Running Backs To Avoid in Fantasy Football: 3 Overvalued Draft Picks

John's running back fantasy football draft avoids for 2025. His three overvalued RBs and potential bust candidates include Kyren Williams, and more.

The league's best running backs often carry both their real teams and their fantasy football teams on their backs. Even RBs drafted in the third, fourth, and fifth rounds frequently become must-starts and provide fantastic utility to their fantasy managers.

But some don't. There are plenty of reasons for an RB to disappoint. It's a heavily volume-dependent position, especially in PPR leagues, because you need an extra volume of rushes to make up for a lack of receptions, and often plenty of touchdowns for RBs that don't have a lot of pass-catching upside.

That doesn't mean you should avoid all backs that don't get a lot of receiving work. But it is one factor to consider, among many others. I've analyzed this year's fantasy running backs thoroughly, so let's consider all these things and break down three running back avoids in fantasy football for 2025!

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Ashton Jeanty, Las Vegas Raiders

Jeanty could have a great season. He could immediately hit the ground running (literally) and put up excellent rushing numbers. Perhaps even something to the tune of 1,100 rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns, while catching 47 passes for 414 yards and another score.

A season of over 1,500 yards from scrimmage and nearly ten total touchdowns would undoubtedly be an excellent start for Jeanty, and reasonable, considering that he'll be playing behind a certainly-not-great Raiders offensive line. The problem is that those were almost identical to the numbers of Arizona Cardinals running back James Conner, who finished as the RB11 in PPR leagues last season.

Nick Emmanwori run stop on Ashton Jeanty pic.twitter.com/LwcM63Pz9G

— ᴅᴏxx ⚡️ (@new_era72) August 8, 2025

A lot of things have to go right for Jeanty to pay off at his current ADP. He's drafted in the first or early second round in most leagues, and that's a risky thing to do with a rookie. In the above play, you can see what might happen if the Raiders' offensive line doesn't play well. It's a preseason game, but Las Vegas' OL isn't great.

Running backs with good offensive lines, like Saquon Barkley with the Philadelphia Eagles, can absolutely explode with massive rushing yardage at any time. But getting stuffed at the line of scrimmage on multiple plays doesn't lead to a lot of rushing production.

Taking Jeanty, who hasn't played a down in the NFL yet, has a considerable opportunity cost -- you're sacrificing the ability to take an elite player, who we know is elite, that has already shown elite production in the situation they're currently playing in, and putting your team in the hands of an unproven rookie.

Ashton Jeanty swallowed in the backfield

Hopefully the raiders offensive line can figure it out and give him a chance this year pic.twitter.com/sHdClAx86r

— Football Fanatics (@FFB_Fanatics) August 8, 2025

The Raiders finished 22nd in the league in ESPN's Run Block Win Rate in 2024. Jeanty could struggle to find space to run, with the offensive line often being manhandled. And running backs, no matter how strong, are simply physically outmatched by defensive linemen that can weigh between 250 and 320 pounds. It's not a fair fight.

There's another angle to this. We don't have to question whether San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey was misevaluated as a prospect. He was seen as an elite RB talent, came into the NFL, and absolutely smashed after his first season. His rushing numbers in his rookie year were just not good.

He was the RB10 overall because he had ridiculous receiving volume -- 113 targets. The 49ers have an elite tight end in Brock Bowers, an underrated WR in Jakobi Meyers, and have just spent a second and fourth-round draft pick on wide receivers Jack Bech and Dont'e Thornton Jr.

NFL Top 100 Players of 2025: @Raiders TE Brock Bowers makes his debut at No. 24! @NFLFilms pic.twitter.com/BcSBWOE3oa

— NFL (@NFL) August 21, 2025

The Raiders have plenty of targets to get the ball to, making it less likely that Jeanty is bailed out of potential poor rushing efficiency by being "peppered" with passes his way. And the Raiders don't have an easy schedule this season. New offensive coordinator Chip Kelly prefers a run-heavy scheme, but they might not have a choice.

There are players that you know are elite that you can take in the first round. Drafting Jeanty feels like the Marvin Harrison Jr. mistake all over again. The situation isn't ideal in anything other than projected volume of rushes, but that's expected for a No. 6 overall pick anyway.

Travis Etienne Jr., Jacksonville Jaguars

Etienne's highly efficient rookie season was followed by an RB3 overall season in PPR in 2023, making him a highly sought-after player who was often drafted in the second and third rounds of fantasy football leagues in 2024. That obviously worked out absolutely terribly for fantasy managers.

He did deal with some injury issues, but I'd argue that the writing was on the wall before the season even started. NFL head coaches do not care about overall PPR fantasy finishes at all. They care about player efficiency, and Etienne's efficiency absolutely nosedived from Year 1 to Year 2.

Travis Etienne hype from SI is interesting. I would argue his play started to fall off in 2023.

