When preparing for your fantasy football drafts, knowing which players to target and others to avoid is important. The amount of information available can be overwhelming, so a great way to condense the data and determine players to draft and others to leave for your leaguemates is to use our expert consensus fantasy football rankings compared to fantasy football average draft position (ADP). In this way, you can identify players the experts are willing to reach for at ADP and others they are not drafting until much later than average. Let’s dive into a few notable fantasy football players below. And you can check out which experts are higher or lower than our expert consensus rankings using our Fantasy Football Rankings Comparison Tools.
Fantasy Football Draft Advice: Players to Target & Avoid
Let’s dive into players I like more or less than the expert consensus rankings.
Fantasy Football Draft Picks to Target
Running Backs I Like More Than ECR
| Pat Fitzmaurice’s Rank | Player | ECR | Diff. |
| 24 | Kaleb Johnson PIT – RB | 29 | 5 |
| 31 | Cam Skattebo NYG – RB | 39 | 8 |
| 33 | Jordan Mason MIN – RB | 38 | 5 |
| 47 | J.K. Dobbins DEN – RB | 51 | 4 |
| 53 | Nick Chubb HOU – RB | 58 | 5 |
Rookie Kaleb Johnson is expected to replace Najee Harris as the Steelers’ primary early-down back. Johnson was a committee back his first two years at Iowa, then broke out with 240-1,537-21 rushing last fall. He’s a powerful downhill runner who’s hard to bring down if you hit him high. It’s easy to envision him being an effective goal-line back in the NFL. A good fit for offensive coordinator Arthur Smith’s zone-running scheme in Pittsburgh, Johnson is a patient runner who reads his blocks well. He doesn’t have great long speed, doesn’t change speeds often or make sharp cuts. Still, Johnson landed in a favorable spot and could make a big impact right away.
After a monster season for Arizona State in which he had 293-1,711-21 rushing and 45-605-3 receiving, Cam Skattebo now heads to the Giants, where he’ll work in tandem with talented second-year RB Tyrone Tracy. Casual college football fans learned Skattebo’s name when he had 233 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns in Arizona State’s overtime loss to Texas in the College Football Playoffs. Skattebo’s ultra-physical style belies his 5-11, 215-pound frame. Skattebo keeps his feet pumping through contact and always seems to be falling forward at the end of runs. The guess here is that Skattebo and Tracy will split work pretty evenly, but it seems a good bet that Skattebo will a majority of the goal-line carries.
When the Vikings traded for Jordan Mason in the offseason, they immediately gave him a two-year deal that includes more than $7 million in guaranteed money, suggesting that they have plans for him. With Christian McCaffrey sidelined at the start of the 2024 season, Mason averaged 107 rushing yards for the 49ers over the first five games of the season (before getting hurt himself), 120 scrimmage yards per game, and 5.1 yards per carry. The Vikings’ running scheme uses a lot of outside zone, which is right up Mason’s alley. Mason could have some stand-alone value this season, and he’d become immensely valuable if anything happened to 30-year-old Vikings RB Aaron Jones.
After tearing his Achilles in Week 1 of the 2023 season, J.K. Dobbins made a successful return in 2024, rolling up 905 rushing yards and nine touchdowns for the Chargers in 13 games. Dobbins now joins the Broncos, where he’ll be part of Sean Payton’s backfield. Payton likes to use multiple running backs, and no doubt rookie R.J. Harvey will be prominently involved. But Dobbins figures to have a role as well, and it’s possible he’ll be Payton’s preferred goal-line back.
Wide Receivers I Like More Than ECR
| Pat Fitzmaurice’s Rank | Player | ECR | Diff. |
| 4 | Brian Thomas Jr. JAC – WR | 8 | 4 |
| 21 | Tetairoa McMillan CAR – WR | 29 | 8 |
| 28 | Calvin Ridley TEN – WR | 33 | 5 |
| 29 | Jerry Jeudy CLE – WR | 36 | 7 |
| 37 | Stefon Diggs NE – WR | 43 | 6 |
Brian Thomas turned in a sublime rookie season, catching 87 passes for 1,282 yards and 10 touchdowns. He thrived even when backup QB Mac Jones was forced to fill in for injured starter Trevor Lawrence. And Thomas passed every eye test: running crisp routes, making touch catches, and doing heavy damage after the catch. There was nothing fluky about this performance. Expect more of the same.
Tetairoa McMillan topped 1,300 receiving yards in each of his last two college seasons at the University of Arizona and is now poised to immediately become the Panthers’ No. 1 receiver after Carolina took him with the eighth overall pick in the draft. The 6-foot-5 McMillan is a classic X receiver — although he can also be a matchup nightmare as a big slot receiver. He has a planetary catch radius and good, strong hands. He also has advanced route-running chops, a good feel for attacking zone coverage, and he’s no shrinking violet when asked to go over the middle.
