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Should you draft Brashard Smith, Ollie Gordon II, or Trevor Etienne in fantasy football in 2025? John breaks down the fantasy outlooks for these three rookies.
As rookies have proven to be fantastic options for fantasy football teams in recent seasons, fantasy managers have naturally started paying more attention to first-year players in the NFL so far in 2025. It makes perfect sense, considering what recent history has shown us.
In 2023, rookie wideouts Puka Nacua and Rashee Rice both had excellent seasons, with Nacua immediately becoming a league-winner and Rice putting up big numbers later in the season. In 2024, Ladd McConkey, Brian Thomas Jr., Malik Nabers, Bucky Irving, and Brock Bowers all ended up as absolute must-starts in all formats.
While many of those players were Round 1 picks in the NFL Draft, Nacua and Irving were selected much later, proving that unlikely stars sometimes come seemingly out of nowhere. So let's break down three late-round running backs from the 2025 NFL Draft and their fantasy football outlooks for this season!
Be sure to check all of our fantasy football rankings for 2025:- 2025 fantasy football rankings
- Running back (RB) rankings
- Wide receiver (WR) rankings
- Quarterback (QB) rankings
- Tight end (TE) rankings
- Defense (D/ST) rankings
- Kicker (K) rankings
- FLEX rankings
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Brashard Smith Fantasy Football Outlook
I've been in on Smith since February of this year. My original picks for the three most likely surprise running backs to win fantasy football leagues back in April were Smith, Bhayshul Tuten, and RJ Harvey. All landed on good offenses -- in the case of Tuten, he now has an elite offensive coordinator -- and I stand by my analyses of each, though they obviously have been updated after the draft.
Smith was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs, which is a perfect fit for him. He played running back in his final season after converting from wide receiver, so he has the most refined pass-catching and route-running skill sets of any RB in this year's class, unsurprisingly. And we've seen many examples on film.
I'm drafting Brashard Smith over Quinshon Judkins in fantasy football all day. Smith is lethal given any kind of space with huge PPR upside, since he's a converted receiver. Most explosive juke moves in the class. pic.twitter.com/ReLk4CRzT4
— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) March 22, 2025
While it's unlikely that he'll be used heavily as a traditional receiver, since that's highly uncommon for running backs, his shiftiness with the ball in his hands adds to the likelihood that Chiefs head coach Andy Reid will want to feed him passes. He has fantastic hands to go along with it.
In the above clip, you can see Smith's ability to make explosive plays when given space. The Chiefs should try to get him in space as much as possible. Kansas City is one of the most productive screen-passing teams in the NFL, and I anticipate Smith getting fed plenty of those types of targets in his rookie season.
Brashard Smith is an undersized RB that can legitimately run routes from the pattern and win. Huge PPR upside. Not leaving fantasy drafts without him in any of my leagues. Explosive athlete too. pic.twitter.com/7GPfAWIBlE
— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) March 22, 2025
He's an elite athlete who ran a 4.39-second 40-yard dash and is extremely nimble. He didn't get a lot of volume in his preseason games, so we have to fall back on his college film, but there's plenty of reason to think he can become a nice safety valve for quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Pass up on a running back with Brashard's receiving skills in PPR fantasy football at your own risk. This guy is going to be lethal running routes out of the backfield. pic.twitter.com/GxAOdy2RbU
— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) March 22, 2025
Smith's best preseason rep was below, and is pretty emblematic of how he'll be used. He was targeted downfield and made an impressive effort on that catch attempt, but wasn't able to come down with the ball. But he caught a pass on a short slant route out of the backfield and nearly scored a touchdown.
Nice snag from Brashard Smith on the HB Option out of the backfield.
This is why we let Jet comps fly pic.twitter.com/yPuhhe8xOm
— Matt Lane (@Matty_KCSN) August 23, 2025
Smith has huge upside in PPR leagues and is an absolute must-draft in all formats, in my opinion. Both Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt struggled to make explosive plays and force missed tackles last season, and both are poor pass-catchers.
Pacheco is a much better athlete than Hunt, and Pacheco and Smith compare closely to each other in terms of burst and speed. This backfield should become a committee between Pacheco and Smith, and a lower rush rate overall by the Chiefs offense would heavily favor Smith.
The Chiefs ran the ball at the 10th-lowest rate in the league, and considering their success with short passes and screen plays, they might be able to continue doing that and still be fine. Most teams can't get away with that, but this is a situation in which Reid's genius comes in handy. So draft as much Smith as you can.
Ollie Gordon II Fantasy Football Outlook
Gordon has been a surprise this preseason. While he was drafted in the sixth round of the 2025 NFL Draft and wasn't projected to be more than the team's RB3 initially, he clearly outplayed second-year pro Jaylen Wright (leg) in preseason action. That wouldn't be as big a deal if Wright had looked anything other than terrible.