2022: 5.11 yards per carry
2023: 3.78 YPC (26% decline YOY)
2024: 3.72 YPC (1.6% decline YOY)

Massively reduced volume in 2024 as a result of his 2023 inefficiency. pic.twitter.com/v16jXwqE3a

— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) August 28, 2025

Etienne's rushing yards per carry fell by over a quarter from his first to his second season, and though he still had workhorse usage in 2023, that wasn't the case last season. The Jaguars' lack of usage of Etienne was likely due to this efficiency drop-off. Teams do not want to give heavy usage to an RB that averages under four yards per carry.

Etienne's efficiency further declined in 2024, but it was largely in line with his performance in 2023. That's the player we should probably expect moving forward. NFL teams getting NFL tape on starting running backs and adjusting their defenses to try to exploit that player's weaknesses isn't something new, nor should it surprise us.

Travis Etienne's play clearly declined from 2022 to 2023.

2022:

PPR RB17
5.11 YPC (RB4 of 42)
7.3% Explosive rush rate (ERR)
40.1% of yards on explosive runs (YGE) (RB3)

2023:
PPR RB3
3.78 YPC (RB38 of 49)
3.7% EPR (RB31)
25.9% YGE (RB17)

— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) September 1, 2025

So... the Jaguars... in the wake of Etienne's massively decreased explosive rush rate, and with a new coaching staff in the building, decide to draft... running back Bhayshul Tuten, who ran an absurd 4.32-second 40-yard dash at the 2025 NFL Combine. That's rare burst and top speed for an RB.

Tuten has a clear and considerable speed advantage over both Etienne and RB Tank Bigsby. There are plays with particular gaps in the defense that Tuten can exploit much better than both. The importance of explosive plays in the run game can't be understated.

Defenses have clamped down in recent years, allowing fewer offensive points, and an explosive run play enables an offense to keep the football from being intercepted and potentially swing the game in their favor. Etienne is unlikely to be extended by this team and wasn't brought in by the new management staff. Just draft Tuten instead.

Kyren Williams, Los Angeles Rams

Williams' efficiency took a nosedive last season. His decline in play actually eerily resembles that of Etienne from his first to his second season. Williams didn't play much in Year 1, but burst onto the scene in Year 2 and maintained his Rams RB1 role in Year 3.

Kyren Williams in 2023:

YPC: 5.02 (RB6/57)
MTF/Att: 0.21 (RB20)
YACO/Att: 2.75 (RB21)
Explosive run: 3.9% (RB29)
YPRR: 0.68

2024:

YPC: 4.11 (RB36/54) (-18%)
MTF/Att: 0.11 (RB44) (-48%)
YACon/Att: 2.09 (RB43) (-23%)
Explosive run: 1.9% (RB49) (-51%)
YPRR: 0.56 (3rd worst)

— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) August 30, 2025

Williams regressed in every possible efficiency category imaginable. He was the most volume-dependent of the workhorse running backs in the league in terms of points scored. One might point to his increased rushing touchdown total. But that's a fluky stat to track year over year.

It's pretty evident that the 5-foot-9, 202-pound back is not a bruiser and doesn't have the strength to power through the tackles of defensive linemen or linebackers. So you'd expect his efficiency to at least have increased in short-yardage carries, allowing him to improve his rush touchdown total from 12 to 14.

Kyren's TD numbers did go up! But he was a lot worse inside the 10 yard line, too.

In 2023:

-3.0 YPC
-0.25 MTF/Att
-1.72 YACon/Att

In 2024:

-1.9 YPC (37% decline)
-0.06 MTF/Att (76% decline)
-1.03 YACon/Att (40% decline)

By almost every measure. So much worse.

— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) August 30, 2025

You would be incorrect in that assumption. In fact, he regressed heavily at forcing missed tackles, gaining yards after contact, and overall rushing efficiency on carries inside the 10-yard line, as you can see from the data above. These are incredibly alarming numbers to look at.

There's a ton of precedent for inefficient running backs losing work to incoming rookies. We saw such a thing with Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Rachaad White, who was handily outproduced by rookie Bucky Irving last season after a PPR RB4 finish in 2023.

Jarquez Hunter college splits inside/outside the tackles with Kyren Williams and Blake Corum pic.twitter.com/3lAqYYAAvo

— Football Insights 📊 (@fball_insights) May 26, 2025

Unfortunately, Williams now has a running back counterpart in his backfield, Jarquez Hunter, who easily left his efficiency numbers in the dust on an even playing field -- college football. In fact, the scales should have been tipped against Hunter in college, considering Hunter played in the most challenging division in college football -- the SEC.

It's unlikely that Rams head coach Sean McVay will not give Hunter a decent workload, even early on, and the chance is very real that he could outproduce Williams on a per-touch basis, which would lead to an increased workload for Hunter. We could see a committee backfield in L.A.

At least Blake Corum, who averaged under 3.6 yards per carry last season, shouldn't be much of a threat to his workload. But drafting Williams is a scary prospect for me, and something I've avoided doing.

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