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Kaleb Johnson, Tetairoa McMillan, Matthew Golden - Dynasty Fantasy Football Rookie Draft Busts

Kaleb Johnson - College Football Rankings, NCAA CFB DFS Lineup Picks - NFL Draft

John's fantasy football rookie draft avoids for 2025. His overvalued dynasty NFL rookies. Why will Kaleb Johnson, Tetairoa McMillan, and Matthew Golden bust in 2025 dynasty fantasy football?

Perhaps the worst feeling you can get as a dynasty fantasy football manager that doesn't relate directly to losing matchups is when you invest a premium pick in a rookie draft in a player that ends up being a bust. Much of your offseason research should be dedicated to really scrutinizing players and their situations.

Of course, some players have the talent to overcome poor offensive situations. Just look at Las Vegas Raiders tight end Brock Bowers. Despite playing on a terrible offense with overall poor quarterback play, he had a massive rookie season and was easily the TE1 in all scoring formats.

Yet Bowers is the exception rather than the rule. And he was an utterly elite prospect without many red flags. In fact, the "red flags" were mostly due to poor quarterback play in college. Whatever the reasons may be, let's break down three busts that you should avoid like the plague in 2025 dynasty fantasy football rookie drafts.

Be sure to check all of our dynasty fantasy football resources for 2025:

 

Kaleb Johnson, RB, Pittsburgh Steelers

When a player puts up huge numbers in a conference like the Big 10, there's typically an overwhelming sentiment in the community that it's because that player is good and that they have to succeed at the next level. No one is guaranteed success in the NFL, so that's a fallacious take.

More importantly, in terms of red flags, Johnson has them all over his athletic profile and film. It's important not to flatly deny the possibility that he busts because his statistics were impressive. What's more important is to dive into the context as much as possible. There's no better context than film.

A huge problem with Johnson is that you don't have to look very hard to find out why he was successful -- his team's run-blocking was elite. In fact, it was the best in the Power 4 last season. The film backs this up. Johnson's big runs mostly seem to follow the same pattern.

The offensive line opens up massive holes, and the team blocks well down the field. Then he has massive swaths of green grass to run through. Football is a team sport. Running back statistical production is largely driven by the quality of blocking. Even poor athletes like Johnson can be made to look incredible to the layman's eye.

Johnson had a massive game against Minnesota last season on the stat sheet. But the real heroes of the game were the blockers. It's a commonly used argument that Johnson faced stacked boxes, and therefore his runs were hugely impressive, but if the blockers take care of the box defenders, is it that impressive for the RB?

I intentionally included multiple clips from the same game to show how Johnson got massive amounts of "free" production. Generally, he just runs to the gap where he thinks a hole will be created and tries to run through it. If that doesn't work, the results are usually terrible, even sometimes when the blocking is good.

Johnson is massively praised for his vision. Yet he has multiple reps per game where he seems to not have a clue what's going on, and routinely misses huge gaps to run through, instead opting to run into his own offensive linemen's backsides.

Johnson is also disqualifyingly bad at avoiding trip attempts. Defenders just need to swipe at one of his legs to bring him down. There are numerous examples of this on tape. Of course, they're largely ignored by the community, who continue to point back at his statistical production as proof that he MUST be good in the NFL.

Johnson's "good" tape is mostly comprised of good offensive line and blocking scheme footage. Johnson's bad tape is utterly awful. He was the worst running back to test at the 2025 NFL Combine, too, which didn't help. He ran a 4.57-second 40-yard-dash (bottom-6) with a 1.57-second 10-yard-split. That was tied for the worst.

There is plenty of precedent for highly productive running backs in tough college conferences being complete busts in the NFL. Yet everyone seems afraid to predict the next one, because great college numbers mean a running back is very good and will be great in the NFL, right? This time it won't happen again, surely.