But the improvement we expect from running backs in their second season should be evident at least in the preseason, where competition is much less stiff. Instead, we saw Wright do virtually nothing while Gordon put together a nice bit of film.
no RB forced me to adjust my priors more this preseason than Ollie Gordon II
(probably his own team, too) pic.twitter.com/53T9HeReJG
— Josh Norris (@JoshNorris) August 25, 2025
Gordon regressed massively from 2023 to 2024 in college. After winning the Doak Walker Award by rushing for 1,732 yards and 21 touchdowns in 2023, he logged just 880 yards and 13 rushing scores in 2024, with his rushing average plummeting from 6.1 yards per carry two years ago to just 4.6 last season.
It's not like he was a completely different player. The team around him just didn't block as well in 2024, and he had far fewer explosive plays. Still, there seems to be plenty of potential here, and with Wright being outperformed so handily, Miami could make Gordon its RB2 in short order.
Pure August runout for rookie RB Ollie Gordon, who went 285-1732-21 for Oklahoma State in 2023.
* Alexander Mattison (neck) out for season
* De'Von Achane (calf) day to day
* Jaylen Wright (leg) week to week https://t.co/BbZ54xV3rM— Adam Levitan (@adamlevitan) August 25, 2025
Now, with Wright injured, it's possible we could see Gordon taken for a spin and given a handful of touches. Achane (calf) should still take most of the touches, and is expected to play in Week 1, but it's possible that the team gave him such a big workload last season because of Wright's ineffectiveness.
Teams sometimes have to use their personnel in ways they didn't anticipate to put their team in the best position to win. Raheem Mostert wasn't effective last season, and Achane had a huge workload, but it's possible Miami wants to return to a more committee-based approach, as they had in 2023.
Thus, Gordon has upside even if Achane doesn't get injured, and it seems like he's clearly more talented than Wright, so he would probably take over the RB1 role in case of an Achane injury. If you're looking for a handcuff for the speedster, Gordon seems like the best option, and in deep leagues, the rookie is an interesting pick. The Dolphins offense didn't play well last season, though, and the offensive line isn't in good shape, so temper your expectations.
Trevor Etienne Fantasy Football Outlook
Etienne is firmly behind both running backs Chuba Hubbard and Rico Dowdle, in the battle for the RB1 job with the Carolina Panthers. That isn't likely to change. Hubbard had a great season in 2024, handling a big workload in lieu of giving RB Miles Sanders touches. And Dowdle played well for the Cowboys.
While it might seem that there's a big gap between Sanders and Dowdle, and that Etienne could sneak in and steal the RB2 job, Dowdle was held back by the offense he ran in. He showed pretty solid efficiency, and actually compared favorably to Hubbard in many metrics.
Chuba Hubbard and Rico Dowdle in 2024:
+ Both Top 14 in EPA/Rush
+ Both Top 8 in Rush Success Rate
(See screenshots)These two both also finished Top 8 in yards after contact per attempt, with Chuba at 2.70 and Rico at 2.64.
The newly formed duo has some notable similarities… pic.twitter.com/G2pmjG0URH
— Dataroma (@ffdataroma) March 13, 2025
As RB Jonathon Brooks (knee) was getting worked back into the Panthers offense in 2024, before his season-ending ACL re-injury, the backfield was morphing into more of a committee, with Brooks handling passing downs and Hubbard handling most of the rushes. It seems that this is what head coach Dave Canales wants.
So a committee with Hubbard leading the backfield and Dowdle handling most of the rest of the touches makes sense. Etienne isn't some high-upside pass-catcher, so it's hard to see him taking on a role unless Dowdle or Hubbard gets hurt.
And even if that happens, it's more likely that whichever of the top two backs was healthy would simply get an increased workload, as we saw last season when Brooks went down. Etienne was a fourth-round pick, though, so it's not like his draft capital was completely insignificant.
Every play of 10+ yards for Trevor Etienne in the 2025 preseason #KeepPounding pic.twitter.com/biynEpY1zX
— The Real Ball Watcher (@thaprotest4) August 23, 2025
The first-year pro looked solid in the preseason, but doesn't have the juice to clearly beat out Hubbard and Dowdle, athleticism-wise. Since Dowdle is on a one-year deal, it seems more likely that the Panthers dipped into this year's stacked running back class to get a developmental prospect to give a big role in 2026.
As a deep stash in dynasty leagues, he makes sense. Carolina has committed to spending a lot of money on its offensive line. They have the most expensive OL group in the NFL. A committee between Etienne and Hubbard, a season from now, could see Etienne with a bigger role down the road, but for now, he's probably not worth it in redraft.
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