Fantasy Football Bust Candidates: Second Round Avoids For 2025 Drafts

It's a little bit easier to identify potential busts in the second round of fantasy football drafts than in the first round. Of course, the further the drafts wear on, the fewer highly-talented players everyone knows are available. In the second round, there are usually more players with question marks than there are in the first.

The elite of the elite are usually gone by round 2, save for a few players who have unreasonable doubts against them by the majority of the community. In more casual leagues, some of the most elite can fall further into the 2nd, especially if they're smaller leagues.

But we're not focused on them. For leagues with 10-16 teams, the top 20-32 players are considered to be in the first two rounds ADP-wise, so let's break down those players who could bust who are ranked in or around the top 20-32 in rankings for the 2025 season in fantasy football.

• 2025 fantasy football rankings (redraft)
• Dynasty fantasy football rankings
• 2025 NFL rookie fantasy football rankings
• Best ball fantasy football rankings
• Quarterback fantasy football rankings
• Running back fantasy football rankings
• Wide receiver fantasy football rankings
• Tight end fantasy football rankings

WR Tyreek Hill

In what could be the boldest prediction about anything I've ever made, I'm predicting that Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill will not be worth picking in the second round of fantasy football drafts. Obviously, such a controversial take needs some serious justifications and evidence, but fortunately for us, there is plenty, just like there have been in his legal cases where he's committed criminal acts.

Hill will be 31 years old when the 2025 season starts. He's always relied on his elite acceleration and explosiveness to win on his routes, as he's not a great contested catch maker and isn't tall or physical enough to box out defensive backs and make tough catches. Hyper-elite explosiveness starts to fade in athletes when they're around the dreaded "big 3-0" in age.

pic.twitter.com/PJuPhaLy0F

— eric smith (@OLCoachSmith63) December 15, 2024

His entire game revolves around dusting his defenders. Miami head coach Mike McDaniel's schemes utilized this very heavily in 2022 and 2023. In response, opposing defenses decided to sell out as much as possible to stop the deep passes. The production of both Hill and fellow WR Jaylen Waddleplummeted as a result this past season.

Hill's decline in explosiveness is also clearly evident. While he still possesses great speed, he's not destroying defenders nearly as much as he did in 2022 and 2023. The foot injury he played through may have something to do with this, though. Typically, injuries like that are vastly underreported. It doesn't make much sense that Hill looked so lackadaisical this year.

Look man I cant in good faith rank Tyreek Hill inside my top 12 WRs rest of season. Just cant do it. This is bad pic.twitter.com/QqSrnpxK0K

— Ron Stewart (@RonStewart_) November 13, 2024

I can, in good faith, rank Hill outside of my top 12 receivers. His season-long performance was simply awful. He only had one long touchdown on the season, which came in Week 1, against one of the worst pass defenses in the recent history of the NFL, the Jacksonville Jaguars. In nearly every other game, he was mostly bottled up.

The effort he showed also came into serious question. He didn't seem to play with the energy that he did in 2023, and you could see it in the results. Drafting 31-year-old wideouts in the first two rounds of fantasy football drafts is also generally a terrible idea, much less one that doesn't win with route-running subtlety but with pure explosiveness, which tends to fade first.

One thing fans don't know and will never know is what happens behind Closed Doors.

Tyreek Hill has been bad the entire season.

How many times did he pull himself because he was winded. Drop passes. 100% tyreek took last years performance and sat on it.

— JP (@phinsfanJP) January 6, 2025

Simply assuming that this year was an off year and that he'll get back on track as if nothing happened would be ignorant. He has a high probability of busting again, and his meteoric career could be drawing to a close. He'll likely linger on some team's roster beyond this year, but it seems unlikely that he'll ever come near what he was during his magical seasons as one of the NFL's best wideouts.

WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba

The confluence of various circumstances seems to have convinced the fantasy football community that Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba is an elite WR1 who should be drafted universally inside the first two rounds of fantasy football redraft leagues. That seems a bit rushed, considering what happened last season.

