The Rams can make a convincing case for having the league’s best top-end receiver pair with Puka Nacua and Davante Adams. After that, the picture gets hazy fast.
There are options in the room, sure, but no clear pecking order once you move past the two headliners. Jordan Whittington is a candidate to bounce back.
Xavier Smith brings a vertical element. Konata Mumpfield has a year in the system.
And rookie sixth-round pick CJ Daniels has generated real buzz.
That leaves the Rams with a depth chart that feels wide open before training camp even starts. If you’re trying to sort out how it might look in 2026, here’s one reasonable stab at it.
Nacua sits at No. 1, and for good reason. His 2025 season was arguably the best ever by a wide receiver.
Adams checks in at No. 2 after leading the league in receiving touchdowns even though he missed three games. And despite what some might assume, he could actually be even more productive in 2026.
Whittington lands at No. 3, though this is where the guessing gets harder. His sophomore season didn’t match his rookie year. He produced less overall, faded late, and was less explosive, finishing with fewer than 9.5 yards per catch.
Even so, there’s still belief in him inside the Rams orbit. Torry Holt’s faith in a young receiver carries weight, and Whittington fits what the Rams usually want: size, strength, and real value as a blocker.
He was productive as a rookie, and nothing about his profile suggests he can’t win back a bigger role. The Rams want to believe.
They just need to see it.
Smith comes next, and in this projection he moves ahead of Whittington based on what each did last season. Smith finished third among Rams receivers with 303 receiving yards, while Whittington was fifth, behind now-Dolphins receiver Tutu Atwell.
Smith has a path to taking over Atwell’s old role full-time, but Sean McVay has never seemed eager to load up on deep threats. He also hasn’t shown much preference for small receivers, and at 5-foot-9, Smith is fighting that built-in disadvantage even with opportunity on the table. Still, he absolutely has a chance to repeat as the team’s third-leading wideout.
Mumpfield gets the No. 5 spot. His final numbers weren’t eye-catching, but he became more involved late in the season, during Adams’ injury absence and again in the playoffs.
The Rams are still interested in the former seventh-round pick, and with a year already spent in McVay’s system, he gets the nod over Daniels. He might even have a real shot to jump the others.
Daniels rounds out the list at No. 6, though the door is far from closed. The rookie out of Miami has earned justified excitement, but he’s still a rookie and doesn’t have the obvious physical traits that help him separate right away from the Rams’ other young wideouts. Even so, if he shows enough in camp, the competition is loose enough for him to work his way up quickly.
In Other News...
Rams Receiver Is Drawing Real Breakout Buzz Inside The Offense
Konata Mumpfield arrived in the Rams receiver room as a seventh-round pick with little expectation of immediate impact, but his rookie year ended with a role that was starting to look very different from the one he began with. He finished with 10 catches for 92 yards and a touchdown, and the most important development came late, when his usage rose enough to make him a more regular part of the offense as Los Angeles pushed through the final stretch and into the postseason.
The deeper sign of progress is not just the modest production, but how the Rams began to treat him as a receiver worth getting on the field more often. His late-season involvement outpaced Jordan Whittingtons, and the confidence around him has only grown with a veteran like Davante Adams expressing belief that Mumpfield can take another step in year two. For a player drafted that late, the question now is whether that closing burst was the start of something bigger. [Read more 🡒]
Rams May Have Spotted Another Receiver Fans Cant Ignore
The Rams spent three late-round 2026 picks to move up and grab CJ Daniels in the sixth round, a small price for a receiver they clearly believe has a chance to matter. It fits the way this franchise has operated before, finding useful pass catchers after the headline names are gone and trusting its own eye for receivers who can outplay their draft slot.
Daniels now steps into a receiver room that looks wide open, giving him a real path to snaps if he can separate himself early. With Matthew Stafford healthy again helping stabilize the offense, the opportunity is there for a rookie who does not need to become a star right away to justify the investment, only to carve out a modest role and make the Rams look smart for taking another swing. [Read more 🡒]