Fantasy Football: Justin Jefferson, Kenneth Walker III among worst picks from Rounds 1-10 in 2025 drafts
- - Fantasy Football: Justin Jefferson, Kenneth Walker III among worst picks from Rounds 1-10 in 2025 drafts
Matt OkadaDecember 30, 2025 at 8:40 PM
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Whether you’re coming fresh off a win (or a loss) in the fantasy football championship, or have been out of the running for weeks, this is an underrated time of year for learning fantasy lessons. What went right? What went wrong? And, to some degree, why?
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To that end, I’ve put together an analytical look at the best and worst picks from fantasy drafts back in the summer, round-by-round, based on their Yahoo average draft position and 2025 points per game through Week 17.
Here are the biggest misses of the year in Rounds 1-10!
Round 1: Justin Jefferson, WR, Minnesota Vikings
ADP: 5.9, WR2
PPG finish: WR39
Halfway through the season, it looked like Justin Jefferson was merely a mild bust, sitting at WR12 with only two touchdowns through Week 9. Perhaps his preseason hamstring injury had slowed him to start the year, or perhaps he just needed to find chemistry with J.J. McCarthy (who was injured for some of that stretch). But then the floor fell out completely, and Jefferson went on a truly inexplicable stretch in which he scored single-digit fantasy points in all but one game the rest of the year, including five points or fewer in four of his last five.
From Week 10 on, Jefferson averaged just 5.54 fantasy points and was the WR66 in points per game. Heck, he barely outscored Van Jefferson over that span. And, because he’s Justin Jefferson, most fantasy managers just kept starting him, hoping for the correction. It never came, and the All-Pro’s 2025 season will long be remembered as one of the bigger busts in fantasy history. Here’s hoping his QB situation improves by 2026.
Round 2: Brian Thomas Jr., WR, Jacksonville Jaguars
ADP: 15.3, WR7
PPG finish: WR48
Brian Thomas Jr. did miss three games in the middle of this largely lost season, but that had very little to do with the disaster of this pick in the second round. In fact, those might have been three of the better weeks of the year, since you were able to confidently start someone else with a higher floor. In the 14 games he did play, Thomas averaged just 8.34 points per game, fewer than Troy Franklin or teammate Parker Washington (among many others).
Moreover, he really only had four decent games all year, and those games mostly served to instill false confidence heading into subsequent duds. After his 19-point season high in Week 6, BTJ scored 4.6 in Week 7. After his 15.1-point Week 16, he scored 2.8 against the Broncos in the fantasy semifinals. Thomas was almost always on a different page from QB Trevor Lawrence, resulting in an abysmal catch rate of 52.3%, and he finished with just 658 yards and two touchdowns, a stupendous dropoff from his rookie season.
Round 3: Ladd McConkey, WR, Los Angeles Chargers
ADP: 24.2, WR11
PPG finish: WR37
Unlike Jefferson and Thomas, Ladd McConkey actually had a decent number of double-digit days in 2025 — eight to be exact — but it was his complete lack of a floor in the other eight games that made the Chargers wideout such a disappointing pick. McConkey scored fewer than eight points eight times and fewer than five points five times, including 1.70 in Week 14, 3.00 in Week 15 and 3.60 in the fantasy championship against Houston.
On the whole, McConkey was extremely touchdown dependent, and he only scored six times. After catching 82 balls for 1,149 yards as a rookie, he dropped to 66 catches and just 789 yards this year, with both Quentin Johnston and Keenan Allen splitting targets and stats all season long. McConkey was drafted as a WR1 but finished as a borderline WR4, and didn’t really feel trustworthy at any point in 2025.
Round 4: Kenneth Walker III, RB, Seattle Seahawks
ADP: 40.1, RB15
PPG finish: RB29
Kenneth Walker III’s season totals — 232 touches for 1,176 yards and five touchdowns — and his PPG fantasy finish of RB29 really don’t tell the full story of how frustrating this pick was in 2025. Walker scored double-digit fantasy points just six times and he only did so consecutively once after the month of September. Woven in between all his “big games” were 10 single-digit performances, including 3.3 points and 2.4 points in Weeks 14 and 15, and then 6.7 points in the fantasy championship (after a bafflingly good Week 16).
In fact, his two best games on the year came against the stellar Rams run defense immediately following at least three straight single-digit games — which means they likely came on most managers’ benches. Outside of those two Rams games, Walker averaged just 8.47 PPG in his other 14 contests. He lost a whopping 11 touchdowns to Zach Charbonnet, who remained involved just enough week-to-week to keep Walker well out of RB2 range most of the season.
Round 5: Chuba Hubbard, RB, Carolina Panthers
ADP: 41.9, RB16
PPG finish: RB41
I honestly forgot Chuba Hubbard was drafted this high, as he only looked the part for two weeks before seeing his fantasy season completely derailed by the rise of Rico Dowdle. It’s possible Hubbard might have returned value here in the fifth round if not for the calf injury that opened the door for Dowdle in Week 5, but after returning two weeks later, Hubbard was a non-factor almost the entirety of the season.