Ignoring Johnson's red flags because of his statistical production is foolish. Once upon a time, a running back dominated in his final college season, putting up 1,414 rushing yards on 215 carries, good for a ridiculous 6.6 yards per carry, scoring 16 rushing touchdowns, and ripping off an 89-yard play.

That was Clyde Edwards-Helaire, the 1.01 in 2020 dynasty rookie drafts. He was bad enough in the NFL that he lost his job to a 7th-round pick. He was also a poor athlete in an extremely fortunate situation in college. Johnson, interestingly, reminds me a lot of CEH.

 

Tetairoa McMillan, WR, Carolina Panthers

The hype around McMillan was never justified, in my opinion. There's essentially nothing but positive propaganda for him on social media, though, so it makes sense that most are so high on him. Like Johnson, though, I believe McMillan simply has too many red flags that I can't look past.

I want to point out first, though, that he could end up as a solid player and still not be worth his ADP. He's being drafted third overall, and as the WR1, in dynasty rookie drafts. He's a below-average athlete who got drafted to a poor offensive situation, though, and his film shows plenty of red flags that are being swept under the rug.

First things first. He didn't test at the 2025 NFL Combine. Instead, he ran a 40-yard dash at his Pro Day. There's a reason a lot of prospects do this -- it's because hand-timed 40s are always faster than laser-timed, because of the human reaction time element of it.

Here's a great article that explains that. The difference can be stark -- between 0.2 and 0.3 seconds faster for hand-timed 40s than laser-timed. It wouldn't have been difficult for Arizona to set up a laser-timing system for T-Mac, but that could have tanked his draft stock.

As fantasy managers, we're constantly exposed to garbage data. McMillan's agent made sure everyone thought he ran a 4.48-second 40, but that's just not true. The film indicates that his speed is in the 4.6s at best, which aligns with the research linked above (adding 0.2-0.3 seconds).

The argument that he performed well in college and is tall, so he must succeed in the NFL, is another flawed one. He doesn't have the vertical speed to win on deep routes unless the ball is put in harm's way for him to make a contested catch. He's praised as a route-runner, but I just don't see it on film.

There are also some deeply concerning issues regarding his effort. On a team like the Carolina Panthers, which had a rough year last year on offense, this is even more worrying. If quarterback Bryce Young doesn't truly break out in 2025 and continues to struggle, T-Mac could be a big liability for his ADP.

McMillan is at his best over the middle of the field with the ball in his hands when he gets free releases off the line of scrimmage or can bully smaller, less athletic DBs with his size. That's not a pathway to good, sustainable production in the NFL. I'm not drafting him anywhere.

 

Matthew Golden, WR, Green Bay Packers

The situation Golden is in is terrible. There's an absolute mess of WRs on the Packers that don't tend to stand out from one another, and Packers head coach Matt LaFleur loves to spread the ball around as much as possible. He's indicated as much in past offseasons, though he was wrongfully ignored by the fantasy community.

Romeo Doubs, Christian Watson (knee) when he returns, Josh Jacobs, Tucker Kraft, Dontayvion Wicks, Savion Williams, and Jayden Reed will all be competing for targets on what was one of the most run-heavy offenses in the league last season. That's pretty hideous stuff.

I also have major issues with Golden's profile. He just doesn't seem to have even a decent release package. Upon reviewing his film, I noticed an effective game plan that attempted to move him away from 1-on-1 coverage and into open space. He was also an inefficient receiver.

He wasn't great at earning targets in college, either. He didn't have a great overall season, and really only started to "break out" after Isaiah Bond's injury hampered his play. I can't imagine drafting Golden anywhere. From my analysis and research, he's just a bad player.

Golden is a bad prospect whose draft capital got massively boosted by the injury to Bond and the 40-yard dash performance. There's a huge laundry list of players with poor college efficiency (YPRR, TPRR, etc.) who excelled in the NFL, even after running blazingly fast 40-yard dashes. So I'm completely out on Golden.



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