Fantasy Football 2025: WR Adam Thielen player profile

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• Adam Thielen‘s strong 2023 showing: Thielen proved he still had plenty left in the tank with the Carolina Panthers in 2023, catching 103 passes and hitting the 1,000-yard mark.
• Increased receiver competition in 2025: Thielen faces a challenge with new talent arriving in Carolina, making his role and target share uncertain for the upcoming season.
• Subscribe to PFF+: Get access to player grades, PFF Premium Stats, fantasy football rankings, all of the PFF fantasy draft research tools and more!

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.

Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs

Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Friday, June 20

Player performance

Adam Thielen has spent over a decade in the NFL, playing nine seasons with the Minnesota Vikings and the last two with the Carolina Panthers. Thielen will be 35 years old before the start of the season, and is the oldest wide receiver in the NFL by over a year and a half.

From 2017-2021, Thielen spent four seasons as a top-14 fantasy wide receiver with at least 15 fantasy points per game. He had a PFF receiving grade in the high 80.0s for two seasons. He had a down 2022, and the Vikings were ready to move on to Jordan Addison in 2023.

The Panthers added him and D.J. Chark Jr. while drafting Jonathan Mingo with the 40th overall pick, while 2021 59th overall pick Terrace Marshall Jr. was also on the roster. There were legitimate reasons to expect any of them to potentially be the top wide receiver in the offense, but it turned out to be Thielen by a long shot. He caught 103 passes, 60 more than anyone else on the roster. He gained 1,014 receiving yards for the third 1,000-yard season of his career but only scored four touchdowns.

Most of his production came early in the season, as all four touchdowns occurred in the first six weeks, and he totaled at least 75 receiving yards in four of his five games. Thielen’s 21.1 fantasy points per game ranked sixth over the first six weeks and 9.5 for the rest of the season, which was 51st. That averaged out to the 26th-most fantasy points on the year. Thielen continued being a smaller part of the offense the first three weeks, but then a hamstring injury cost him seven weeks.

Thielen returned in Week 12, and he gained at least 99 receiving yards in three games, a minimum of 43 yards every game, and scored four touchdowns. Thielen was WR57 the first three weeks with 8.3 points per game and WR21 over the last seven weeks with 16.4 points per game. This averaged out to WR28 in points per game on the season.

Projected role

Thielen has been a slot receiver the last two seasons in Carolina after playing primarily on the outside in Minnesota. His role notably changed from 2023 to 2024. He went from an every-down player in 2023 to mostly only playing in three-receiver sets in 2024. He played in just 9.2% of his team’s offensive snaps in 12 personnel for the games where he was active. This led to fewer routes per game, and his targets per route decreased. However, his average depth of target increased significantly while his yards after the catch per catch remained identical. His catch rate only reduced slightly. This led to more yards per reception, allowing his fantasy value to stay.

Thielen’s competition for playing time and targets has notably increased this offseason. The Panthers used their first-round pick on Tetairoa McMillan. The Panthers didn’t have a clear and obvious X receiver last season, but now McMillan will fill that role. Xavier Legette, Jalen Coker and David Moore all played Z receiver at times last season and will compete for that role this season. Coker played in the slot last season when Thielen was out due to injury, and he generally played better out of the slot. If Coker can’t win the Z job, which seems likely given Legette was a first-round draft pick in 2024, Coker could potentially take some time from Thielen.

The Panthers also signed Hunter Renfrow, who sat out the entire 2024 season. While Renfrow seems unlikely to make a significant impact, he did catch 103 passes for 1,038 yards and nine touchdowns in 2021. He has primarily played out of the slot, so any time Renfrow earns will also likely come at the expense of Thielen.

Impact of teammates

Thielen will be playing in Dave Canales’ offense for a second straight season. His teams have been relatively balanced, with a high rate of throwing to wide receivers and a high rate of three-wide receiver sets. This has generally been more good than bad for Thielen.

The biggest limiting factor for Thielen has been the quality of the offense as a whole. They’ve been among the bottom quarter of teams in points scored and red-zone plays. Thielen has been a big red-zone target throughout his career. His end-zone target share has been high during his time with the Panthers, but that hasn’t led to the same touchdown totals as his time with the Minnesota Vikings. Thielen could afford to play fewer snaps if the offense scored more points and Thielen was still used in the red zone.

A lot of that will depend on Bryce Young‘s development. Young was playing his best football late last season, and that’s when Thielen started scoring a lot more touchdowns. If Young can build off that momentum and play even better, that could help keep Thielen fantasy-relevant.

Bottom line

Thielen has been a WR3 with the Carolina Panthers but has increased competition for playing time and targets. He has a chance to sustain his same value if Bryce Young keeps improving, turning Thielen back into the touchdown machine he was earlier in his career.

Footnotes

• Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.
• “Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
• Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.
• As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.
• Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.
• Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.
• The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).
• All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.
• Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.

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