Luther Burden was the fifth wide receiver selected in the 2025 NFL draft, but the Chicago Bears second-year player has a legitimate chance to be the best receiver taken from that class. Connor Orr of Sports Illustrated went through a list of bold predictions and listed Burden leading his draft class in production as one of them.
Will Luther Burden be the best receiver from the 2025 Draft class?
This is a bold prediction considering the two players at the top of the class. Burden finished third in yards despite finishing fourth in catches. Still, he finished behind Tet McMillan and Emeka Egbuka. McMillan was a top-ten pick who finished with 1,014 yards and Egbuka appears to be the next Ohio State receiver in a long line of playmakers. He finished with 938 yards. So, Burden has work to do with just 652 yards.
Burden is going to have a hard time unseating those two. To be fair, his yards per route run were better than both of them in his rookie season. It was more about a lack of playing time for Burden than being less productive than those two.
If Burden got a full workload and kept up his efficiency, he could hit the bold prediction. That is likely where Orr is going logically.
However, the reason small samples are tough to judge is that it takes one game to skew them hard one way or the other. If we looked at Egbuka after eight games, his stats would look even better. However, finishing the whole year is a grind, and it takes away from the averages.
More than that, McMillan and Egbuka will remain their team's top threats, and Burden still has to earn that title. In the case of Egbuka, the team lost Mike Evans, so there are even more targets for him. In Chicago, they lost D.J. Moore, and there is still going to be a battle for targets.
Burden has to compete with Rome Odunze and Colston Loveland. They both have more draft pedigree than him. Odunze started the year hot, and Loveland finished the year hot. Between these two, it is going to be hard for Burden to dominate in production the way that both McMillan and Egbuka can.
Burden could get to the levels that those two did last year, but if they take steps, it is a lot to ask for. That is why it is a bold prediction, though.
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