Fantasy Football Roundtable: Here’s the player we’re fading at every position going into drafts in 2025

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In preparation for your fantasy football draft, you’re going to want to compile a list of players you want to target and players to avoid. It always feels tough figuring out which players you want to fade because there’s always a chance you make the wrong decision.

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Fortunately, the Yahoo fantasy football staff has you covered. We’re joined by Scott Pianowski, Ray Garvin, Justin Boone and Matt Harmon, who will provide a player at each position who they think you should be fading in your fantasy football drafts this season.

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Quarterback

Scott: Baker Mayfield just had the season of his life, setting new personal marks in a slew of key categories. But the architect of that breakout, Liam Coen, has departed to Jacksonville. We try to be careful when a career season arrives late — Mayfield played his age-29 campaign last year — and he might not have Chris Godwin for a while. Given how deep the QB pool is this year, I’ll nod to Mayfield in that second tier — but leave him alone.

Ray: Drake Maye has all the talent in the world and, long-term, he’s going to be really good. But for 2025, we need to pump the brakes. He’s stepping into a new system with Josh McDaniels and Mike Vrabel, and everything about this offense suggests a run-first identity with Rhamondre Stevenson, second-rounder TreVeyon Henderson and fresh investment in the offensive line. Maye averaged just 14 fantasy points per game as a rookie with only two top-10 weekly finishes. People pointing to 2020 Ryan Tannehill as the blueprint forget that was the best fantasy season any quarterback has had under Vrabel; Tannehill finished as QB9 at 22 points per game. Expecting Maye to make that kind of eight-point-per-game leap in Year 2 feels ambitious.

Justin: Jared Goff. Goff had a career year in 2024, throwing for 37 touchdowns and finishing as the eighth-highest scoring fantasy quarterback on a per game basis. However, that was his best fantasy result in a long time. Over the previous four seasons, Goff was the QB15, QB16, QB25, QB22 and QB21. His lack of rushing production puts an increased emphasis on big yardage and TD totals, which will be harder to come by this season with offensive coordinator Ben Johnson leaving for Chicago and significant losses on the interior of the line (Frank Ragnow, Kevin Zeitler).

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The Lions QB also faces the fifth-hardest fantasy schedule among passers this year and will have to play more games outside, where his numbers have taken a hit in the past. There are too many quarterbacks with higher ceilings to pay up for a guy like Goff.

Matt: Patrick Mahomes. So, 99 times out of 100, if you’re fading a player, it doesn’t mean that you hate the player or even think that they’re destined for a bad year. Usually, it’s for structural or ADP-based reasons. That’s the exact case with Mahomes, who is the best player at his position and could well be MVP and/or Super Bowl champ once again in 2025. My third tier of quarterbacks goes all the way from QB6 to QB17. It’s super flat. Since Mahomes is the first name in that tier, there’s just about no chance I click his name at his 50th overall ADP. I can buy that the Chiefs offense gets more high-flying this season but I just won’t pay that opportunity cost to find out.

Running back

Justin: Joe Mixon. I’ll take the low-hanging fruit on this one and remind people to be very cautious about drafting Mixon, who remains on the non-football injury list. The Texans have been evasive when asked about Mixon’s foot injury and there’s been no update on his projected return from what’s being called a “complicated medical issue.” His status for Week 1 is definitely in doubt. Injury analyst Jeff Mueller said multiple sources have provided information that made him take Mixon off his draft board entirely. The other layer to consider is that even when Mixon returns, he’ll have more competition with Woody Marks, Nick Chubb and Dameon Pierce all vying for touches. Count me among those who are staying away from Mixon this season.

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Matt: Ashton Jeanty. Let’s hunt a big fish on this one. Typically, the best running backs in fantasy football play for the best teams and great offenses. I think the Raiders will be competent under their new coaching staff and with Geno Smith at quarterback, but they still may struggle to rank in the top 15 in points per game as an offense. The line is middling and even if the scoring unit shows out, they don’t have the secondary or overall defensive talent to keep the team in run-first situations. That’s troubling when volume of carries is the primary variable in Jeanty’s fantasy appeal, besides the fact that he’s good at the game. I’m not predicting some mega-bust season for Jeanty but I have him ranked between 14th and 16th overall and his ADP is 11th or 12th. So, I’ll just have to enjoy his rookie season without having him on many teams.

Ray: Kenneth Walker III is a dog! I mean that in a good way. He’s explosive, he’s violent and when he’s on the field, he can flip a game with one run. But that’s the problem: He hasn’t stayed on the field. He’s yet to play a full 17-game season and was limited to just 11 contests in 2024, posting career lows in yardage and yards per carry.

Meanwhile, Zach Charbonnet, a tank in his own right, has been the steady one, suiting up for 33 of 34 games across his first two years while flashing three-down ability. Seattle is going back to a run-first identity under Mike Macdonald, but this looks like a committee, not a Walker feature show. At cost, Walker is being drafted like a high-end RB2, but you’re paying for production he hasn’t delivered. I’d rather wait and take Charbonnet later. He’s the one who’s always available and in fantasy, that matters just as much as talent.

