The Path to a WR1 Season: Luther Burden III (Fantasy Football)
Head Coach Ben Johnson’s first year in Chicago was a smashing success. The offense looked unlocked, the young talent progressed as you’d hope, and the Bears made a strong playoff push, losing in an overtime thriller to a veteran-laden Rams squad in the Divisional Round.
The Bears appeared to hit the big time on both of their early-round offensive weapons in the 2025 draft as well, with TE Colston Loveland (pick 1.10) showing immense upside down the stretch and in the playoffs, and WR Luther Burden III (pick 2.07) flashing elite playmaking skills. Coupled with 2024 first-round pick Rome Odunze and veteran star DJ Moore, the Bears’ passing offense now had an embarrassment of riches.
Enter the 2026 offseason. DJ Moore was traded to the Buffalo Bills, and now the target share is consolidated enough to see superstar potential in a new “Big 3” pass-catching trio. The biggest question is, “Who will take over as the Alpha receiving option in this group?” There is consensus in the fantasy industry that Colston Loveland will be an elite TE option, so that leaves us wondering which WR, between Odunze and Burden, will put up WR1 numbers. The truth is, they could both do it. But I’m here to make the case that it will be Luther Burden III who is the Bears WR you want in fantasy this year.
Editor’s Note: This profile is part of our annual Path to a Fantasy WR1 Season series. The goal is to determine the likelihood of a top-12 fantasy season from a number of off-the-wall candidates. For our methodology and an outline of the process, make sure you read the 2026 Path to WR1 Series Primer. Find out the full statistical projections for the Footballers Consensus WR1s in the Ultimate Draft Kit.
2025 Season Recap
Coming into the NFL, there were some concerns about Burden’s dip in collegiate production from his explosive 2023 campaign to a less-inspiring 2024 season. This undoubtedly led to him dropping out of the first round of the 2025 NFL draft. I chalked most of it up to SEC defenses game-planning to try and stop him, poor QB play from Brady Cook, and a resulting lack of motivation (most concerning) by Burden. Sometimes, I swear you can tell when elite college players are “just trying to survive” before entering the NFL. You could say it all started with CMC’s bowl game opt-out. I can see the argument either way, but we aren’t here to debate that today.
Burden’s rookie season took on a classic rookie arc: He dealt with injuries during OTAs; he flashed a couple of big plays but struggled to carve out playing time early; and then he had the one monster game (Week 17 against SF – 8/138/1 TD on 9 targets) where we got to see exactly what he’s capable of. He finished the season as WR47 overall.
| RECEIVING | RUSHING | |||||||||||||
| PLAYER | PTS | PTS/G | GP | TGT | REC | CTCH% | YDS | Y/C | TD | ATT | YDS | Y/A | TD | FUM |
| LUTHER BURDEN III | 104.4 | 6.96 | 15 | 60 | 47 | 78% | 652 | 13.9 | 2 | 6 | 37 | 6.2 | 0 | 0 |
Here's 2025 Luther Burden highlights to cleanse your feed 👏 pic.twitter.com/a1veP2hELq
— Fantasy Footballers (@TheFFBallers) March 19, 2026
The Path for 2026
In 2025, Burden didn’t crack 50% snap share until Week 12. From Weeks 12-18, Burden was WR22 in total points, despite missing Week 16. We were all frustrated as we watched Olamide Zaccheaus take on most of the WR3 duties during the first half of the season. Even as Burden took over the role, he was still behind Rome Odunze and DJ Moore in the WR rotation.
With Moore traded to Buffalo, the WR target share should be split primarily between Odunze and Burden. One of the hottest debates in the fantasy community this offseason is which WR will emerge as the true Alpha of this room. I’ll start my argument for a Luther Burden WR1 season by saying that I’m not sure it really matters who is technically WR1 for the Bears. And the attempted comparisons to the Detroit offense are a bit lazy, in my opinion. Odunze and Burden both play a bit more like Jameson Williams than Amon-Ra St. Brown, but they are not clones of either Detroit WR.
