Fantasy Football Lessons - What I Got Wrong in 2025

February 9, 2026

Rob's expert fantasy football advice from 2025, reviewing misses and bottom picks from last season. His fantasy football lessons learned and tips for next season.

Truth be told, 2025 was one of my roughest fantasy football seasons in recent memory. If you play fantasy football long enough, these types of years are unavoidable. It was just a few years ago when I looked back, and it seemed as though I was Nostradamus in the summer. Looking back, this year was quite the opposite.

Whereas that year, I had plenty of examples to use for "my hits", this year, there were plenty of options to use for "my misses". No one will ever get all their takes correct, and sometimes when you miss, it doesn't necessarily mean there's anything to learn from it. Sometimes, in this crazy game, the most random things happen, and of course, then there are the injuries.

While some are really big on accountability, I want to focus on my process and the factors that led to my decisions. For example, betting on Lamar Jackson this past season ended up being wrong (obviously), but what's the takeaway? If there isn't one, who cares? So, as we look at some of my misses from this past season, of which there are many, I'm going to try to focus on what can be learned from the misses.

Running Backs vs Wide Receivers

In recent seasons, receivers have begun dominating the fantasy football landscape. There were several reasons for this. The number of teams passing had increased significantly. More teams were shifting to running back by committee backfields, and then there were the injuries. For years, running backs had experienced injury rates much higher than those of receivers. 2024 changed everything.

In 2024, running backs reigned supreme again. They dominated the top of fantasy football leaderboards. The position as a whole largely escaped the injury bug. However, the quarterback and receiver positions were hammered by injuries. Offenses also started to slowly shift. As defenses focused on stopping the deep ball, sitting in shell coverages with deep safeties, offensive play-callers adjusted and started running the ball more.

Heading into last season, I bet on a regression to the mean. The league would shift back hard to the 2020-2023 pass rates that we saw. The injuries would again shift back to the running back position. Betting on receivers was something I was fully prepared to do again. That was a massive swing and a miss.

17 running backs had 1,000 rushing yards in 2025. We hadn't had that many since 2010. From 2015-2024, the average number of running backs going over 1,000 rushing yards was 11. In 2024, we had 16. Last year, it was 17. NFL teams produced the lowest number of receiving yards (226.8) since 2008 (224.2).

In 2025, the league-average rate for 11-personnel (three-receiver sets) was 56.4%. In 2024, it was 61.2%, and in 2023, 62.4%. The top-eight running backs in 2025 all scored more points than they had in any of the previous five years. In 2018, 66% of offensive touchdowns were scored via the pass; in 2025, that number dropped 61.5%.

10 running backs had 300+ touches in 2025. That's the most in a single season since 2012. Four running backs scored 300+ fantasy points. No other season since 2021 had there been more than one. This massive miscalculation on my part is at the heart of the rest of my misses, which shouldn't be a surprise. My thesis couldn't have been more inaccurate.

The takeaway here is simple, however. The running game is back with a vengeance. All sports go through ebbs and flows. NFL offenses have adjusted to the way defenses are playing them. While defenses are so focused on not giving up anything downfield, offenses countered by loading up their sets with multiple tight ends and running the ball consistently for five yards per carry.

Betting on Rookie Receivers

It all goes back to that original thesis: receivers will bounce back. I was high on Tetairoa McMillan, Travis Hunter, Emeka Egbuka, Jayden Higgins, Matthew Golden, Luther Burden III, and believed Kyle Williams was a great sleeper pick. None of these picks worked out, and most busted hard.

Egbuka started off on fire and looked as though he was going to have a massive rookie season, but he cooled off considerably. Late in the year, he was difficult to even start, and he finished WR26. Based on where he was drafted, this was a strong return on investment. However, from Weeks 6-17, he was WR57. He gave drafters five great weeks and was basically unstartable after that - hard to call that a win.

McMillan was okay, but unspectacular. He finished as the WR22, but he had just five games with more than 11 half-PPR points and never scored more than 16.5 points. He never really moved the needle. There were no boom weeks. While McMillan and Egbuka didn't cause anyone to lose their leagues, they didn't live up to my expectations.

