Early-Round Fantasy Football Busts and Draft Avoids for 2025

Kevin's three fantasy football early-round players to avoid for 2025. His biggest draft avoids for 2025 in the early-rounds of fantasy football drafts.

Getting your picks right in the first few rounds of your fantasy football draft has never been more important in putting together a winning squad. Getting those first couple of picks wrong is a good way to plummet to the bottom of your league. Many of these picks are at the top for a reason: they represent little risk and are bankable options for plenty of fantasy points. That’s not to say there isn’t ANY risk, because there certainly is with some players in the early rounds of fantasy drafts.

Whether it’s a superstar player entering the later part of their career, a team’s makeup, injuries, or a host of other factors, this risk can manifest at any point in the season and blow up your team’s chances. It’s extremely important to assess the level of risk you want to put into these picks in the early part of your draft, but some signs are subtle while others are glaring. I’ll be giving you a mix of both types of risk here with some of 2025’s riskiest players.

Let’s take a look at a few of them that you’ll need to avoid in fantasy football this season, with all ADP from RotoBaller.

Editor's Note: Identify fantasy football draft busts, overvalued ADPs, and key players to avoid so you can draft with confidence this season.

Tyreek Hill, Miami Dolphins | WR14

Tyreek Hill has been an awesome fantasy asset for the last decade or so, but we had some serious flaws bubble up to the surface last season. Sure, Hill wasn’t the healthiest, but he still played every single game. Considering he was a top-6 pick in most fantasy leagues last season, it’s hard not to call him a massive disappointment.

Hill was hampered by off-the-field happenings as well as a wrist injury that may have sapped some of his productivity as he finished last season with under 85 receptions, less than 1,000 receiving yards, and less than seven touchdowns for the first time since 2019. Add in some MORE off-the-field distractions with a domestic incident involving Hill, and we’ve got massive volatility where Hill could go to zero in a hurry from a production standpoint.

Hill also saw a sharp drop-off in targets per game, yards per target, YAC, targets per route run, and his first season under 2.00 yards per route run. Collectively, those are hard to ignore for a wide receiver over the age of 30. Usually, 30 is the age where we start to worry about efficiency drop-offs for consistently good receivers in their 20s.

It doesn’t feel great to draft Hill in the second round of fantasy drafts, and remember, we are talking about a 31-year-old wide receiver here. Father Time is undefeated, and all good things must come to an end.

Even though the Dolphins traded tight end Jonnu Smith to the Steelers, I can’t draft Hill in the second round as he has a ton of risk and none of it is baked into his ADP.

Christian McCaffrey, San Francisco 49ers | RB6

Christian McCaffrey will be remembered as one of the best fantasy producers ever when all is said and done. Remembering McCaffrey for what he was is completely different than what he currently is, and we need to consider that when forecasting what his 2025 could look like. In a “what have you done for me lately” sense, McCaffrey doesn’t exactly pop off the page with tendinitis in both of his Achilles’ tendons and a PCL sprain in his knee. It’s not what you want to hear. Reports have come out about him looking healthy, but there’s always good news during the offseason. Tell me one time where a team, coach, or agent said a player looked bad in workouts.

Christian McCaffrey Has No Restrictionshttps://t.co/m8MUXzbkaG

— RotoBaller NFL (@RotoBallerNFL) April 22, 2025

McCaffrey will be 29 once Week 1 rolls around. Since 2020, he has had at least one leg or thigh injury that has caused him to miss at least one game in every season but one (2022). With a lot of tread on his tires from 1,871 career touches in his eight seasons, those touches could be taking their toll on the talented runner. It wasn’t long ago in 2023 when McCaffrey put up over 2,000 total yards en route to an RB1 finish, but running backs rarely age gracefully and gradually. 2023 was a long time ago in running back years.

Right now, McCaffrey is a top-six running back in ADP, and his price is rising. He feels like a trap pick right now, so I’ll happily let somebody else select him for the name value. What once was is not what it will always be, so while McCaffrey has had an awesome run as a fantasy running back, I would want a much better price to take the chance on him. I might be completely out on McCaffrey.

Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts | RB8

Jonathan Taylor had a very successful season in 2024, given the team's state, especially at the quarterback position. It’s not like the quarterback position has improved; if anything, it’s gotten much muddier. While the revolving door of Anthony Richardson and Joe Flacco as signal-callers was turbulent enough for fantasy managers, it could get worse in 2025 with Richardson and Daniel Jones.

Are the Colts sold on Richardson as their quarterback going forward? We’ll see as we’ll have an open competition between Richardson and Jones to see who starts as the Colts’ quarterback in Week 1. That competition will undoubtedly impact the stock of Taylor, who enters his age-26 season. While Taylor was fantasy football’s RB1 in 2021, he is not currently at that level. He’s seen decreased utilization in the receiving game with a career-low 18 receptions in 2024. Despite the 1,431 yards rushing and 12 total touchdowns, Taylor was merely the RB12. The power of having a healthy receiving role separates great fantasy backs from merely good ones.

Jonathan Taylor Fantasy Points Per Game

2020: RB8
2021: RB1
2022: RB17 (6 games missed to injury)
2023: RB12 (7 games missed)
2024: RB7 (3 games missed)

He's 26 years old with over 2,100 carries in college and the NFL

Why is he the Dynasty RB7 on @KeepTradeCut ?! SELL

— Josh Larky (@jlarkytweets) February 3, 2025

Taylor was one of the only constants in the Colts’ offense as he rushed for over 1,400 yards and was a league-winner with four straight 100-yard games plus five touchdowns in Weeks 16 and 17 to end the fantasy campaign. Taylor is one of the better runners in the league, but at an RB8 price tag heading into 2025, we want more production from him to justify a selection in the second round of early best ball drafts. Right now, Taylor feels very much like Nick Chubb in terms of the archetype of a great real-life rusher committed to giving him the ball but a non-factor in the receiving game. The RB8 price is a bit too high for a one-dimensional fantasy running back, no matter how good Taylor is at running the ball.

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