Fantasy Football ‘25: The riskiest players in fantasy

Welcome back, readers! In my last column, I discussed the safest players in fantasy football for 2025. Today’s topic is the riskiest early-round players. What does “risky” mean, in the context of a fantasy draft? As always, thanks for asking! Let me try to explain.

Risk isn’t a bad thing, and in this little game we play it’s unavoidable. In fantasy football (and in other endeavors, like investing), you need to take on a certain amount of risk to succeed. Playing it safe might protect your downside, but it also limits your upside. If your goal is to finish fourth or fifth in your fantasy league every year, then just take the safest, “high floor” player available with each pick, and you should be fine. But, that’s no fun! The objective is to win, and we need to take some risks to do that.

As you get deeper into a draft, the fantasy points you can expect from each selection become more speculative. But you’re also paying out less draft capital, so you’re risking less. I’m not worried about taking big swings in the later rounds of a fantasy draft (or even a little before), or with my $1 and $2 picks in an auction format, as I’m not risking all that much on those picks. In fact, I’d say that’s the appropriate strategy. While it’s nice to have some higher floor options on your bench, you also want some players with bigger upside (like backup running backs), even if the downside case is that you’ll drop that player by Week 3.

Taking bigger risks early in drafts is more complicated, because of the opportunity cost. When you take a player with a wider range of outcomes in the first couple of rounds, you’re passing on some very good, high floor players. There’s an adage that you can’t win your fantasy league in Round 1, but you can certainly lose it right there. Those who took Christian McCaffrey last summer know what I’m talking about. Sure, every player carries risk. Any player can get hurt at any time, or fail to perform up to expectations for any number of reasons including usage, injuries to teammates, etc. The chances of these things happening vary from player to player, and our job as fantasy managers is to try to evaluate that downside risk against the cost to draft, the expected return, and the upside case.

What I’m getting at is this: A risky pick can still be a good pick. Some risks are worth taking, even early in drafts. I’ll gladly take some of the players listed below at Average Draft Position (ADP), because I think the risk is worth the potential reward. My goal with this column is to point out some of the early round players who have the widest range of outcomes, and I’m looking at it through the lens of opportunity cost (ADP). Generally speaking, I’m more comfortable taking on risk in Round 3 than in Round 1.

I’m defining “early” as the first three rounds of drafts, and my list is limited to players who currently have an ADP of 36 or better (1 QB Redraft format, Half Point PPR scoring). It’s only June, so ADPs are still going to move around a lot. I’ll have columns later in the summer highlighting players I’m targeting and avoiding at ADP.

All rankings and fantasy points shown are for Half-Point PPR, are based on average fantasy points per game (FPPG), and don’t include the final week of the regular season.

Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images

1. Jahmyr Gibbs – Current ADP: 5 (RB3)

I think Gibbs is a special player. I love his talent and especially his explosiveness. I’m not too concerned with the departure of OC Ben Johnson. What I am concerned about is the fact that Gibbs is still in a shared backfield with David Montgomery. Montgomery went down in Week 15 last season, and from Week 15-18 Gibbs went nuclear and was the RB1, averaging almost 30 FPPG. Through the first 14 games, with Montgomery healthy, Gibbs was the RB4, at 16.9 FPPG. Not too shabby.

The Lions’ defense was incredibly banged up last season and the team got into multiple shootouts – there likely will be some overall regression for the whole offense and especially with the coordinator change. Maybe the Lions will give Gibbs a bigger share this season, but if Montomery stays healthy he’s still going to factor in and especially at the goal line. Gibbs is going in the Top-5 of drafts and that’s a very high price for a running back who’s in any kind of real timeshare. So I see some risk (of a wider range of outcomes) at his cost. To be clear, I’m not down on Gibbs, but I’d be more comfortable taking him a little later than he’s projected. Maybe “ranked too high” is a better descriptor than “risky”, but hopefully you get the idea.

2. Puka Nacua – ADP: 9 (WR5)

Nacua injured his knee in Week 1 and didn’t return until Week 8. When he came back, he reprised his target-hog form from his rookie year. He was the WR2 from his return through Week 17. So why do I see risk, at ADP? My main concern with Nacua at his current price is the addition of Davante Adams, who showed down the stretch last season that he can still be a WR1 who commands a lot of targets. Nacua plays the game with abandon and takes too many hits for my liking, but even if he manages to stay on the field for all 18 games, I’m not 100% sure he’ll lead his team in targets or catches, and I feel even less confident in him scoring more TDs than Adams.

Again, I’m not “down” on Nacua for 2025. I love the player and his situation with Matt Stafford, in a Sean McVay offense. But I feel a little more comfortable taking any of Nico Collins, Malik Nabers, or maybe even Brian Thomas, Jr. at or near the 1-2 turn, and especially in Half-point PPR. They’re all the clear No. 1s on their team and should get insane volume. As an aside, I’m very intrigued with Adams at his ADP (36).

