Using Receiver Score To Identify Fantasy Football ADP Values: Tetairoa McMillan & More

Over the last few weeks, I measured which parts of preseason WR usage actually carry into the regular season. There is some signal in who runs with the starters and where he lines up, but preseason target rate tells us almost nothing—so I care much more about the deployment teams showed us.

If you want the full explanation of how Receiver Score works, I broke it down in the original article. For this one, we’ll keep it very simple. Every sample is small, but these four players showed us something about their route tree, alignment or situation that makes them solid picks at their ADPs.

Four Preseason Roles That Enhanced My View

Tetairoa McMillan | WR | CAR | Underdog ADP 40.6 (WR21)

McMillan gave us one of the easiest signals in the preseason, running a route on all 12 of Carolina's first-unit dropbacks across two games. He split them evenly between the slot and outside, immediately showing that the Panthers view him as more than a static perimeter X.

The route tree was just as balanced: 3 verticals (25%), 3 in-breakers, 3 quick-game routes, 2 out-breakers and 1 route from the other bucket. Carolina asked him to work at every level and moved him between alignments, giving a second-year WR with one of the highest route shares multiple ways to earn targets rather than tying him to one family of routes.

That matches the broad shape of his rookie role except for improved slot usage, which bumps him up a tad. McMillan ran a route on 93.4% of Carolina's dropbacks, commanded 26.3% of the team's targets, posted a .218 TPRR, and carried a 12.1-yard aDOT in 2025. His 68.4% catchable-target rate left room for the production to improve without needing a larger share of the offense - his per-route score still finished very high.

The model lands at WR14, seven spots ahead of McMillan's WR21 cost, and gives him a high chance to clear that price by a meaningful amount. At the Round 3/4 turn, I am buying a young target earner whose preseason route tree gave him access to the slot, quick game, middle of the field and vertical targets.

Christian Watson | WR | GB | Underdog ADP 57.0 (WR28)

Watson ran 10 first-unit routes (9 attached to a REAL route) across two games, and participated on 10 of Green Bay's 12 starter dropbacks. The more interesting change was what the route mix looked like: 4 in-breakers (44%), 2 out-breakers, 2 quick-game routes, and only 1 vertical (11%).

That is nearly the inverse of the 2025 role most people are associating with him. Watson ran verticals on 38% of his routes last season, producing a deployment worth .158 expected targets and .285 expected FP per route. The preseason route tree lifted those numbers to .208 and .375—the largest upgrade among players with a complete preseason-to-2025 deployment comparison. Again, the Packers replaced some of the low-target vertical work with horizontal breakers and quick routes, which is more favorable for fantasy.

We also got a look, in small samples, at the alignment for the three starting WRs. On all 5 starter dropbacks with Watson, Matthew Golden and Jayden Reed together, Golden stayed at left WR, Reed stayed in the right slot, and Watson was the movement piece. That is different from the previous deployment and structure that the Packers used, with Watson being asked to do more than clear space downfield.

Watson still averaged 13.2 PPR points per game on only a 70.8% route share last season. The Receiver Score model has him at WR22, six spots ahead of his WR28 ADP. It predicts that he has a strong chance to clear that price given that there are signals that there’s a higher projected route share and a new route tree, which will give him the ball in different ways.

I’ll be honest—Christian Watson is my highest-conviction player in this article from everything I’ve heard, seen and observed in the data.

Wan'Dale Robinson | WR | TEN | Underdog ADP 114.6 (WR50)

Robinson gave us the largest sample in the group, running 23 routes on Tennessee's 26 first-unit dropbacks, with 21 of the 23 (91%) coming from the slot. He ran 22 of those routes from 10 or 11 personnel and left the field when Tennessee got heavier, tying his volume to an offense that used at least three WRs on most of its August dropbacks.

Within those spread sets, the Titans built him the most target-friendly tree among the players with complete deployment values. Robinson ran 7 quick-game routes (30%), 5 out-breakers (22%), 4 verticals (17%), 3 screens (13%), and 3 flats (13%).

That deployment was worth .212 expected targets per route—the highest number among the fully compared players and well above the .173 starting-WR average. Tennessee essentially rebuilt his Giants slot role and added to it: his screen rate doubled from 6% to 13%, his out-breaking rate rose from 15% to 22%, and his expected target rate climbed from .188 to .212.

Robinson already commanded 29.6% of the Giants' targets, posted a .242 TPRR, and earned 34.7% of their third- and fourth-down targets last season. The model projects him at WR30 against a WR50 price, and I am comfortable taking that discount because the Titans gave a proven target earner the clearest volume-oriented route tree in this study—as long as they continue living in three-WR sets.

I’ve been vocal about how this offensive line will likely make Robinson the primary target earner, even though I believe in Carnell Tate’s talent. The preseason model supports this and thinks Robinson is going to be worth a rotational WR3 slot on your fantasy teams at a WR5 price.

Tre Tucker | WR | LV | Underdog ADP 150.0 (WR59)

Tucker ran 14 first-unit routes on 17 starter dropbacks, and the Raiders changed both where he lined up and how he tried to get open. His slot rate rose from 17% last season to 5 of 14 routes (36%). The route-family change went the same direction: his out-breaking share increased from 9.9% to 4 of 14 (29%), his vertical rate fell from 36.2% to 3 of 14 (21%).

That change needs to be described carefully. Tucker's expected target rate rose from .179 to .195 per route. Las Vegas replaced some lower-target verticals with out-breaking routes and inside work, giving him a better chance to see the ball without necessarily making each route more valuable.

He also ran 6 red-zone routes and received targets on 3 of them, the most among the players with full situational charting. The target total can disappear in a sample this small, but being on the field for those routes adds another way for the role to grow beyond the 27.7% air-yard share and .155 TPRR he produced last season.

The model projects Tucker at WR47 against a price around WR60. There are upside bets late in drafts that we may have to wait on, like Omar Cooper, Cyrus Allen and others—with Tre Tucker, we get a peek in Week 1. There are plenty of examples where the market believes an offense will be bad (the 2025 Seahawks are a good example, and now the Raiders have their coach!) and the team surprises, which carries some players beyond what managers thought were possible. Tucker fills that as what the model believes is the Raiders' clear team WR1 (not No. 1 pass catcher).

The preseason cannot tell us exactly what any of these offenses will look like once the real playbook opens. It can show us whether a player earned a first-unit job and whether the early version of that job created valuable routes—giving us more to work with than the previous season’s stats and box score numbers from preseason.

So we use what is available to us to understand the role, then make the draft decision before the market catches up after a week or two into the regular season.

Players Mentioned in this Article

ChristianWatson
WRGB
PPG
11.3
Proj
9.8

Published Sep 2, 2026, 4:00 AM ET