20 Players Experts Target & Avoid (2025 Fantasy Football)

When preparing for your fantasy football drafts, knowing which players to target and 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 players to leave for your leaguemates is to compare our expert consensus fantasy football rankings to fantasy football average draft position (ADP). This helps identify players the experts are willing to reach for at ADP and players the experts aren’t drafting until much later than average.

Let’s take a look at some of the players on whom I differ from the expert consensus. (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

Let’s dive into players I like more or less than the expert consensus rankings.

Players to Target

Wide Receivers I Like More Than ECR

Pat Fitzmaurice’s Rank	Player	ECR	Diff.
21	Tetairoa McMillan CAR – WR	28	7
23	Xavier Worthy KC – WR	27	4
25	Jaylen Waddle MIA – WR	29	4
26	Calvin Ridley TEN – WR	30	4
36	Stefon Diggs NE – WR	42	6

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.

Xavier Worthy came on strong late in his rookie season. If you include playoff games, and if you exclude Week 18, when the Chiefs sat their starters. Worthy had 50 catches over his last eight games, with at least five catches in each of those games. That’s better than a 100-catch pace over a full season. But Worthy was largely playing the role that was vacated by the injured Rashee Rice, and now Rice is healthy. But Rice is also facing a potential suspension for causing a multi-car crash in Dallas in March 2024. It’s reasonable to assume that Worthy won’t continue to produce at a 100-catch pace when Rice is in the lineup, but Worthy isn’t going to fade into the woodwork and just be a Marquez Valdes-Scantling type decoy either. Worthy is still compelling, as long as you can get him at a reasonable price.

Running Backs I Like More Than ECR

Pat Fitzmaurice’s Rank	Player	ECR	Diff.
24	Kaleb Johnson PIT – RB	28	4
32	Jordan Mason MIN – RB	40	8
33	Cam Skattebo NYG – RB	38	5
41	Jerome Ford CLE – RB	49	8
46	Bhayshul Tuten JAC – RB	51	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.

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.

Players to Avoid

Wide Receivers I Like Less Than ECR

Expert Consensus’s Rank	Player	Pat Fitzmaurice’s Rank	Diff.
22	Courtland Sutton DEN – WR	27	5
23	Rashee Rice KC – WR	28	5
25	Zay Flowers BAL – WR	30	5
26	Jameson Williams DET – WR	31	5
34	Chris Godwin TB – WR	42	8

Rashee Rice was electric early last season, averaging 21.6 PPR fantasy points per game over the first three weeks. But he tore his LCL in Week 4 and missed the rest of the year. 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. Rice is also facing a potential suspension for his involvement in a multi-car crash in Dallas in March 2024. The likelihood of a suspension is probably going to drop Rice into low-end WR2 range in most fantasy drafts.

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.

Jameson Williams had a nice little third-year breakout for the Lions in 2024, finishing with 58-1,001-7 in 15 games. The former first-round draft pick oozes big-play potential, but it’s going to be a bumpy ride, because Jamo isn’t a high-volume guy. He averaged 6.1 targets per game last year. The departure of the Lions 2024 offensive coordinator, Ben Johnson, could lead to an overall offensive downturn in Detroit, and it’s unlikely that Jared Goff’s career-high 6.9% TD rate from last year will stick. Williams is certainly worth your attention, but don’t overpay.

Running Backs I Like Less Than ECR

Expert Consensus’s Rank	Player	Pat Fitzmaurice’s Rank	Diff.
20	Joe Mixon HOU – RB	28	8
30	Jaylen Warren PIT – RB	34	4
37	Rhamondre Stevenson NE – RB	44	7
45	Ray Davis BUF – RB	51	6
52	Jaylen Wright MIA – RB	59	7

Over the last four years, Joe Mixon has averaged 1,377 yards from scrimmage and 12.3 touchdowns per season. Mixon figures to be the Texans’ lead back once again — if healthy. He’s dealing with a foot injury, and his availability for Week 1 is in jeopardy. Mixon is heading into his age-29 season, and it’s possible he’ll cede some snaps to rookie Woody Marks on passing downs and to veteran Nick Chubb on early downs. The Texans also have one of the league’s worst offensive lines, which could prevent Mixon from turning in another strong season.

Jaylen Warren should once again have something close to a half share of the Pittsburgh backfield, with his tag-team partner now rookie Kaleb Johnson instead of Najee Harris. Warren is 5-8, 215 pounds, so he isn’t cut out to handle 20 carries a game. But Warren has averaged 61.7 scrimmage yards per game over the last two years while sharing work with Harris, who didn’t miss any games over that stretch. Warren has averaged 4.8 yards per carry over his NFL career but has never averaged more than 8.8 carries per game in any of his three NFL seasons. The workload may not expand significantly, but perhaps we can squeeze a few more touchdowns out of Warren, who’s scored only six TDs in 48 career games.