A fantasy football draft is rarely won or lost in the first or second round. Those players should be anchors, the reliable pieces of your roster that provide a strong baseline of points throughout a fantasy football season. The best way to win a league is to be the smartest guy in the room when it comes to drafting late talent that can return early-round value.
The other side of that coin is recognizing which players to avoid as the draft moves into the middle and later rounds. These players go in wildly different places depending on what site you draft on, but our analysis seeks to help you pinpoint undervalued and overvalued players on every fantasy football platform. This monthly series will look at Fantrax to identify players to draft and players to avoid.
- Fantasy Football Draft Kit
- 2025 Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
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- Fantasy Football Trade Tools
Overvalued Fantasy Football Players to Avoid on Fantrax
The 2025 NFL and fantasy football season will be here before we know it, but even in mid-summer, managers are starting to draft their leagues or participate in mock drafts. Analyzing those drafts is an interesting exercise when there is relatively little news, but other clues can point us to whether players are undervalued or overvalued as we enter prime draft season. Beginning that homework now will give us an advantage when the masses come around in August.
Gaining that edge now means looking where players are being drafted on different sites. Comparing those values to FantasyPros’ expert consensus ranks (ECR) is an easy way to gauge players who seem overpriced early in the summer. Here are four overvalued players according to early Fantrax average draft position (ADP) in PPR leagues.
Jonathan Taylor (RB – IND) | Fantrax ADP: 20.2/ECR: 33
There is (and should be) a major discrepancy in the ECR ranking for Jonathan Taylor in standard formats versus the ECR ranking for Jonathan Taylor in PPR formats. Taylor is 14th overall in standard, while he is picked 33rd in PPR. Why? He simply has not been involved in the passing game historically.
Last year, Taylor was 38th among running backs with 31 targets, and he had just an 8% target share. He was 17th in routes run (2o2) and only caught 58% of the balls thrown at him. Some of that is the inaccuracy of Anthony Richardson last year, but Taylor makes his money rushing the ball and scoring touchdowns. He does plenty of that, just not enough of the passing game work to justify a top-20 pick in PPR formats.
Taylor’s value is undeniable in all fantasy football formats, don’t get me wrong. He was fifth in carries, sixth in red zone touches, and fourth in overall rushing yards. In standard and even half-PPR formats, bump his stock up significantly. But if we are talking about valuable points for receptions, receiving yards, and receiving scores, Taylor falls behind other backs like De’Von Achae, Bucky Irving, and maybe even Chase Brown for me.
Xavier Worthy (WR – KC) | ADP: 43.9/ECR: 65
For a PPR league, this ADP is just too high for a wide receiver who will be wildly up and down with targets in his sophomore year. Even in a Patrick Mahomes offense, a field-stretcher like Worthy, who makes his living on bombs and short receptions where he can burn defenders, is worth something much closer to the 65th pick where expert rankers have him than 44th overall.
On Fantrax, the opportunity cost for drafting Worthy means passing on players like Marvin Harrison, Jr., Courtland Sutton, Zay Flowers, and Jaylen Waddle. I am now much more convinced that each of those receivers gets 120 targets than I am for Worthy. Worthy saw 98 in his rookie season and now has Rashee Rice back and a healthy Hollywood Brown to contend with.
Last year, Worthy was a touchdown machine (nine scores, which was ninth at the position), but that stat is not sticky. His 17% target share and 23.7% air yards share (59th among wide receivers) foreshadow that this is going to be a good, but not great, year for Worthy in PPR formats.
Tetairoa McMillan (WR – CAR) | ADP: 50.5/ECR: 66
What Xavier Worthy lacks in this range in consistent production, McMillan lacks in experience. He has never stepped foot on an NFL field, yet we are supposed to treat him like a top-50 pick in PPR formats on Fantrax? Not me. The wide receivers in this range in ECR are DeVonta Smith and Zay Flowers. Give me both of them over McMillan and his volatile, unknown offensive situation.
Yes, Bryce Young took a major step forward in the second half of 2024, finishing well inside the top-12 quarterbacks during that timeframe. But that doesn’t mean his problems from his first season and a half are fixed, and McMillan is going to step up and be an alpha receiver worthy of a fifth-round pick.
In PPR formats, I want consistency in production early and upside late. McMillan is an unknown asset at this point despite his unbelievable numbers in college. Can those translate to the NFL? I would rather use my 50th pick on a player whose skills we can count on than a rookie with no experience.
Cooper Kupp (WR – SEA) | ADP: 86.1/ECR: 102
For many years, Cooper Kupp was the face and the focal point of the Los Angeles Rams’ offense. Despite some record-breaking years, they just decided to let him go this offseason without any sort of fanfare and only a meager attempt at a re-signing. No contract extension. No trade talks. They didn’t worry about a compensatory draft pick. The Rams decided they had what they needed with Matthew Stafford, Puka Nacua, Davante Adams and Kyren Williams. Add in Blake Corum, and the offense in Los Angeles looks set. Kupp eventually signed with Seattle.
Seattle’s offense is almost completely turned over from 2024. Gone are Geno Smith, Tyler Lockett, and DK Metcalf. Replacing them are Kupp and Sam Darnold. In 2025, there are 182 vacated targets from Metcalf and Lockett, and those have to go somewhere. However, it’s not that targets were the issue with Kupp in his decline year in 2024, but what he did with those targets. His ultra-efficiency from 2020-2022 vanished.
Kupp’s yards per reception, yards per target, and success rate all declined last year. Add in the fact that Kupp has missed at least five games in three straight years, and paying the 86th pick overall seems too high on Fantrax when other rankers on FantasyPros have him going after pick 100.
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