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3. Christian McCaffrey – ADP: 13 (RB6)

McCaffrey would be the first player listed if I wasn’t doing this list in order of ADP. He’s the poster child of what it means to be a risky pick, as perhaps no player has a wider range of outcomes in 2025. We saw the ceiling in 2023, and it was real, and spectacular. CMC scored the most fantasy points of any non-quarterback, and was the overall No. 3 player. But then the floor reared its ugly head when a series of lower leg injuries sidelined him for most of 2024, and he only appeared in four games (averaging just 10 FPPG in those contests).

Is he back to full strength? Has he lost a step? Can he hold up for a full season? Who knows? I certainly don’t. He also turns 29 this week. If you do take the gamble on his massive upside, my advice is to overpay to make certain you handcuff him. We’ve seen over and over what backup running backs can do in Kyle Shanahan’s offense.

4. De’Von Achane – ADP: 17 (RB7)

When you look at Achane’s game logs from last season, what jumps off the page is the correlation with Tua Tagovailoa being in the lineup. In the 11 games that Tua played, Achane was the RB1, scoring even more FPPG than Saquon Barkley. But in the six games Tua missed, the entire offense stalled and that included Achane, who scored less than 10 fantasy points in five of those six outings. Tua is always an injury risk, and at 5-foot-9, 185 pounds, Achane is among the smallest lead backs in the league. He missed six games as a rookie but managed to stay healthy in 2024. Throw in that Miami has had a really weird offseason and I’ve got my share of concerns here. On the flip side, Achane has little competition in Miami, he’s a very good pass catcher, he’ll actually benefit from what could be quite a few shootouts, and his breakaway speed is a huge plus. I do think the ADP is fair and that he’s a risk worth taking if you can get him in the back half of Round 2.

5. A.J. Brown – ADP: 18 (WR10)

After a stellar 2023 (WR7), Brown took a step back last season (WR12), and perhaps most telling is that his per-game target volume dropped from 9.29 to 7.46. The explanation is simple. The Eagles were much better on defense (and especially in the secondary) than they were in 2023, and because of that, plus the addition of Barkley, they ran more and threw less. On the season, the Eagles were the NFL’s most run-heavy team (56.3%), and on the flip side they attempted and completed the fewest number of passes.

Their defense should again be very good, if not even better. If the 2024 trends continue, it’s risky to pay up for Brown in the middle of the second round. He’s very talented, but you can only do so much in an offense that doesn’t throw a lot. There are other players in his range (Achane, for example) that I think offer more value and ceiling.

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6. Marvin Harrison, Jr. – ADP: 32 (WR16)

This one is very straightforward. Harrison was wildly hyped as a rookie, got drafted in the second round of many a fantasy draft, and didn’t deliver. He finished as the WR40, at just 9.4 FPPG. He averaged just 6.8 targets per game and only topped 15 fantasy points in a game twice all season. He also didn’t seem to be on the same page as quarterback Kyler Murray for much of the season. All in all, it spelled frustration for those who spent big to roster him.

A new season means a new opportunity. MJH showed up at OTAs looking as ripped as D.K. Metcalf, and maybe this is the year. While I do expect improvement from last season, a third round price feels a little high for a player who has yet to prove he can perform consistently at the NFL level. At the same time, he was a Top-5 pick in the NFL draft for a reason. This is a classic risk-reward dilemma. I’ll mostly be avoiding this risk.

7. Breece Hall – ADP: 33 (RB13)

Hall was one of a very small number of RBs who burned fantasy managers last season, which was otherwise the season of the RB. Hall split time with rookie Braelon Allen a lot more than expected, and just never seemed to get rolling. The addition of Justin Fields might be a positive for the offense on the whole, but Fields scores a lot of rushing TDs and has never supported a Top-10 running back for fantasy. In general, his lead backs have been just OK (at best) from a fantasy standpoint. One of Hall’s biggest strengths is catching passes and throwing to RBs is not a huge part of Fields’s game. Allen is also still there and will get some share of the playing time. Hall was a first-round pick in 2024 and he’s now got a Round 3 price, so I get that he might be a real value given his talent. Just know the risk you’re taking.

8. Tyreek Hill – ADP: 34 (WR17)

Another Dolphin! Well, that makes sense, as this feels like one of the riskier offenses to invest in, in general. Between Tua’s injury history, Mike McDaniels being on the hot seat, and the very weird offseason this team has had (which includes Tyreek, who at one point apparently asked for a trade), the vibes aren’t good. Still, here we have a player with a long track record of dominance and who was the WR1 in 2023. In 2024, he saw his yards and TDs basically drop by half. He was apparently playing with an injured wrist, and the four game Tua absence early in the season was a brutal stretch for the entire offense. And it was even worse for Hill managers because he was so hard to bench then, and when Tua missed games again at the end of the season. But frankly, he was just OK when Tua played, and a far cry from what he did with Tua the previous two seasons.

Hill is now 31, which is certainly a a concern given the dropoff last season, but he’s still as fast and scary as anyone on the field. His first two seasons in Miami were truly electric and the hope is he can return to that. I think he’s worth the risk at his current ADP, but know that you could end up with a season-long headache if things again go sideways. Tyreek Hill in the third sounds crazy, but that’s where we are.

That’s my list. If you’ve got a player to add, please put it in the comments. And keep it here for more fantasy content through the summer!