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Scott: When I say I’m fading Saquon Barkley, understand what that means — I still see him as a first-round pick, but I’m a bit nervous after the 482-touch workload last year. Barkley also needs to score his touchdowns from distance — he didn’t have a single one-yard plunge last year, and his average spike came from 29.4 yards away. In other words, his touchdown count could easily regress, too. If I select a running back in the first pass, it will be an ascending, up-escalator talent like Bijan Robinson or Jahmyr Gibbs.

Wide receiver

Matt: DJ Moore. I think that Moore can have a bounce-back, real-life season under Ben Johnson. I’m excited to hear he’s being used across the formation and even taking reps from the backfield. This is the exact style of deployment I’ve been wanting to see for him to get into space for years now and it’s certainly quite the opposite from what we saw last year in a boundary X-heavy role. However, I think the odds that Rome Odunze emerges as the top target on this team are 50/50 as the new staff completely re-evaluates the old in-house options.

Since Odunze goes 32 picks later overall and there’s a whopping 15-player gap in their positional spots in consensus rankings, I’ll just take Odunze, whom I thought was a terrific prospect and played better than credited in isolation last year.

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Justin: Zay Flowers. Flowers is an exciting young receiver playing in one of the league’s most potent offenses and yet his fantasy outlook doesn’t paint a picture of someone who’s going to propel you towards a title. Last year, Flowers went over 1,000 yards for the first time, but was held outside the top-30 fantasy receivers in 10 different weeks — with just three WR1 finishes and three WR2 results. If you’re hoping for increased touchdown scoring to help Flowers break out, just know that Mark Andrews will enter the season healthy (unlike last year) and the Ravens signed veteran DeAndre Hopkins, whose biggest contribution will likely come around the red zone. Flowers is a solid wideout in real life; he’s just not someone worth his fifth-round price tag as the WR25.

Scott: Puka Nacua is a star receiver, but the Rams haven’t figured out how to use him around the goal line. Last year, Nacua saw just three targets and one catch inside the 10, a big reason why he stalled at three touchdowns. The news out of Rams camp isn’t very Nacua-friendly — Davante Adams is around to soak up goal-line opportunities, Kyren Williams was signed to an extension (he’s a red-zone monster, too) and Matthew Stafford is dealing with a cranky back on the eve of his age-37 season. Nacua also might bring on some injury risk himself, given his checkered health resume from college. I respect the player, but I haven’t been close to drafting Nacua yet this season.

Ray: Garrett Wilson has been one of the most heavily utilized receivers in football, averaging 156 targets, 93 catches and over 1,080 yards per season across his first three years. Yet, despite all that volume, his fantasy production has been capped at just 13.3 points per game on average, with finishes of WR18, WR30 and WR32. Now the Jets pivot to Justin Fields, a quarterback whose legs are his best weapon, paired with a coaching staff that wants to lean on the run behind a rebuilt offensive line. That screams less passing volume, not more.

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People are expecting Wilson to ascend in 2025. I see the opposite. If he hasn’t cracked the WR1 tier with 150-plus targets annually, what happens when that dips? I’d be looking to spend my third-round draft capital elsewhere.

Tight end

Ray: Let me be clear, my real answer to the biggest tight end fade is anyone after the big three. George Kittle, Brock Bowers and Trey McBride are the only guys I see with true league-winning upside. Everyone else is replaceable, and the gap between TE6 and TE18 is razor-thin. For the sake of the greater good, I’ll plant my flag on Tucker Kraft. He’s a solid player, but Jordan Love is already dealing with a thumb injury, and we saw him miss time last season. If Malik Willis has to step in, that doesn’t give me more confidence in Kraft’s consistency. He averaged nine fantasy points per game last year, yet Yahoo drafters are taking him as a top-10 tight end. That’s too rich when you can stream similar production rounds later.

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Scott: Some respected pundits in the industry disagree with me on the Evan Engram fade, and I get it. Whenever a name player joins a Sean Payton offense, the ears perk up. But Engram’s last four seasons have been defined by a lack of explosiveness (a modest 8.9 yards per catch), and he’s never been dynamic in the red zone — only 19 of his last 619 targets have gone for touchdowns, and he hasn’t made it past four spikes since 2017. Maybe Bo Nix and Payton can give Engram a bump with the better offensive infrastructure, but I’m going to keep expectations modest as Engram enters his age-31 season.

Matt: Sam LaPorta. I have nothing against the Lions tight end and have no reason to think he will have a bad season. However, he goes around the 49th overall pick and I am just not hunting tight ends in that range. He’s at the top of my second tier of tight ends but there’s a massive gap between him and some of the other options in that group, who all fall between pick 60 and 87. Frankly, I just don’t take many tight ends inside the top-70 picks at all this year. It’s a boring, structural justification, but that’s fantasy football for you.

Justin: Travis Kelce. Kelce will turn 36 during the campaign and is coming off arguably his worst statistical season in over a decade. His 823 receiving yards and 8.5 yards per reception were career lows — with the latter being over two yards under his previous low, which he set the year before. In addition to declining physical abilities, he’s also surrounded by a much-improved young receiving corps with Rashee Rice, Xavier Worthy, Hollywood Brown and Jalen Royals. Kelce will still be the safety net for Patrick Mahomes, but he’s not the engine that drives this offense anymore. This doesn’t mean Kelce can’t be a stable mid- to low-end TE1 on your roster, you just have to recalibrate your expectations because he’s no longer a difference-making fantasy starter.

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