Players Experts Target & Avoid (2025 Fantasy Football)

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 below. 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 Pat Fitzmaurice like more or less than the expert consensus rankings.

Players to Target

Running Backs

Pat Fitzmaurice’s Rank	Player	ECR	Diff.
18	Tony Pollard TEN – RB	24	6
35	Quinshon Judkins CLE – RB	41	6
40	Bhayshul Tuten JAC – RB	53	13
43	Jerome Ford CLE – RB	52	9
46	Rico Dowdle CAR – RB	55	9

Once a high-efficiency darling as the backup to Ezekiel Elliott in Dallas, Tony Pollard has played a bigger role the last two years, but his efficiency has plummeted. Pollard averaged 5.1 yards per carry and 6.3 yards per target over his first four NFL seasons. He’s averaged 4.1 yards per carry and 4.4 yards per target as a lead RB the last two seasons. Pollard finished RB22 in half-point PPR fantasy points per game in 2022, RB23 last year. With Tyjae Spears dealing with a high-ankle sprain, Pollard could see a heavy workload early in the season and get off to a fast start.

The Jaguars selected Bhayshul Tuten with one of the first picks of Day 3 of the NFL Draft. Jacksonville is likely to have a messy RB committee this year with Travis Etienne, Tank Bigsby and Tuten, but Tuten could get an extended audition this year if the Jaguars decide they’re going to let Etienne walk after his contract expires at the end of the season. Tuten has game-breaking, sub-4.4. speed. If he gets to the edge, look out. But Tuten is also an effective inside runner who bursts through holes and doesn’t go down easily.

Wide Receivers

Pat Fitzmaurice’s Rank	Player	ECR	Diff.
4	Brian Thomas Jr. JAC – WR	8	4
16	Tetairoa McMillan CAR – WR	23	7
21	Calvin Ridley TEN – WR	27	6
24	Jaylen Waddle MIA – WR	30	6
32	Emeka Egbuka TB – WR	37	5

Brian Thomas Jr. turned in a sublime rookie season, catching 87 passes for 1,282 yards and 10 touchdowns. He thrived even when backup QB Mac Jones was forced to fill in for injured starter Trevor Lawrence. And Thomas passed every eye test: running crisp routes, making touch catches, and doing heavy damage after the catch. There was nothing fluky about this performance. Expect more of the same.

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.

Since missing the 2022 season due to a gambling suspension, Calvin Ridley has produced two straight 1,000-yard seasons and hasn’t missed a game over that span. He endured gruesome quarterbacking in Tennessee last year, and now Ridley gets to play with top overall draft pick Cam Ward, an aggressive downfield thrower. Ridley is the Titans’ undisputed No. 1 receiver, and I think he’s likely to see more than the 120 targets he had last season. There’s a good chance Ridley will provide WR2 numbers at a low-end WR3 price.

Jaylen Waddle is a compelling buy-low candidate after a season in which he had only 744 receiving yards and 2 TDs. Part of that was due to a Tua Tagolaivoa concussion that left the Miami passing game dead in the water while Tua was out. With Jonnu Smith having left Miami for Pittsburgh, Waddle could conceivably get more snaps from the slot and see more of the easy throws that turned Jonnu into a PPR monster last year. Let’s not forget what a good player Waddle is. He had the most yards per route run in college since 2020 (which includes guys like Ja’Marr Chase and CeeDee Lamb). Waddle was the No. 6 overall draft pick in 2021. He had three straight 1,000-yard seasons to begin his NFL career. Don’t sleep on him after a statistically disappointing year.

An NFL-ready slot receiver, Emeka Egbuka is an advanced route runner who gets into his routes quickly and makes sharp cuts. Egbuka isn’t really a burner, but he’s a shifty fellow who consistently makes yardage after the catch. Bonus: Egbuka was able to assert himself at OSU even though the Buckeyes had an abundance of WR talent throughout his time in Columbus, suggesting that he can be productive even on a team with other good pass catchers. Initially, it seemed as if Egbuka landed in a suboptimal spot with the Buccaneers, who already had WRs Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Jalen McMillan. But Godwin has been slow to recover from the dislocated ankle he sustained last season, and McMillan is expected to miss significant time with a neck injury. Egbuka has a chance to be impactful right away.

