2025 Fantasy Football Bust Candidates - Two Star Players To Avoid In The First Round of Drafts

It's extremely difficult to identify players that might be busts in the first round of fantasy football drafts. The top 10-16 spots comprise the first round for leagues with 10-16 teams (obviously) and are populated with elite players that everyone knows can be highly productive in the NFL.

There are situations where you should be wary of players and avoid them, though. It's hard to criticize them, of course, because they're all great players every year (for the most part), so it might come down to splitting hairs. Technically, a 1st-round player that returns 3rd-round value is a "bust" of sorts.

Additionally, factors like injury proneness, concerning changes to the offenses they play in, abnormally great production, or pre-existing injuries can be cause for worry. This will be a difficult piece to write, but I'll try to be reasonable and justify everything. Let's dive in.

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Puka Nacua, WR, Los Angeles Rams

There's little doubt that Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Nacua is an elite receiver and one of the best in the NFL. Other than his straight-line speed not allowing him to separate nearly as well on his vertical routes as his horizontal-breaking routes, he's the complete package at WR.

He can make contested catches, dice up both zone and man coverage, has ridiculous body control and concentration, and is hyper-targeted at an elite rate in his offense.

There are two big concerns with Nacua, though. The first is that while he's amazing at his job, he's fed a massive target share by quarterback Matthew Stafford. As of right now, it seems unlikely that Stafford will be traded, but ignoring the fact that he deserves a ton of credit for Nacua's success wouldn't be a good idea. Targets are massively important in fantasy football.

Puka Nacua drew a 35.6% target share in his 9 full games last year. pic.twitter.com/XASOA9kmv8

— Jared Smola (@SmolaDS) January 24, 2025

If Stafford goes to another team, this offense is in danger of collapsing. Despite terrible OL play, the Rams starting QB kept the offense afloat, though it didn't matter much in the early weeks, as he didn't have his top-2 receivers anyway. Also, the situation with fellow WR Cooper Kupp isn't great.

If Kupp leaves for another team, the targets will be concentrated more with Nacua, sure. But even if he doesn't, Kupp has had a serious decline over his past few seasons. Defenses now know that he's nothing like his old self, and he'll be 32 years old to start the 2025 season.

Either way, it's likely defenses will be more committed to bracketing Nacua unless Los Angeles invests in a good WR2 option. Teams with only one viable wideout can struggle, because defenses respond by building their pass-coverage game plan completely around stopping that one threat.

Thing people don't understand about Puka Nacua's draft status is that it wasn't based on ability. He could always play. However, his injury history limited his effectiveness in college.

'19 - broken foot
'20 - COVID season
'21 - missed season-opener
'22 - ankle, groin injuries

— Brent Sobleski (@brentsobleski) January 15, 2024

Part of the reason he fell so far in the draft was his long injury history. Nacua enjoyed a relatively healthy season in 2023, but 2024 was much different, as he missed six straight weeks of action. He suffered a knee injury in the preseason, yet was put into the first game of the year, then immediately re-injured the same knee by falling on it, and was subsequently placed on injured reserve.

Puka Nacua Knee

1. Bangs R knee on turf

2. Defender hits knee + bounces off turf

-Biggest concern: “bursa sac” is also a PCL

-Worst case: 8+ weeks *Highly unlikely*

-Mid case: 3-4 weeks

-Comp: Andre Ellington (3 weeks)

-Best case: 0-1 weeks

-Comp: Eric Decker (1 week) pic.twitter.com/YBCCUWJBhG

— Edwin Porras, DPT (@FBInjuryDoc) September 9, 2024

Injuries are difficult things to predict. However, injury-proneness, while not fully understood by medical science, is likely largely driven by genetics, as most things are. Nacua's body may be simply more susceptible to a variety of injuries. He's currently ranked around No. 6 in some websites' PPR rankings for 2025.

The problem is that if he misses time, he could put your team in a position to miss the playoffs. And even if he comes back and tears it up again like he did last season, a stint on injured reserve from your 1st-round pick can be a death blow for your fantasy team. It seems less risky to take the players right around him in ADP.

UPDATE: The Rams signed WR Davante Adams. Adams still has plenty of gas in the tank, and should be a target hog. Nacua's value should take a hit from this -- he'll probably be more efficient, but his elite target share should dip. 