Since missing the 2022 season due to a gambling suspension, Calvin Ridley has produced two straight 1,000-yard seasons and hasn’t missed a game over that span. He endured gruesome quarterbacking in Tennessee last year, and now Ridley gets to play with top overall draft pick Cam Ward, an aggressive downfield thrower. Ridley is the Titans’ undisputed No. 1 receiver, and I think he’s likely to see more than the 120 targets he had last season. There’s a good chance Ridley will provide WR2 numbers at a low-end WR3 price.
Fantasy Football Draft Picks to Avoid
Running Backs I Like Less Than ECR
| Expert Consensus’s Rank | Player | Pat Fitzmaurice’s Rank | Diff. |
| 21 | David Montgomery DET – RB | 25 | 4 |
| 22 | D’Andre Swift CHI – RB | 26 | 4 |
| 25 | Quinshon Judkins CLE – RB | 29 | 4 |
| 34 | Travis Etienne Jr. JAC – RB | 39 | 5 |
| 37 | Rhamondre Stevenson NE – RB | 41 | 4 |
David Montgomery could be hard-pressed to turn a profit on his low-end RB2 ADP. He shares work with Jahmyr Gibbs, one of the most talented RBs in the league. Montgomery has averaged 16.8 and 15.8 touches a game in Gibbs’ first two seasons. I’ll bet the under on 15.8 touches a game for Montgomery in 2025, as I expect an uptick in Gibbs’ usage. We could also see a dip in Montgomery’s TD total. He’s scored 13 and 12 touchdowns the last two years, as the Lions ranked first and fifth in scoring those two seasons. If the Lions scale back Montgomery’s usage to give Gibbs more snaps, or if the Detroit offense has hiccups after losing offensive coordinator Ben Johnson to the Bears, Monty’s TD total could slip. He’s a quality running back, but I see Montgomery as more of an RB3 than an RB2.
The Cleveland Browns took Quinshon Judkins early in the second round of this year’s draft and will probably use him as their lead back, though he’ll have to fend off competition from veteran Jerome Ford and fellow rookie Dylan Sampson. A powerful, decisive runner with good contact balance and nifty feet, Quinshon Judkins had 1,567 rushing yards and 16 touchdowns as a true freshman at Ole Miss. His last two college seasons were good but not quite as awe-inspiring. The limitation of the Cleveland offense could keep Judkins’ fantasy value in check this year, but he has a chance to provide RB3 or flex value, if not more.
Travis Etienne is going into the final year of his contract. He was outplayed by Tank Bigsby last season, and now the Jaguars have drafted the speedy Bhayshul Tuten. Etienne had 1,484 yards from scrimmage and 12 touchdowns in 2023. He was terrific over the first half of that season but slowed down in the second half. Then the bottom fell out last year. Etienne averaged 3.7 yards per carry last season. More damning is that he averaged minus-0.28 rushing yards over expected per carry, per NFL Next Gen Stats. It’s possible Etienne goes back to being the playmaker he was as a rookie in 2022 and for the first half of the 2023 season. But it’s possible the Jaguars marginalize Etienne in 2025 and let him walk after the season.
Rhamondre Stevenson may have peaked with his 1,040-yard rushing season in 2022. He missed five games in 2023, and his 2024 season was a disappointment. Stevenson averaged a career-low 3.9 yards per carry last season, and his seven fumbles cost him some playing time. Now, the Patriots have added playmaking RB TreVeyon Henderson, a second-round draft pick. A 50/50 workload split might be the best Stevenson investors could hope for in 2025.
Wide Receivers I Like Less Than ECR
| Expert Consensus’s Rank | Player | Pat Fitzmaurice’s Rank | Diff. |
| 16 | Rashee Rice KC – WR | 20 | 4 |
| 23 | Courtland Sutton DEN – WR | 27 | 4 |
| 24 | Zay Flowers BAL – WR | 30 | 6 |
| 26 | Jameson Williams DET – WR | 31 | 5 |
| 31 | Travis Hunter JAC – WR | 35 | 4 |
Rashee Rice was electric early last season, averaging 21.6 PPR fantasy points per game over the first three weeks of the season. But he tore his torn LCL and PCL in Week 4, and he also needed surgery to repair a hamstring tendon. It’s possible Rice goes right back to being Patrick Mahomes’ favorite short-area target and picks up where he left off. But young WR Xavier Worthy asserted himself for the Chiefs down the stretch last season, and it’s possible Rice doesn’t have quite the same juice this year post-injury. A lot of people think Rice is worthy of a second-round fantasy draft pick this year. I see him as more of a third- or fourth-round value.
Zay Flowers is very talented and worth the first-round pick the Ravens spent on him in 2023, but the nature of the Ravens’ offense works makes Flowers an inconsistent fantasy performer. There were eight games last season in which Flowers had six or fewer targets. There were also eight games in which Flowers finished with fewer than 40 receiving yards. The problem is that the Ravens ran the ball on 52.5% of their offensive snaps this year. Only the Eagles were run-heavier. That probably won’t change much this year with Lamar Jackson at quarterback and Derrick Henry at running back for Baltimore, so we should probably expect more inconsistency from Flowers in his third NFL season.
