Fantasy Football Advice: Late First-Round Draft Picks (2025)

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. Here is our fantasy football draft advice for first-round draft picks in 2025 fantasy football leagues.

Fantasy Football Draft Advice & Strategy

Late-Round Fantasy Football Draft Pick Advice

Players to Avoid at 1.10 Fantasy Football Draft Pick

A.J. Brown (WR – PHI)

It was a strange 2024 season for A.J. Brown. He recorded the second-highest target share among wide receivers (31.1%) and the fifth-most receiving yards per game (83). However, he finished as just the fantasy WR16 in total PPR points. Even on a per-game basis, this only jumped to WR13.

Brown’s 7.5 targets per game ranked 23rd among receivers, which highlights the uphill battle he faced while Saquon Barkley had a season for the history books.

Perhaps if Barkley regresses this year, or if the Eagles trend differently under new offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo, Brown can move back into the top tier of receivers. For now, the pick 1.10 is too costly for a player with question marks.

Ladd McConkey (WR – LAC)

Let’s be clear, Ladd McConkey had an excellent rookie season, culminating in a dominant performance in the playoffs with 9/197/1 against the Texans. However, there are reasons to be skeptical that he could live up to his current ADP, which is edging towards round one.

Last year, the Chargers’ run game wasn’t effective, despite J.K. Dobbins‘ best efforts, and the Chargers elected to clean house and move on from both Dobbins and Gus Edwards, while seemingly sending Sione Vaki to the shadow realm. Najee Harris was signed in free agency and Omarion Hampton was added in the draft.

Both represent significant upgrades and should allow long-time ground-game lover, Greg Roman, to play to his strengths more. If that generates a more efficient offense, the need for passing could drop slightly. That is always a concern for receivers, like McConkey, who depend on volume. McConkey is an OK pick in the second round, but drafting him here would be a mistake.

Draft Advice for Every First-Round Pick