The Los Angeles Rams finally added an outside receiver this offseason. They took Miami WR CJ Daniels in the sixth round of the 2026 NFL Draft.
I’ll be honest that Daniels was not one of my favorite receiving options available in this class. Daniels is age 24 and spent six seasons in college including four at Liberty University (2020-2023), and one season apiece at LSU (2024) and Miami (2025). He eclipsed the 1,000 yard mark only one time and that came in his final season at Liberty.
Daniels did not explode after joining top college programs and making $477,000 from Miami through NIL. The explanation for why Daniels’ production dropped after Liberty is unclear. We can guess whether improved competition or having more mouths to feed on offense played a role, and we will learn more about him now that he is a Ram.
His analytical profile gives me optimistism surrounding his viability at the NFL level.
Going back to Daniels’ best college season in 2023, he ranked ninth in passer rating when targeted. This isn’t a metric I normally use to evaluate receivers; however, it generally tells us good things happen when quarterbacks look their way.
These are the notable NFL names that ranked toward the top of the list in this metric:
Even more impressive is Daniels’ performance in contested catch situations. If you filter out his first two years in college, he hauled in 26 of 34 passes in such opportunities. This is good for a completion rate of 76.4%. He was in the 80’s for both the 2023 and 2024 seasons and ranked third and seventh in all of college football, respectively.
Breakout age for receivers is mostly logic from the fantasy football world; however, good fantasy football targets are generally productive football players. This is the methodology and impact from Yahoo Sports:
Breakout Age: the season age when a WR hits 20% of his college team’s production (via “Dominator Rating,” a combo of yards and TDs). Adjusting this stat to account for the talent around a WR helps provide a more accurate outlook…
The theory is based on logic as much as it is analytical proof. If a college WR doesn’t break out until they are in their fourth or fifth season, when they are at a supreme advantage compared to their competition, the transition to the NFL is much more difficult. It’s an extreme comparison, but there’s a reason most one-year starters in high school aren’t being recruited. Players who do break out early, when they are at a disadvantage in terms of age, experience, growth and overall development, are much more likely to make that same jump from college to the NFL.
The two main indicators that breakout age will have are related to
You could have used this metric to identify that Puka Nacua would be a draft steal. He found success at age 19.3.
What does breakout age tell us about Daniels? He had the third-best breakout age among projected late round receivers in the 2026 class behind De’Zhaun Stribling (selected with the first pick of the second round) and Ja’Kobi Lane (third round). In effect, Daniels was the best of the receivers truly taken in the late rounds.
Is breakout age becoming a more known tool for wide receiver evaluation? This could help explain why Stribling and lane were taken earlier than expected. It also leaves Daniels as the top dog among the crop of receivers drafted after the third round.
Daniels seems capable of shaking up the Rams’ wide receiver depth. There is playing time up for grabs between he, Jordan Whittington, and Konata Mumpfield.