From Weeks 7-17, Hubbard only scored 7+ fantasy points twice and only reached double-digits once (in Week 13 against the Rams, when no one was starting him). He was the RB53 over that stretch and, outside of the Rams game, did not top 30 rushing yards or score a touchdown from Week 9 on. Despite the four-year, $33.2M contract extension he signed late last year, Hubbard was second-fiddle to a one-year free-agent pickup for the majority of 2025.
Round 6: T.J. Hockenson, TE, Minnesota Vikings
ADP: 58.6, TE5
PPG finish: TE27
Oof. If you drafted T.J. Hockenson here in the sixth round, here’s hoping you found someone on waivers after Week 1 or 2. The Vikings tight end made Justin Jefferson’s bust look like a Pro Bowl season. Hockenson managed double-digit fantasy points just once all year — 13.4 in Week 3 against the Bengals (who turned out to be the softest matchup in the league) — scoring just three touchdowns and finishing with 51 catches for 438 yards.
He averaged a career-low 8.6 yards per reception and 29.2 yards per game and was outscored by names like AJ Barner and Colby Parkinson in fantasy points per game. Somehow, Hock finished the season rostered in 62% of Yahoo leagues, but I can’t imagine anyone was starting him over the second half of the season. As with Jefferson, maybe he’ll get a QB upgrade in 2026, but barring a miracle, Hockenson should not be drafted as a TE1 next season.
Round 7: Mark Andrews, TE, Baltimore Ravens
ADP: 62.9, TE7
PPG finish: TE23
Mark Andrews was technically drafted a little later than Hockenson, and he technically finished slightly higher as well. But he suffered from the same sickness as Kenneth Walker III — the one where he would only pop off when everyone benched him, and then disappoint immediately afterward when managers considered starting him again. He started the year with absolute duds of 1.0 and 0.9 points and was justifiably benched across the fantasy community for his 24.1-point Week 3 explosion against Detroit.
The only stretch where Andrews showed some consistent life was Weeks 9-11 (12.9 PPG, thanks in part to a 35-yard fake-tush-push rushing touchdown), but then from Week 12 on he was the TE39 with just 3.45 points per game. To anyone who pinpointed Andrews’ three-and-a-half good games in 2025, congratulations. To everyone else, condolences over a wasted mid-round pick.
Round 8: Kaleb Johnson, RB, Pittsburgh Steelers
ADP: 80.4, RB27
PPG finish: RB109
Holy cannoli. Kaleb Johnson might go down as one of the worst NFL rookies, relative to expectation, that we’ve ever seen. When Pittsburgh drafted him in the third round back in April, he looked like the heir apparent to Najee Harris, and his ADP ended up higher than Jaylen Warren’s — and much higher than Kenneth Gainwell’s — as a result.
Johnson ultimately scored 8.3 fantasy points on the season. No, not averaged 8.3 … scored 8.3. In total. Between embarrassing special teams blunders and healthy scratches, he put together 69 rushing yards on 28 carries all year. The only good news here is that he was so non-existent that fantasy managers were able to jettison Johnson from their rosters before the midpoint of the season and move on. Still, this was a legendary bust for Pittsburgh and for fantasy managers who reached on the rookie.
Round 9: Jordan Mason, RB, Minnesota Vikings
ADP: 88.9, RB30
PPG finish: RB43
Jordan Mason was probably one of the quieter “busts” of the 2025 fantasy season, as his ADP did trickle all the way down here to the ninth round. But, back in the summer, a lot of fantasy analysts saw him as a breakout candidate with a chance to supplant Aaron Jones Sr. as the RB1 in Minnesota. Instead, Mason managed just 159 touches for 715 yards and six touchdowns, and really only had one great fantasy performance, in Week 3 against the Bengals with Jones out.
Over the four games Jones missed — Weeks 3-7, with the bye in the middle — Mason was the RB16, which might have raised some hopes and even instigated a trade acquisition or two. But from Week 8 on, he was the clear backup and averaged just 4.96 points per game (RB59 over that span). Considering you could have had Jaylen Warren at the same ADP, Mason ended up being a major miss here in 2025.
Round 10: Jerry Jeudy, WR, Cleveland Browns
ADP: 91.9, WR37
PPG finish: WR70
As the theoretical WR1 for Cleveland, and with a history of flashing fantasy talent in small bursts, Jerry Jeudy was an intriguing pick here in the 10th round. Unfortunately, things never really materialized in a lackluster offense led by a string of inconsistent quarterbacks. Jeudy’s only double-digit performances came in Week 10 (after he posted a goose egg in his previous outing) and in Week 14 (after three straight games with fewer than five fantasy points). In other words, his only decent outings came on fantasy benches.
In total, Jeudy finished with just 48 catches for 585 yards and two touchdowns, setting or matching his career lows for a full season. He was outscored by Chimere Dike and Mack Hollins in points per game (among others), and should have ended the year rostered in far fewer than 62% of Yahoo leagues.
Source: “AOL Sports”
