Luther Burden III has had quite an interesting offseason for a young rookie — with the hype surrounding other players in the NFL Draft and the pieces on offense in Chicago already, many have overlooked the Bears’ second-round pick out of Missouri.
Burden took a fall in the draft and was berated by the media all summer for character issues and injury concerns. He responded to that with stellar camp, pre-season, and now regular season performances.
Newly dubbed head coach, Ben Johnson, is getting him more involved and is specifically known for building his offenses around his key players’ strengths – which should bode well for a Swiss-army knife like Burden.
LUTHER BURDEN’S UPSIDE
Over the course of his career at Missouri, Burden was dominant – accounting for 36.5% of the Tigers’ team receiving yards and touchdowns, good for a 74th percentile college dominator rating. He also boasted a 26.9% college target share (80th percentile), and broke out at the young age of 18.7 years old (94th percentile). Well, it looks like he’s on his way to breaking out all over again.
Although it’s a sample size, he led all pass catchers (WR, TE, or RB) in offensive grade (93.0) and receiving grade (92.4) in Week 3 in only his first taste of real NFL action. He was 7th in receiving yards on the week and led all receivers with an absurd 11.22 yards per route run versus the Dallas Cowboys where he had 3 catches on 3 targets for 103 receiving yards and a touchdown.
Amongst the 23 rookie wide receivers who’ve played from the 2025 draft class, Burden now ranks:
- 1st in yards per route run (4.29)
- 2nd in yards after the catch per reception (8.8) and yards per reception (20.6)
- 4th in receiving yards (103) and yards after the catch (44)
- T-6th in receptions (5) and first downs (2)
- 11th in targets (6)
With this sort of production on just 24 routes run, it’s intriguing to think about the type of upside Burden possesses as a full-time player.
The hot start should come as no surprise, as Burden was an elite prospect. After coming out of East St. Louis High School as the number one wide receiver in his class (2022) and fourth-ranked player overall nationally, Luther Burden III was the MaxPreps Player of the Year as well as a consensus five-star recruit. As merely an 18-year-old freshman, he became the first player since 2008 to record two receiving touchdowns, two rushing touchdowns, and a punt-return touchdown within the same season.
The only other Power-5 wide receiver recruits since 2008 that had a higher overall rank than Burden (via Rivals) were Jeremiah Smith (1) and Amon-Ra St. Brown (3). Thus, Burden was ranked higher overall than the likes of Tetairoa McMillan, Emeka Egbuka, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, George Pickens, Jaylen Waddle, Jerry Jeudy, Christian Kirk, Calvin Ridley, and Stefon Diggs – plus has the college production to back it up.
Since 1970, there have been just six SEC wide receivers to post 1,200-plus receiving yards in a season before their junior years:
- Alshon Jeffery (2010)
- Mike Evans (2013)
- A.J. Brown (2017)
- Jerry Jeudy (2018)
- Ja’Marr Chase (2019)
- Luther Burden III (2023)
In regards to that absurd 2023 season, Luther posted 1,212 receiving yards on 86 receptions with 9 touchdowns in 13 games (five consecutive games of 100-plus receiving yards), despite the uphill battle of a strength of schedule that ranked eighth amongst all FBS teams in 2023. Burden posted an elite 3.20 receiving yards per team pass attempt – good for a 96th percentile (per @FF_MarvinE) sophomore-year campaign.
For perspective – none of Travis Hunter, Emeka Egbuka, or Matthew Golden surpassed the 3.00 mark in any season of their careers and Tetairoa McMillan just barely achieved that in his final season at Arizona with 3.01 receiving yards per team pass attempt in 2024 versus a 61st ranked strength of schedule in the nation. Neither McMillan’s Arizona or Hunter’s Colorado had a strength of schedule within the top-25 the past two seasons, further emphasizing just how impressive Burden’s 2023 season was.
Even Golden’s best season came in 2024 when he had 1.83 receiving yards per team pass attempt, earning himself first-round draft capital. It feels like the entire world is against Burden after his (more-so Missouri’s) regression this past season and NFL Draft “slide”, yet he was just 0.01 receiving yards per team pass attempt shy of tying Golden’s career best YPTPA number in 2024 (1.83) despite Missouri’s offensive woes.
Luther Burden III is one of just four SEC wide receivers to declare early for the draft after putting up more than 90 total EPA and 0.90 EPA per play as a true-sophomore. Burden also tied for first amongst this group in EPA per team pass attempt (0.25).
