last eight, including two genuinely massive games. The back half carried the entire fantasy value. The 7 touchdowns clustered late too, and McBride's 169 targets and 11 scores were always going to cap Wilson's ceiling in this offense.
The play that sums up the season came in Week 14 against the Rams. Arizona down sixteen in the third quarter, first and ten from the Rams' 43 — Brissett drops back and finds Wilson deep left for a 43-yard touchdown. One of two scores in that game, a 37-point fantasy explosion in a 17-to-45 blowout loss. That's the Wilson season in one snapshot: huge plays, real downfield juice, piling up targets and yards in games his team was losing badly. The fantasy points were real. The football context was bleak.
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