2025 Fantasy Football Rookies With Top-12 Upside: Ashton Jeanty and Tre Harris Player Outlooks

March 10, 2025

Two 2025 fantasy football rookies with top-12 upside. Early draft targets who could be league winners in your fantasy leagues: Ashton Jeanty and Tre Harris.

Finding NFL rookies who finish in the top 12 at their position groups in scoring by the end of the season can give your fantasy teams a huge boost. In dynasty, it lets you have a ton of flexibility, as you can trade away second-year players coming off a massive rookie season for a haul of picks, or sit on your newfound highly valuable assets and try to make runs in the playoffs.

And in redraft, you can get players in the later rounds who help propel you to the playoffs and potentially fill in holes in case of an injury. Teams that hit multiple times in the later rounds on players who become must-starts have a huge leg up and often make it into their playoffs with ease. Those who drafted Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Bucky Irving in 2024 know what that's like.

It's not always easy to justify some rookies being able to finish as a QB1, WR1, TE1, or RB1 in their first seasons, so let's break down two players who are likely to finish in the top 12 at their position group in fantasy football this year.

Ashton Jeanty, RB, Boise State

It should be no surprise to anyone that Boise State Broncos running back Ashton Jeanty is on this list. He just nearly won the Heisman Trophy after a historic rushing season. He logged an absurd 2,601 rushing yards on 374 carries this past year (7.0 yards per carry) and 29 rushing touchdowns in 14 games. More than any other player in college football, he put his team on his back.

Jeanty now enters the 2025 NFL Draft as one of the most highly touted RB prospects in history, and perhaps the best thought-of prospect since Saquon Barkley came out of Penn State. Jeanty is a complete back and projects to be an immediate three-down workhorse in the NFL.

Ashton Jeanty is simply the fastest, strongest, and most agile player on the field in every game I've watched.

He is in the Saquon category of RB prospects. If the Raiders pulled the trigger at 6 I'd get it. #NFLDraft pic.twitter.com/eixDCTgpEn

— Nick Merriam (@nickwithsports) February 19, 2025

There aren't a lot of fair criticisms of his game. He's 5-foot-8, so that's a slight ding in the size department, but his strength more than makes up for it. He also doesn't seem to have much in the hurdle department. My favorite conspiracy theory (that I just thought of) is that he partly didn't want to test at the combine because his vertical jump would be poor.

Still, he had no reason to do so. He will remain the RB1 in his class, and purely from a volume standpoint, should be a good pick in fantasy football drafts. His ADP is a bit too high for comfort in my eyes, but RBs seen as elite prospects have higher hit rates than elite WR prospects.

Yeah, international hockey is cool and all but so are Ashton Jeanty grown ass man TDs pic.twitter.com/3O2zpEYLPr

— TheOGfantasyfootball (@TheOGfantasy) February 21, 2025

His tackle-breaking and contact balance abilities were the biggest parts of his game that impressed. He could run into problems at the next level, though, because generally, while he was regularly able to run over defenders and shrug off tackle attempts, those are much more difficult to pull off in the NFL.

The average defender in the league is faster, stronger, and much more fundamentally sound than the defenders at the lower-tier schools Jeanty played against. He has the skills to slip tackles in more sustainable ways but will have to consistently opt for that style, rather than trying to run through bigger and potentially stronger guys.

Ashton Jeanty forced 16 missed tackles against Penn State. Here's about 5 of them despite not hitting full speed. Unreal player. pic.twitter.com/GUOpfQFEoK

— Hayden Winks (@HaydenWinks) February 21, 2025

His lower-body strength can allow him to remain upright if defenders have poor angles or don't get wrapped up on him. His top speed isn't elite, and several RBs in the class are better than him there. So, the home runs he hit in college will probably be more sparse in the NFL.

And the last great RB prospect, Bijan Robinson, was more versatile in the passing game and also more elusive with the ball in his hands. Elusivity (that's a word) is a better and more sustainable way to pick up extra yards than running over defenders is.

1. Ashton Jeanty - Boise State

THE 1.01 in Dynasty Rookie Drafts.

Led All 2024 College Football In:
- Missed Tackles Forced
- Yards After Contact
- Rush Attempts
- Rush Yards
- Rush TDs

Powerful AND Elusive.

Player Comparison
- LaDainian Tomlinson
pic.twitter.com/XFD63V8SEG https://t.co/7Rex411qZ8

— No Expert Fantasy Football (@NoExpertFF) February 17, 2025

It's usually good to temper your expectations with the most highly touted rookies. There are still plenty of elite players in the NFL. There's usually room for them in the top 12, but drafting Jeanty and expecting him to immediately be a top-5 RB in the league is probably premature.