De'Von Achane, RB, Miami Dolphins

Miami Dolphins running back De'Von Achane had a legitimate RB1 season in 2024, carrying the ball 203 times for 907 yards and six touchdowns and catching 78 of his 87 targets for 592 touchdowns and six receiving scores. He was the second-most targeted running back and the one with the most receptions, 10 above the next player, New Orleans Saints RB Alvin Kamara.

Thus, the receiving work was the primary driver of his value. The Dolphins offense transitioned from one that relied heavily on deep passes to one that was focused heavily on using Achane as a pass-catcher out of the backfield. And while it functioned reasonably, the whole O took a step back from where it was in 2023.

Lot of teams talk about using RB split wide. #Dolphins actually do it with De'Von Achane, and he runs pure WR routes downfield.

Achane now averaging 6.1 catches/game in Tua's 11 starts. pic.twitter.com/XOiQVplfic

— Adam Levitan (@adamlevitan) December 23, 2024

Achane's usage as a receiver wasn't just out of the backfield, either. He ran traditional WR routes and saw solid success doing so. We'd liked to have seen more of that, but his duties in the backfield were too important, as he was the only thing working on that offense other than tight end Jonnu Smith at times.

But we know head coach Mike McDaniel prefers to run a committee backfield as he did in 2023. It's a reasonable approach, and the team drafted RB Jaylen Wright last season. But the whole offense failed to get things going for much of 2024, and part of that was due to poor run-blocking.

Achane's rushing production was a concern, and his goal-line carries were often stymied by the defense. Wright was raw coming out of college, and it's possible he needed time to develop. And Achane averaged under 4.5 yards per carry.

The bad run-blocking and poor schemes often hung him out to dry, as he averaged just 2.5 yards per contact per rushing attempt despite having several long runs where he was untouched near the line of scrimmage.

DE’VON ACHANE 50 YARDS TO. THE. HOUSE. 🏠 pic.twitter.com/xLLDskXjGe

— NFL Fantasy Football (@NFLFantasy) December 23, 2024

The frustrating situation he was in with now-released RB Raheem Mostert in 2023 could re-materialize. Wright is an elite athlete, and it's hard to see him not getting more usage if he's able to develop. He's 26 pounds heavier than Achane. In 2023, Mostert took the majority of goal-line carries in the Dolphins backfield. We could see a similar trend in 2025.

And if the offense gets back on track and is able to connect better on deep passes, we could see them transition away from dumping it off to Achane so much. One area of concern as well is that if defenses dedicate more resources to stopping Achane from getting so much open space out of the backfield, they could shut down Miami's offense even more.

There were countless drives last season where the passing attack and the whole offense would have ground to a halt if Achane hadn't been given a wide lane to pick up extra yards out of the backfield. Perhaps defenses will wisen up and start paying more attention to him.

De’Von Achane with the 40 yard catch! pic.twitter.com/0fxhV659zK

— SM Highlights (@SMHighlights1) September 8, 2024

By his nature, McDaniel's offense spams the hell out of plays that work. Sending a bunch of extra blockers and throwing horizontal passes to Achane was part of the team's bread and butter in 2024. It worked well, but that's something it's not unreasonable to get nervous about.

Achane's massive decline in rushing efficiency is also a red flag. This is largely due to the losses of both Robert Hunt and Connor Williams, two of the best run-blocking offensive linemen in the league. Miami needs to invest in better replacements for them, but they have plenty of other concerns on their roster.

And perhaps opposing defenses will remain content with shutting down the deep pass when playing against them. After all, wide receivers Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle are still on the team. But it's likely they make at least some adjustments to stop Achane from running free on a lot of his catches in 2025. And a dip in receptions would seriously hurt his value.

dolphins cap off a 97 yard drive with a de’Von achane TD catch from tua. pic.twitter.com/0PwBKSeqJJ

— josh houtz (@houtz) November 3, 2024

That's a possibility you should seriously consider. There are a million instances on tape of opposing defenses dropping virtually everyone back and completely ignoring Achane, or leaving one hopeless defender to try to fight through a sea of blockers, even if that guy would likely not catch No. 28 in the open field alone.

I don't believe the Dolphins see it as ideal to use the 185-ish-pound Achane as a workhorse, either. The team is probably best suited to splitting the workload more evenly. All of these factors make me nervous about picking Achane in the first round in fantasy drafts this season.

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