When I assess these two WRs, I see Odunze as a steady chain-mover who can absolutely hurt you if left in single coverage. And I see Burden as an Alpha WR who still needs to shore up some inconsistencies in his game. The fact that you can’t put either solely in one bucket tells you why defenses are going to have so much trouble defending them (not to mention the added nightmare of Colston Loveland).
Target Share
Burden finished 2025 with a paltry 12.8% target share on the season. This number obviously grew throughout the season, as his snap share increased, but that’s still an uninspiring number. Better, though, were his Team Reception % (16%), Team Receiving Yards % (19%), and team WR Points % (26.9%). This shows how efficient Burden was when targeted.
DJ Moore commanded 16% of Caleb Williams’ targets, and it’s reasonable to expect that those vacated targets will be split primarily between Burden, Odunze, and Loveland in 2026. ESPN’s Mike Clay has Burden projected for 113 targets (20.5% target share), which lags just behind Odunze’s 118 targets (21.4%). The Ballers have Burden projected for 78 receptions in 2026. I can work with that.
aDOT and Yards
Burden’s 2025 aDOT was just 7.7 yards, which ranked 87th in the NFL. This was due to a combination of screens / quick hitches and some deep slashes. We should expect to continue seeing shorter routes, as Coach Ben Johnson will want to find creative ways to get the ball into the hands of his young playmaker, but I also expect Burden’s route tree to broaden as he gets more comfortable in the offense and continues to refine his skills.
Burden averaged 13.9 YPC, which is high when considering his low aDOT. That’s attributable to the fact that Burden was a YAC machine in 2025, averaging 7.1 YAC per reception, which ranked 3rd in the NFL among WRs. He also put up some eye-popping efficiency stats in the following categories:
| CATEGORY | FIRST DOWNS PRR | YARDS PRR | YARDS/TGT | TARGET SEPARATION | QB RATING/TGT | FANTASY PTS PRR | FANTASY POINTS/TGT |
| STATISTIC | 0.115 | 2.79 | 10.9 | 2.63 | 123.1 | 0.55 | 2.13 |
| NFL RANK | #12 | #3 | #7 | #2 | #4 | #7 | #10 |
TDs
Burden famously caught the 65-yard flea-flicker TD from Caleb Williams in Week 3, but he was denied a repeat trip to the end zone until his Week 17 bonanza against the 49ers. Ending his rookie campaign with only 2 TDs was surely disappointing for Burden, which doesn’t give us much data to project how 2026 will turn out for him. Burden found pay dirt 26 total times during his three seasons at Mizzou, so he’s certainly not allergic. Mike Clay has Burden projected for 5 TDs; the Ballers believe that’s severely overshooting, expecting 4 TDs instead for Burden. For the sake of this argument, we’ll settle at 4.5 TDs, although I’m much more bullish on 8-10 TD potential, personally.
Conclusion
Much like the Detroit offense Johnson helped architect, the Bears have a lot of weapons on the offensive side of the football. The two-headed rushing attack of D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai will be featured in the offense. Second-year phenom TE Colston Loveland will command target share. And former first-round WR Rome Odunze will eat as well.
Despite all this, I believe Luther Burden is special, and pairing him with the genius of Ben Johnson and the coaching style of Bears WR Coach Antwaan Randle El could lead to a magical second season. Simply using the 2026 projections of 78 receptions and 4.5 TDs and replicating Burden’s 13.9 YPC would have slotted him in as WR16 in the 2025 season (78/1,084/4.5 TDs – 174.4 fantasy points). Positive TD regression would push him into the top-12.
From Weeks 12-18, when Burden finally surpassed 50% snap share consistently, he caught 28 of 37 targets (76% CTCH%) and averaged 14.4 YPC. Using these numbers as a baseline, a projection of 113 targets would lead to the following stat line: 86 receptions and 1,237 yards. Add in the 4.5 projected TDs (conservative estimate, in my opinion), and Burden would produce 193.7 half-PPR fantasy points in 2026, which would have been good for WR8 in 2025.
Burden’s separation and efficiency metrics are too hard for me to ignore. And I’m wagering they are too hard for Ben Johnson and the Bears coaching staff to ignore as well. After another offseason of workouts, studying, refining his route running, and building chemistry with Caleb Williams, I believe Burden is going to take the league by storm in 2026.