Players to Avoid

Running Backs

Expert Consensus’s Rank	Player	Pat Fitzmaurice’s Rank	Diff.
21	D’Andre Swift CHI – RB	26	5
22	David Montgomery DET – RB	27	5
34	Joe Mixon HOU – RB	44	10
36	Rhamondre Stevenson NE – RB	41	5
43	Tyjae Spears TEN – RB	48	5

David Montgomery could be hard-pressed to turn a profit on his low-end RB2 ADP. He shares work with Jahmyr Gibbs, one of the most talented RBs in the league. Montgomery has averaged 16.8 and 15.8 touches a game in Gibbs’ first two seasons. I’ll bet the under on 15.8 touches a game for Montgomery in 2025, as I expect an uptick in Gibbs’ usage. We could also see a dip in Montgomery’s TD total. He’s scored 13 and 12 touchdowns the last two years, as the Lions ranked first and fifth in scoring those two seasons. If the Lions scale back Montgomery’s usage to give Gibbs more snaps, or if the Detroit offense has hiccups after losing offensive coordinator Ben Johnson to the Bears, Monty’s TD total could slip. He’s a quality running back, but I see Montgomery as more of an RB3 than an RB2.

Over the last four years, Joe Mixon has averaged 1,377 yards from scrimmage and 12.3 touchdowns per season. But Mixon is heading into his age-29 season and dealing with a foot issue that might force him to miss all of training camp and could linger into the regular season. It’s also possible he’ll cede some snaps to rookie Woody Marks on passing downs and to veteran Nick Chubb on early downs. Plus, the Texans have one of the league’s worst offensive lines. There are a lot of storm clouds here — probably too many to warrant spending a draft pick on Mixon.

Rhamondre Stevenson may have peaked with his 1,040-yard rushing season in 2022. He missed five games in 2023, and his 2024 season was a disappointment. Stevenson averaged a career-low 3.9 yards per carry last season, and his seven fumbles cost him some playing time. Now, the Patriots have added playmaking RB TreVeyon Henderson, a second-round draft pick. A 50/50 workload split might be the best Stevenson investors could hope for in 2025.

Wide Receivers

Expert Consensus’s Rank	Player	Pat Fitzmaurice’s Rank	Diff.
14	Tyreek Hill MIA – WR	18	4
20	DJ Moore CHI – WR	27	7
21	DK Metcalf PIT – WR	26	5
22	Courtland Sutton DEN – WR	28	6
29	Zay Flowers BAL – WR	34	5

We’ll probably get some sort of rebound from Tyreek Hill after he went from a magnificent 119-1,799-13 season in 2023 to a disappointing 81-959-6 campaign in 2024. The brightest ray of hope for Tyreek is that Tua Tagovailoa averaged a career-low 5.7 intended air yards per attempt last season. In 2023 he was at 7.7 intended air yards per attempt, and in 2022 he was at 9.5 intended air yards per attempt. The departure of TE Jonnu Smith in a late-June trade could also mean some extra targets for Tyreek. But the Cheetah is 31 now, and we certainly can’t count on a full season of good health for Tua.

After producing a career-high 1,364 receiving yards and eight touchdowns in his first season in Chicago in 2023, D.J. Moore slipped to 966 yards and six touchdowns in 2024. Strangely, Moore established a new single-season high with 98 catches last year, but he averaged a career-low 9.9 yards per catch. Moore didn’t exactly click with rookie QB Caleb Williams. Perhaps new Bears head coach Ben Johnson can help promote better chemistry between Williams and Moore, but another concern is that the Bears now have an abundance of pass catchers, with rookies Luther Burden and Colston Loveland joining Moore, Rome Odunze and Cole Kmet.

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.