Still, he's a great player and a good bet to get a ton of volume, so he should finish top-12 if he doesn't get hurt and goes to a decent team.

Tre Harris, WR, Ole Miss

No matter how many times I write about Ole Miss Rebels wide receiver Tre Harris, it seems that the community insists on ranking far inferior players ahead of him in their consensus rankings.

There's been an avalanche of statistical evidence that Harris is an elite prospect, much of it coming from his time in the difficult SEC. And his 2024 season was absolutely remarkable and would have been recognized as such more widely had he not had poor injury luck.

Of course, if he does suffer from injury issues in the NFL, he probably won't finish in the top 12 at his position. But that didn't stop Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua from being elite in both of his seasons so far. Injuries are luck-based and should be thoroughly ignored long-term. Harris didn't suffer from nearly the ailments that Nacua did, anyway.

Passer rating when targeted has proven to be a rather predictive metric for future fantasy football success at the WR position.

See below for the top 2025 WR prospects numbers in terms of passer rating when targeted:

+ Tet 📉
+ Tre Harris atop another chart https://t.co/egFILOQIDv pic.twitter.com/oIp60LFFyk

— Dataroma (@ffdataroma) February 25, 2025

I've been touting Harris as a great prospect since November 2024. Since then, I've repeatedly claimed that he should be the WR1 of the 2025 NFL Draft class. Luckily for me, most of the "green flag" statistics that have been charted and released since the season have essentially been Harris propaganda because he's just that good at playing receiver.

He's an elite route runner, and though consensus analysis hasn't quite given him effusive praise in this area, it is just wrong sometimes. Harris destroyed man coverage so completely that he busted even more charts on his way to having the most efficient receiver season in the history of college football.

Tre Harris NEEDS to be on your radar

➖1st in Yards Per Route Run (5.15)
➖1st in Yards Per Route Run Vs. Man (9.28)
➖2nd in Yards Per Route Run Vs. Zone (4.05)

Here’s what I LOVE:

➖Size: 6’3, 210 lbs
➖Production: 1,030 Yards, 7 TD’s
➖Contested Catch Rate: 61.5% (8/13)… pic.twitter.com/zmXc1NSRq3

— Austin Abbott (@AustinAbbottFF) January 9, 2025

A litmus test of whether a receiver can consistently succeed in the NFL is how they play when they're matched up one-on-one with another defensive back. Is he able to shake him and get free? Can he leap over him and catch jump balls? Is he good at making catches in traffic? Can he consistently separate? Does he win with route-running nuance?

If the answer is yes to all of these questions, you have the blueprint of a WR who can succeed immediately at the next level. Harris is all of these things. His top speed is the only area where there are concerns, but in the era of two-high safety shells and defenses selling out to stop deep passes, that's much less important than it used to be.

Tre Harris is one of my favorite WRs in the 2025 NFL draft.

He’s a big body pass catcher with a whopping 45 career contested catches (48%) and he excels from a variety of alignments.

He’s elusive after the catch and has nuance in his routes for such a big frame at 6’3 215lbs. pic.twitter.com/Uo1E6iUu3m

— NFL Draft Files (@NFL_DF) January 13, 2025

He's also elusive and great after the catch, 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds (so there are no size concerns), a very fluid mover, physical at the catch point, and doesn't get enough credit for his contested catches. Last year, WR Rome Odunze was heaped mountain ranges worth of praise for his strength and contested catch ability, yet the same isn't available for Harris.

Of all the WRs in this class, Harris is easily the most likely to step in and immediately be an elite receiving option. In redraft, you need to choose him. Reach at least one round to make sure. But pick him up in every single one of your leagues. You have a chance at making a massive steal.

Of course, the landing spot will be important, as it always is. The ideal spots for him to go are the Los Angeles Chargers and Washington Commanders, who have massive holes in their WR rooms in that they each only have one strong pass-catcher heading into 2025. Still, Harris will be an incredible value in fantasy on whatever team he goes to.

WRs in college football against Man coverage this season (min. 50 targets).

Tre Harris...lol pic.twitter.com/ZIukHsSLVT

— Tyler Brooke (@TylerDBrooke) February 5, 2025

Even if a lot of his production came against smaller schools, he crushed EVERY opponent he played while he was on the field. He would have likely had a legendary season were it not for his injury. No one, not even SEC teams, could cover him. And he was no slouch in 2023, either. But he improved in every measurable way in 2024.

I cannot emphasize this enough -- Harris is the best WR in this class and is significantly ahead of Tetairoa McMillan, Luther Burden III, and Emeka Egbuka. Harris will be a massive steal in rookie drafts. He is an elite prospect. You are making a serious mistake if you let him go to another team.

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