When it comes to the other five, massive misses. Golden had arguably the worst rookie season of any first-round receiver in the last 20 years. Higgins was stuck in a terrible committee for the entire season. Burden had a few strong weeks near the end of the season, but it took him such a long time to become a player fantasy managers could trust. Williams, despite a completely ambiguous receiver depth chart in New England, could never break through.

This is the list of former first round WRs since 2005 who played 13 games or more, but had fewer than 400 yards & 0 TDs.

The list is literally only Matthew Golden. If you’re not a little concerned, especially with his lukewarm collegiate production, you’re being silly. pic.twitter.com/TgxVa7q7Gp

— Rob (@RobLorge) January 3, 2026

McMillan was the only receiver with an ADP inside the top 30 of receivers, so missing on any of these players didn't crush your season, but it did keep you away from other players who could have helped.

Not Paying Close Enough Attention to Changes in a Team's Play-Caller

Most fantasy managers were excited about the coaching changes in Chicago with Ben Johnson. That one is easy. However, how many were concerned about Philadelphia's play-caller? When a team gets what we believe is an upgrade at play-caller, we rarely have these situations go over our heads. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for when a team downgrades, especially when that team is viewed as being really good.

Philadelphia was abysmal on offense. Somehow, a change in play-caller led to very up-and-down seasons for A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Saquon Barkley. While Brown finished the season close to his original ADP, it was largely because of how he finished, from Weeks 12-17. How many fantasy managers were in a position to benefit from his finish? For many, it was likely too little, too late.

Even in Detroit, the loss of Johnson proved to be a big deal for Jameson Williams and Sam LaPorta. Superstars like Jahmyr Gibbs and Amon-Ra St. Brown weren't affected, but lesser, still very good players like Jamo and LaPorta were. When Dan Campbell took over as Detroit's play-caller, that's when Jamo finally started playing like the receiver many expected.

Since Week 10, when Dan Campbell took over playcalling, Jameson Williams ran horizontally breaking routes 44.6% of the time per @FantasyPtsData, with Amon-Ra St. Brown at 49.2%.

Williams has a 17% target rate and 2.24 YPRR on those routes in Weeks 10-11, with St. Brown still…

— Corbin (@corbin_young21) November 22, 2025

During the offseason, we all want to get excited about fantasy players and their prospects. We find it harder to be pessimistic during the summer hype season, especially when it comes to players like Brown, Barkley, and Smith. In 2026, I'll be paying closer attention to play-caller switches, especially those viewed negatively.

The first one that comes to mind is Matt Nagy in New York, where he may keep Jaxson Dart, Cam Skattebo, and Malik Nabers from hitting the incredibly high expectations the fantasy football community will surely cement on them.

Overlooking Mid-Tier Running Backs

This goes back to my original thesis for the 2025 season - receivers will bounce back. That theory led to largely ignoring D'Andre Swift and Travis Etienne Jr. It also led to passing on a bunch of running backs in that range who busted, such as Breece Hall, Kenneth Walker, Chuba Hubbard, and Alvin Kamara.

However, outside of Walker, the other mid-tier running backs who busted were on offenses largely viewed as below-average to bad. With Swift and Etienne, there were plenty of reasons to believe they were going to be on good to potentially really good offenses. That's what played out, too.

Etienne was coming off a dreadful 2024 season, largely marred by injuries. Swift has never really had a bad season, but he's never lived up to expectations, leaving some negative residual feelings.

I remember the summer narrative that D'Andre Swift would bust in fantasy because Ben Johnson was the OC when he got traded out of Detroit.

Fast forward to Week 18, and Swift just set a career-high for rushing yards.

We come up with a lot of silly narratives in the summer.

— Dan Fornek ↗️ (@fornekdf) January 4, 2026

I don't want to make it a habit of targeting running backs who are grouped into what we've come to know as the "dead zone", but also with the increased perceived value of receivers, the running back "dead zone" has gotten later and later. Swift was often available in the middle of the sixth round and Etienne was available as late as the eighth round.

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