Rookies to Target in Early 2025 Fantasy Football Best Ball Drafts

February 17, 2025

John breaks down his favorite four rookies to target in early 2025 fantasy football best ball drafts. Which rookies are the best to draft in best ball for the 2025 season?

Best ball fantasy football formats are all about hunting for as much upside as possible. Drafting players who can produce explosive scoring games, like those in the 20 PPR point range or more, is massively important, especially in the later rounds.

The uncertainty surrounding most NFL rookies and the constant whiffs by consensus opinions of them also gives you unique leverage. If you read my articles and listened to my advice, you'd have picked up Brian Thomas Jr. and Bucky Irving in a lot of your leagues after Week 3, when I identified them as breakout candidates and begged people to trade for them. In both dynasty and redraft, those moves were fantastic.

I didn't trust my tape evaluation completely back then because I had such differing opinions from the consensus. For example, I always thought Ja'Lynn Polk was terrible, and it turns out that he was. But now I have faith, and I'll share all my best tips about the upcoming rookie class for best ball below.

RB Dylan Sampson

It's always a home run to get the most athletic running backs as rookies in best ball. The infatuation with following the consensus, even when it recommends that you pick up mediocre athletes like Iowa RB Kaleb Johnson, misleads many fantasy managers during drafts and causes you to whiff.

You shouldn't whiff on Sampson. He's a mega-elite athlete, with track star acceleration and top speed, in a football uniform. That's dynamite for best ball. There's little reason to pass up on such a talent, even if he gets drafted to a team with a bad offensive line.

Dylan Sampson is a touchdown machine.

He put up 22 TDs on 5.8 yards per carry in 2024, forcing 83 missed tackles with 929 yards after contact.

Sampson is extremely strong at the goalline despite only being listed at 5’11, 201lbs. Adding more strength will help clean up fumbles. pic.twitter.com/ILSaw4BuNW

— NFL Draft Files (@NFL_DF) February 1, 2025

Add in his 22 touchdowns in the 2024 college football season and his success at the goal line, and you have an underrated player with the potential to be a three-down back. There's a legitimate pathway for him to have a Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III-esque rookie season, bursting onto the scene quickly and immediately becoming a must-start in all formats.

As I've mentioned probably around 100 times in my articles so far, this rookie RB class is very stacked, top to bottom, with a few underrated gems and a few overrated avoids. Sampson is a gem.

RB RJ Harvey

Harvey and Sampson are in the middle tier of rookie backs, according to the consensus, which means in best ball redraft leagues, they'll probably be priced around the eighth round. That's a huge steal because Harvey could easily return the expected value of a player drafted much more highly.

And there's very little risk in using a pick that late because by then, nearly all of the players who are expected to have good seasons have been picked. So, it's great that you're reading this article, where you'll see that Harvey is an absolute beast and should be thought of much more highly.

RJ Harvey has elite lateral quickness in tight spaces.

Forced 69 missed tackles placing him 8th in all of college football.

His 22 rushing touchdowns was 3rd most in 2024 pic.twitter.com/qGdc2v84GN

— PeteNova (@SuperrNova38) January 27, 2025

He was massively underrated before the season ended, but he put together an elite season. He averaged over six yards per carry in three straight seasons, rushed for over 1,500 yards and 22 rushing touchdowns, regularly eluded defenders trying to tackle him, and was excellent as a receiver as well.

Harvey has everything NFL teams want in a workhorse running back. It's unclear whether he'll immediately get a big role, though, as his landing spot is extremely important. But both Sampson and Harvey have the potential to finish as the top rookie fantasy RB in the 2025 season. That's how talented they are.

It may sound wild to say that when Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty is in the class, but no one expected Ladd McConkey to finish with more receiving yards than Marvin Harrison Jr. from the 2024 NFL Draft class. Yet, that's exactly what happened.

RB Bhayshul Tuten

Virginia Tech Hokies running back Bhayshul Tuten is the third player in my trifecta of absolutely ridiculously underrated rookie RBs in the 2025 draft class. You'll know this by now if you've read more of my articles. All three share many similarities.

They're all excellent at dodging and breaking tackles, all have excellent production profiles, all have fantastic acceleration and top speed, and all were able to manage big workloads as their teams' lead tailbacks. Yet, all three are considered to not be first-round picks, with the majority of the fantasy community instead focusing on a mediocre WR class and a tight end who can't run routes well.

Throwback to Bhayshul Tuten silencing UVA

Is Tuten the best kick returner in CFB?#VirginiaTech | #Hokies pic.twitter.com/3EGDOc78Zq

— Peter DiBiasi (@DibiasiPeter) August 4, 2024

Remember when Dallas Cowboys running back Tony Pollard was just a late-round pick in the NFL Draft and would never develop into a great fantasy option? He proved that wrong. Generally, when you see a running back over 205 pounds returning kickoffs, that's a good sign.

In fantasy football, speed and acceleration are of outsized importance because long touchdowns are massive point-scorers, and players who pick up long gains are capable of elevating your team even with limited volume. For rookies, it's even more important because massive explosiveness accelerates the process of them getting increased opportunities.

WR Tre Harris

My No. 1 wide receiver in the 2025 NFL Draft class, Ole Miss WR Tre Harris, was going to make an appearance on this list. In PPR best ball drafts, he's a fantastic late-round pick because he was the best route runner in college football last season and is unguardable in man coverage.

Harris demolished man coverage in such a chart-busting, ridiculous manner that it defies expectation. When lined up against a defender one-on-one, he averaged over 10 yards gained for each route he ran. Not each target or even each catch, but every time he ran a route.

It’s gonna be very hard not to sell me on Tre Harris as a round one receiver. Definition of a man beater 💪 pic.twitter.com/aXG961vBRA

— Air Raid | Buffalo (@TheBillsGuys) December 28, 2024

This is a historically good rate and the highest since that statistic began being tracked. It might be the single-best season a receiver has ever had against man coverage relative to the actual volume he ran in the history of college football. And yet, he's considered outside the top-4 receivers.

Ahead of him are Tetairoa McMillan, who's not a great route runner and very inconsistent, Luther Burden III, who's good after the catch but can't separate from sticky or press coverage and has a very limited route tree, Emeka Egbuka, who's a power-slot archetype and probably won't play X successfully, and Matthew Golden, who's probably a WR3 at the next level for starters.

Harris can do everything -- make contested catches, shred man coverage, shred zone coverage (yes, he was the best in the NCAA at that as well), win downfield, catch jump balls, fight through pass interference, elude defenders with the ball in his hands, and run well after the catch. You need to draft him.

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