There isn't much arguing with the fact that he's a good WR. He took a big leap in his second year with the team, finishing as the WR9 overall in full-PPR scoring and catching 100 of his 137 targets for 1,130 yards and six touchdowns. He was the most productive wide receiver on his team, easily. He looked much improved on tape, making strides in his yards after catch skill set and physicality.

Jaxon Smith Njigba’s 2024 breakout szn

- 100 catches (9th)
- 1,130 yards (12th)
- 6 TDs

- 2.2% drop rate

- Led all WRs in receptions from the slot pic.twitter.com/spUOV4SxfI https://t.co/jSXLfQnS1j

— xyn🐍 (@alleniverxyn) February 20, 2025

There were two major drivers to his increased production aside from those, though. The first was the injury to WR DK Metcalf. Before Metcalf suffered a significant knee injury that knocked him out of action for two games, he out-targeted to 61-to-55. He also out-gained him in yardage to 568-to-319 and scored three receiving touchdowns to JSN's one.

After he came back from his injury, Metcalf was significantly less explosive. Players play through serious injuries all the time in the NFL, and he was no exception. It's likely that he never fully recovered, and has needed the offseason to get back to 100 percent, as is often the case.

But before the injury, it was very clear who the WR1 was. And Smith-Njigba's ADP seems to be boosted heavily by the two games in which Metcalf didn't play- a six-catch, 69-yard contest in Week 8 and a seven-catch, 180-yard, two-TD outing against a Los Angeles Rams pass defense that was absurdly terrible in 2024.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba ran wild through LAR's defense in Wk 9. He put up what would've been 258 yards if not for OL penalties, mostly from empty

Turned slot defenders around vs off, benefitted from blown coverages on "Scissors" and all verts concepts, and had two big YAC plays pic.twitter.com/K9hdKYDJOZ

— Taylor Kyles (@tkyles39) November 13, 2024

The defense that convinced us that Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. was an elite 1st-year player may have us a little too high on JSN. It's true that he continued to play well after Metcalf's return, as he logged four more games with 18 or more PPR fantasy points.

However, a large driver of that was that the now-fired offensive coordinator, Ryan Grubb, abandoned the run game early and often in 2024. Instead, he opted to have the highest situation-neutral pass rate of any offense in the league last season. It's a big reason why he was let go after just one year.

2024 Pass Rate Over Expected when leading & trailing pic.twitter.com/Y3dO4G7eHU

— Jrfortgang (@throwthedamball) October 16, 2024

Whether or not the team was behind or ahead on the scoreboard, they passed the ball far more often than other teams, when controlling for situation. And quarterback Geno Smith ended up slinging it a lot. Seattle ranked sixth in total pass attempts per game. That will change in 2025.

New offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak and head coach Mike Macdonald have stated that the team intends to run the ball much more heavily this season.

"Ideally we want our identity to be a team that can run the football vs an 8-man front."

Watch #Seahawks OC Klint Kubiak's FIRST interview live from the Virginia Mason Athletic Center w/ @michaelbumpus5 & @StacyRost. 👇

FULL video 📺: https://t.co/v2oD38aoQZ https://t.co/GMwyOM8pHH pic.twitter.com/x5BYJgcmLH

— Seattle Sports (@SeattleSports) February 11, 2025

This aligns well with the PROE chart, which shows us that the Saints passed the ball far less than expected, especially in comparison with the other 31 teams. In PPR, a lower pass rate and the continuing presence of Metcalf are serious red flags for Smith-Njigba's value.

It's possible that his efficiency could rise and offset some of these losses, but expecting him to gain 10 more yards for every reception he misses out on is expecting a lot. Targets and catches are outlandishly valuable, as it's remarkably easier to catch a football than to pick up a first down and gain double-digit yards. Who would've known?

At his current ADP, the value proposition of getting Metcalf, who's 27 years old and still in his prime, seems like the better idea. He'll probably still be the WR1 unless his knee is cooked. He didn't tear any ligaments, reportedly, so he should be good to go in 2025.

EDIT: Metcalf was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Smith (Geno) was traded to the Las Vegas Raiders. There will be plenty of vacated targets for JSN, but we'll have to wait to see how they solve the QB situation. If it's someone like Darnold... yikes. 

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