5 Busts to Avoid: Running Backs (2025 Fantasy Football)

Get ready for your fantasy football draft with our fantasy football draft day cheat sheets. Our analysts dive into their favorite fantasy football draft targets and sleepers, as well as overvalued players and busts they’re avoiding in drafts. Let us help you prepare for your fantasy football draft with our cheat sheets! And use our Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet Creator to create your cheat sheet using our expert rankings, notes, and player tags. Here are a few fantasy football busts our experts avoid.

Fantasy Football Draft Cheat Sheet: Busts to Avoid

Running Back Busts

Undoubtedly, the consensus RB1 in 2025 will be Saquon Barkley after arguably the greatest season we have ever seen from the position. Over 2,000 rushing yards as the only skill player to average more than 20 points per game in half-PPR. He led the NFL in touches with nearly 500…running effectively behind the league’s best OL. But as was the case with Christian McCaffrey last season…leading the NFL in touches by such a vast margin is essentially the kiss of death for running backs the following year. Only two RBs finished as RB1s the following year after leading the NFL in touches since 2013. Ezekiel Elliott is the only one over that period to finish inside the top 5.

It feels like Groundhog Day all over again – another offseason, another round of analysts fading Kyren Williams. But this year, the concerns are more justified, in the last year of William’s rookie contract. Despite a monster workload in 2024 (nearly 400 touches, 87% snap share, both second to only Saquon Barkley), Williams was wildly inefficient – ranking near the bottom in explosive run rate, missed tackles, and YAC per attempt (akin to Najee Harris’ numbers in 2024) with fumbles to boot. The Rams spent legit draft capital on Blake Corum in 2023 (who Sean McVay thinks is a stud) and Jarquez Hunter in 2024 (who the Rams traded up for) while publicly embracing the NFL trends of a more committee-driven backfield approach this offseason. Williams could still deliver RB1 numbers on sheer volume alone, but if that volume even slightly dips, it will be tough for him to live up to his ADP.

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