13 TDs in 2024, 3 in 2025; a proven, aging vet whose ceiling year was touchdown-inflated.
Terry McLaurin 2026 Season Preview — an aging alpha, a ten-game year
Show notes & transcript▾
Terry McLaurin scored thirteen touchdowns in 2024 and three in 2025 — and the second number is closer to who he is. Add a ten-game season and his age, and you have a proven receiver in a genuinely uncertain spot. The Muffed 2026 preview.
The 2025 season was elite-when-active, rarely active: thirty-eight catches, five hundred eighty-two yards, three touchdowns in ten games, with a twenty-three percent target share and thirty-seven percent of the air yards when he played. The signature was a Week 13 overtime touchdown against Denver, his biggest day at twenty-two points — in a game Washington still lost. The usage was alpha; the availability and the scoring were not.
The arc is the cautionary tale: a steady thousand-yard floor for years, then a thirteen-touchdown spike in 2024 that vaulted him to WR14, and then 2025 — the touchdowns regressed to three and the body broke down. The thirteen-touchdown season was the outlier; the receiving line underneath it was always more WR2 than WR1.
What the data says: the volume, when healthy, is real and sticky — a twenty-three percent share is a genuine alpha role. But he's a career-year-seven receiver now, the age band where decline accelerates, and the touchdown rate that made his best season already came back to earth. You're buying a proven, aging vet whose ceiling year was touchdown-inflated.
The situation has two injury variables, per the reports: McLaurin missed about seven games with a quad and hip-flexor issue, and Jayden Daniels missed roughly half the year with an elbow injury — so the down year was partly his own health and partly his quarterback's. Both are reportedly healthy and back at OTAs, which is the bull case: a full season of a healthy Daniels and a healthy McLaurin could restore the floor.
The price: pick forty-five and a half, the twenty-second receiver. Verdict: WATCHLIST — the proven volume and a healthy Daniels argue for a bounce, but the age, the injury year, and the regressed touchdown spike are real drags, and which level is "real" is genuinely unclear. The counter for him: when he and Daniels were both on the field, the usage was WR1-caliber. Against: that's two health bets on a year-seven receiver.
September watch: his and Daniels's health, the whole question; and the touchdown rate, somewhere between the thirteen and the three. Your guys, every week. Next preview's queued.
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2025: 38 catches for 582 yards, 3 TDs on 60 targets (10 games)
More episodes
2025 ReviewMay 11, 2026Terry McLaurin 2025 Season in Review
WR56 on the season — 10 games, 11.4 PPR/game
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Terry McLaurin 2025 Season in Review
WR56 on the season — 10 games, 11.4 PPR/game
Show notes & transcript
Terry McLaurin finished 2025 as the number 56 wide receiver in total PPR scoring — but the number 35 wide receiver in PPR per game among players who suited up at least six times. That gap tells you everything: this was an availability problem, not a talent problem. McLaurin played just ten games for a five-and-twelve Washington team, and when he was on the field, the offense funneled him work like he was still the alpha. But seven missed games torpedoed any shot at a useful season total, and the games he did play came inside a passing attack that produced minus 5.3 expected points added on the year. McLaurin got muffed by injuries and by a quarterback room cycling through Marcus Mariota and others while Jayden Daniels was unavailable. Steady mid-range production when active — zero of the massive weeks fantasy managers needed.
Now let's dig into the numbers. McLaurin caught 38 balls for 582 yards and 3 touchdowns on 60 targets across his ten games — a 23 percent target share and a 37 percent share of his team's air yards. Genuinely elite alpha usage. The role never wavered. He averaged 11.4 PPR points per game, and the consistency was the story: his ten games ranged from a low of 4.7 to a high of 22.6, with seven landing between 7 and 16 PPR points. That's a steady floor profile, not boom-or-bust — he cleared 14 points just three times all year and never hit 25. The deeper issue: just 93 yards after the catch across the entire season, which is why the ceiling stayed capped even with target volume that screamed top-twenty wide receiver. Deebo Samuel led Washington with 72 catches for 727 yards, and that's only because McLaurin missed seven games — the per-game role was still his to lose. Ten games at 11.4 a pop simply can't compete with healthy receivers stacking seventeen.
The defining beat came Week 13 against the Broncos — fourth and three at the Denver three-yard line, two minutes and fifty seconds into overtime, Washington down 20 to 27. Mariota took the shotgun snap, looked short left, and found McLaurin for the touchdown. It was his biggest fantasy day of the year: 22.6 PPR points on seven catches for 96 yards and a score, in a game Washington still lost. That's the McLaurin 2025 experience in one snapshot — elite usage, a clutch red-zone target, a loss on the scoreboard, and a fantasy line that was good but never spectacular.
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