5 Fantasy Football Rookies to Avoid in Redraft Leagues: First-Year Players Who Will Fail to Make an Impact in 2025

Justin's fantasy football rookies to avoid in redraft leagues. His potential first-year busts who will fail to make an impact in fantasy football, including Dylan Sampson and more.

Sometimes, rookies come out swinging in the NFL. Something just clicks immediately. That's not always the case, though. For one reason or another, some rookies struggle to make an impact in their first season.

That doesn't mean their entire NFL career is doomed, but fantasy managers in redraft leagues aren't concerned about how a current rookie will look in 2027. They need that production in 2025, and if it's not going to come, then they need to know to avoid them when draft season begins.

Here are five rookies who won't be a huge help to fantasy managers in redraft leagues in 2025.

Editor's Note: Steer clear of costly draft mistakes with RotoBaller’s expert Fantasy Football Bust analysis. We break down overvalued players, potential letdowns, and risky ADPs to avoid, so you can build a smarter, safer roster.

Dylan Sampson - RB - Cleveland Browns

It's been a few months now, and I still don't understand what the Browns were cooking up in the draft, which I mean in a bad way. Any time a team drafts two quarterbacks and two running backs in the same class, you've just got to scratch your head at the way they used their draft capital.

Dylan Sampson was the second of the two running backs taken by the Browns, as Cleveland grabbed him in Round 4 after already taking Quinshon Judkins in Round 2.

Long term, this could be an intriguing backfield, but as long as Jerome Ford remains in it as well, either Judkins or Sampson is going to wind up with a smaller role than they deserve in 2025.

Applying basic logic to this, Sampson is the one most likely to suffer in the short term. Judkins was drafted higher; thus, it stands to reason that Judkins will start ahead of Sampson on the Browns' depth chart.

Beyond that is the fact that Ford has proven he can be a factor in the receiving game, with 106 targets over the past two seasons. Of the two rookies, Judkins profiles as the one best suited to early-down and goal-line work, so Sampson will need to work on getting more involved in the receiving game after catching just 40 passes in college. Right now, though, that role probably still belongs to Ford.

Bhayshul Tuten - RB - Jacksonville Jaguars

This will depend greatly on what happens with Travis Etienne. Trade rumors have abounded, but it's now July, and nothing has come of them. The best guess here is that the team keeps Etienne for the 2025 season and then lets him walk in 2026.

With Etienne still in the fold, rookie Bhayshul Tuten will have to contend with him and with Tank Bigsby in the battle for snaps. I firmly believe Bigsby is the best back on this roster — his 2023 rookie campaign was bad, but in 2024, he had a chance to showcase his explosiveness. While he faded down the stretch, he had multiple games in the first half of the year where he found the end zone twice.

Bigsby didn't seem like himself after returning from an ankle injury that kept him out of the team's Week 11 game. Bigsby had double-digit carries five times after that, hitting four yards per carry in just one of those games. Prior to the injury, he had four or more yards per carry in all four of the games where he saw 10 or more carries.

Then there's rookie LeQuint Allen. I would have simply written him off, but Jaguars reporter John Shipley recently suggested that Allen's receiving skills might put him ahead of Tuten in the battle for the third-down role.

"Coen is schooled in both zone- and gap-running schemes...If the Jaguars go with a zone scheme, then players like Tuten and Etienne seem to be the best fits. But if the Jaguars go with a gap scheme...then Bigsby could be in the driver's seat"

Also a LeQuint Allen mention.

ETN😬 https://t.co/FDPjsnvHM9 pic.twitter.com/BjXCaYydCH

— Pat Thorman (@Pat_Thorman) July 2, 2025

It's just one big quagmire. Tuten has the speed and vision to be a good runner in the league, but he'll need to rein in some of his worst tendencies, like trying to create too much and turning the ball over. This is a backfield that I want no part of in 2025.

Isaac TeSlaa - WR - Detroit Lions

Detroit adding wide receiver help in the draft was fine. Jameson Williams finally broke out, but it's fair to worry how sustainable that is, and even if it's sustainable, there's a big drop-off when it comes to the No. 3 receiver role for the Lions.

Right now, Tim Patrick looks set for that role, with rookie Isaac TeSlaa pushing him for playing time. I just don't think TeSlaa is set to do a ton as a rookie.

The former Arkansas receiver caught 28 passes for 545 yards and three touchdowns last season. He possesses many traits that are worth fostering long-term, but he has yet to demonstrate that he can produce consistently. He's basically the new version of the old Williams now that Williams has figured out how to make a consistent impact on the field.

Isaac TeSlaa was drafted in round 3 pick 70 in the 2025 draft class. He scored a 9.93 #RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 29 out of 3816 WR from 1987 to 2025. https://t.co/6qWoPzgVd8 pic.twitter.com/YwK0ftOmwA

— RAS.football (@MathBomb) April 26, 2025

TeSlaa has the size and foot speed to be an impact NFL player, but that won't happen overnight. He will need time to adjust to this league. The more I look into him, the more I like him in the long term, but for 2025, he's likely to play a fairly small role in Detroit.

Keep him off your fantasy radar at this point, but there's definitely dynasty upside.

Savion Williams - WR - Green Bay Packers

The Packers have too many decent receivers while lacking a true alpha, so they attempted to fix that by using a first-round pick on Matthew Golden. It should be a move that pays off for the Packers in both the short term and long term.

But then they did something that made far less sense. In Round 3, the team drafted TCU wide receiver Savion Williams, adding yet another receiver to a team that already has Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks, and the injured Christian Watson.

It's tough to see a clear path to playing time for Williams in 2025, especially considering he's widely regarded as a project. He has the explosiveness and size of a top-end NFL receiver, but drops are still a huge issue, and it doesn't feel like he can step in and be a productive receiver from Day 1.

What's good for the Packers is that he won't have to do that. This team has enough receiver talent that it can wait on Williams to develop, betting on his skill set and hoping that his worst issues can be coached away.

That's not great for fantasy managers, though. Williams was probably never going to be a rookie breakout no matter where he landed, but a Packers roster with no clear path to targets this season is about as bad as it could have gone in redraft. There's just no incentive to get Williams on the field until he's ready to be an impact player, because the Packers have a roster that allows them to take things slow with the TCU wideout.

Elijah Arroyo - TE - Seattle Seahawks

Honestly, a number of Seahawks players could be listed here, as the team went heavy on pass catchers during the draft. In addition to using a second-round pick on tight end Elijah Arroyo, the team drafted wide receiver Tory Horton in the fifth and Ricky White III in the seventh.

Arroyo is the highlight here, though, because his draft capital suggests that he should be a larger part of this Seattle offense than the other two. However, the rookie tight end just feels a bit like fool's gold heading into 2025.

Part of that is simply the fact that Arroyo is a rookie tight end. It's a tough position to make an impact as a rookie, especially when you're a tight end whose weakness is blocking.

Inject this Elijah Arroyo TD into my veins pic.twitter.com/5jn4ybzI3y

— SleeperSeahawks (@SleeperSeahawks) June 17, 2025

Arroyo is a great athlete who has the makings of a playmaker at the next level, but his game needs refinement. Injuries hampered his college career, so he's a little behind in figuring out how to use his strength as a run blocker, something that's likely to keep him behind Noah Fant in the pecking order all season.

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