- A.J. Brown (2017)
- Ja’Marr Chase (2019)
- Malik Nabers (2022)
- Luther Burden III (2023)
Marvin Harrison Jr. won the Biletnikoff Award for the nation’s best wide receiver after putting up 1,211 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns in his final collegiate season. Oddly enough, it was Burden who had a higher receiving grade (91.6 RECV, 3rd amongst WRs), more yards after the catch (718, 2nd amongst WRs), more yards per route run (3.50, 7th amongst WRs), and a lower drop rate than Harrison Jr. (89.6 RECV, 427 YAC, 3.44 YPRR, 8.2 DRP%) did – all while being over a year younger.
“MHJ” was well known for using his stature (6’4) to make contested catches – he caught 13 contested catches on 30 contested targets in 2023. Meanwhile, Burden caught the same amount of contested catches (13) despite having seven less contested targets (23) than Marvin did.
Luther Burden ended up leading the entire 2025 wide receiver class in career percentage of team receiving touchdowns when on the field with 58 percent. Travis Hunter achieved a career percentage of 39 percent, while Tetairoa McMillan and Emeka Egbuka were both below 35 percent – a full 20 percent-plus lower than Burden.
Expanding on that, Burden holds three out of the top-ten (plus two out of the top-five) single-season rates for receiving touchdowns when on the field amongst all 2025 rookie pass catchers’ collegiate careers.
Hunter and McMillan’s best rates for receiving touchdowns when on the field (44 percent) came in their final collegiate seasons, which still fell 9 percent short of matching Burden’s worst season for this metric.
In terms of percentage of team receiving yards when on the field, Burden’s single-season rates of 40 percent in 2024 and 42 percent in 2023 both ranked in the top-ten amongst all pass catchers (for their careers) in this class.
Furthermore, Burden produced the most missed tackles forced per reception (0.34) in his career amongst all wide receivers in this class and ranked second with 7.3 yards after the catch per reception. On 86 receptions in 2023, Burden forced 20 missed tackles, tying for seventh amongst all Power-5 wide receivers. Despite Missouri’s regression on offense in 2024, Luther still managed to force 30 missed tackles on just 61 receptions versus a top-25 ranked strength of schedule, which ranked first amongst all P5 wide receivers – averaging an absurd two-plus missed tackles forced per reception.
Burden’s 7.3 yards after the catch per reception lead all Round 1-2 wide receivers the last two seasons. Trailing Luther Burden in yards after the catch per reception was Xavier Worthy (7.2), Malik Nabers (6.6), Ladd McConkey (6.6), Emeka Egbuka (6.6), Tre Harris (6.4), Matthew Golden (5.6), Tetairoa McMillan (5.5), Brian Thomas Jr. (5.3), Rome Odunze (5.2), and Marvin Harrison Jr. (5.1). Although he’s called a “slot merchant”, only six percent more of his production came out of the slot than Nabers’ (57 percent) did as an LSU Tiger.
That career 0.34 missed tackles forced per reception also ranks second amongst all power conference wide receivers (min. 175 receptions) over the last decade. Burden was just ahead of fellow early-declare SEC standout, Malik Nabers, who posted 0.31 missed tackles forced per reception.
Similarities between Luther Burden III and Deebo Samuel have provoked many to make the comparison, but even Deebo only had 13 missed tackles forced through three seasons at South Carolina – his best season was not until his fourth and final year. Burden forced as many missed tackles as a freshman in the SEC (13) as Deebo did in his first three seasons as a Gamecock.
Not to mention, he is certainly a threat as a runner – showcased by his 217 rushing yards on 32 attempts (6.8 YPA) with 4 rushing touchdowns in college. He combines elite contact balance with an extremely competitive mentality to bring some serious juice out of the backfield.
The more prevalent factor there was the fact that Missouri’s passing yard numbers fell from 3,671 in 2023 to 2,535 in 2024. The Tigers’ starting quarterback, Brady Cook, also took a significant step back in production as well – sliding from 34th in passing grade in 2023 all the way to 93rd in 2024.
Because of Missouri’s regressions as a whole this past season, the Chicago Bears were able to get a steal on a first-round talent like Luther Burden III in the second round of the 2025 NFL Draft. It seems to be forgotten that Burden III was once considered the best player in this class before Missouri’s offense affected his draft stock this past season.
Without being listed as a starter in a single game this year, Burden is still fourth in receiving yards (103) amongst rookie wide receivers this season, ahead of two first-round talents in Hunter (76) and Golden (68).
LUTHER BURDEN FANTASY OUTLOOK
If Burden is on waivers in your redraft leagues and you are in need of depth at the wide receiver position, I would advise scooping him up off the wire before your opponents do. Dynasty-wise — this is what we’ve been waiting for, and this is why we used first-round rookie picks on Luther Burden III.
It’s clear Ben Johnson has a plan to get him more involved and DJ Moore has not looked up-to-speed in this offensive scheme as of yet. Burden should absolutely be the top pick-up off of the waiver wire in redraft leagues and he should be bought-high in dynasty leagues. The breakout is coming – but be patient.
