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 I’m avoiding at their current draft cost.
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 I’m avoiding at their current draft cost.
Fantasy Football Draft Advice: Players to Avoid
Let’s dive into the players I’m avoiding at ADP.
Patrick Mahomes (KC)
Patrick Mahomes hasn’t been a top-six fantasy quarterback in fantasy points per game since 2022. Over the past two seasons, his passing prowess has suffered with 6.8 and 7.0 yards per attempt and back-to-back finishes with less than 30 passing touchdowns and a 4.5% passing touchdown rate. His rushing production is a nice added value bump at this point that we should expect. Mahomes has finished inside the top 12 quarterbacks in rushing yards in each of the past five seasons (12th, 7th, 9th, 6th, 10th). We know that Kansas City will pass a ton. That is a given at this point, as they have ranked in the top three in neutral passing rate in each of the last four seasons. The worry for Mahomes has been that he has quietly struggled as a passer over the last two seasons. Last year, among 40 qualifying quarterbacks, he ranked 29th in highly accurate throw rate and 19th in CPOE. His shortcomings as a deep passer have plagued him for the last two seasons, as he has been in the bottom ten in CPOE and in the top ten in off-target rate with deep passes (per Fantasy Points Data). Mahomes will have the volume and rushing equity to finish as a QB1 again this year, but unless his passing skills return to a top-shelf level, it’s tough to consider him as anything more than a low-end QB1.
Kyler Murray (ARI)
Kyler Murray finished as the QB12 in fantasy points per game last year with 18.1 points per game. He has settled into this realm over the last three seasons with 18.1-18.9 points per game. Rushing was still a big part of his production, as he ranked fourth in rushing yards and seventh in rushing touchdowns among quarterbacks. Murray is the epitome of “better in best ball than redraft.” If you had him on any of your teams last year, you perfectly understood the frustration with rostering Murray that his QB12 finish doesn’t explain. Last year, he had five top-five weekly finishes, with an average of 26.2 fantasy points per game. Sandwiched around those week-winning performances were nine weeks where he was the QB15 or lower in weekly scoring. Murray is a player where you know the ceiling outcome exists weekly, but you see it so infrequently that you can never be sure when to plug him into a lineup. His passing numbers were nothing to write home about last year. Among 40 qualifying quarterbacks, he ranked 20th in yards per attempt and highly accurate throw rate, 18th in CPOE, and 16th in passer rating (per Fantasy Points Data). Murray is a top-15 fantasy quarterback who could finish as a QB1 again in 2025 because of his rushing production.
Jared Goff (DET)
Last year, Jared Goff‘s 6.9% passing touchdown rate (third-best in the NFL) carried him to a QB7 finish in fantasy points per game. His previous best finish in fantasy points per game was QB11 in 2023. Goff could be a QB1 again in 2025, but he’ll have to continue to be a touchdown outlier. He doesn’t have the rushing equity to offset a downtick in the passing department. Goff’s previous best passing touchdown rate as a Lion was 5.0%. This isn’t to say Goff hasn’t been and won’t again this year be a damn good starting NFL quarterback. Last year, among 40 qualifying quarterbacks, he ranked second in yards per attempt, 12th in CPOE, and fourth in highly accurate throw rate (per Fantasy Points Data). Goff is best viewed as a top-15 fantasy quarterback who could be a low-end QB1 again in 2025.
Aaron Rodgers (PIT)
Last season, in many aspects, Aaron Rodgers looked like a shell of his former self. He finished as the QB19 in fantasy points per game despite operating in an offense with the fourth-highest passing rate over expectation (per Fantasy Points Data). I don’t know if he gets anywhere near that type of pass-happy offensive design with Arthur Smith carrying the play-calling headset. Yes, Pittsburgh (fourth-lowest passing rate over expectation) will pass more in 2025, but they WILL NOT be a top 5-10 passing rate team. Then we are left to rely upon per-dropback efficiency from Rodgers, which in the year 2025 is hard to do. Last season, among 40 qualifying passers, he ranked 29th in yards per attempt, 39th in CPOE, 22nd in catchable target rate, and had the eighth-highest off-target rate. Rodgers is likely headed toward a QB2 season for fantasy purposes, where he gets lost in the QB2 noise and is only a viable streaming option when the matchup is right.
Sam Darnold (SEA)
Sam Darnold was the QB9 in fantasy points per game last year. Let’s get this out of the way VERY QUICKLY…Darnold set career marks in every category imaginable last year, and I don’t see anything close to that production repeating in 2025. Yes, last season, among 40 qualifying quarterbacks, he ranked sixth in yards per attempt and passer rating and third in CPOE, but also, when we look closer, the real Sam Darnold can still be found. Despite those rousing stats I mentioned a second ago, Darnold was also 22nd in highly accurate throw rate, 15th in catchable target rate, and he had the ninth-highest turnover-worthy throw rate. With his move to Seattle, he loses Kevin O’Connell, faces a downgrade at offensive line and skill players, and will likely operate in a more run-centric offense. All of this leads to Darnold falling back into QB2 territory in 2025.
