It's that time of year when we need to revisit all the things that went wrong and right in fantasy football from the 2025 season. Of course, we need to start with the negative—who were the biggest busts of the 2025 fantasy football season? Some of these names may make you quiver and remind you of bad memories, but that's why we live and learn!

I think my biggest lesson from last season was to be cautious of getting carried away with the rookie hype. Sure, sometimes they work out, but this season's rookie class was less than stellar in terms of fantasy finishes. It's easy to get caught up, but sometimes cooler heads prevail when dissecting realistic workloads for rookies in their first season. Without further ado …

Fantasy Football's Biggest Busts of 2025 

Brian Thomas Jr. | WR | JAX

Oh, what, you thought I WASN'T going to lead this article off with my biggest regret and one of the biggest disappointments from last season? Yeah right. Brian Thomas Jr. was seemingly in a great spot heading into the 2025 season. Sure, the Jaguars drafted Travis Hunter, but BTJ was coming off a rookie season that featured 133 targets and finished with 1,282 yards and 10 touchdowns. 

New head coach Liam Coen brought higher expectations to a team that seemed not to be getting the best out of Trevor Lawrence, and Lawrence seemingly turned things around; it was not Thomas Jr. who benefited. I really don't know what happened, but it was like a night-and-day shift between the receiver and his quarterback. BTJ was plagued by drops and just didn't seem to have consistent chemistry with Lawrence. He was drafted as the WR9 and finished outside the top-40 wideouts. To make matters worse (even though it feels hard to do), he had only five games with 10 or more points. The team also traded for Jakobi Meyers at the deadline, and the emergence of Parker Washington did not help. The organization is downplaying trade rumors, but the output we saw last season from Thomas Jr. is going to make drafting him in 2026 that much more difficult. 

Justin Jefferson | WR | MIN

If you had told me last year that Justin Jefferson was going to be featured in a "biggest busts" article, I would have laughed! But here we are … and Jefferson unfortunately deserves to be on this list. For a long time, it seemed like Jefferson was quarterback-proof, but playing with J.J. McCarthy totally dispelled that notion. Hell, if we had Carson Wentz the rest of the season, maybe Jefferson isn't even in this article. Whatever way you look at it, everything was bad for the Vikings last season. 

On average, Jefferson was taken off the board with the fourth overall pick, but at some point, fantasy managers probably benched him. From Weeks 10 to 17, Jefferson scored fewer than nine fantasy points six times. When McCarthy was under center, Jefferson averaged only 48 yards per game. YIKES. This was a receiver that finished no worse than the WR7 in each of his previous healthy seasons (even in 2023 when he played only nine games). We learned that, unfortunately, Jefferson is not quarterback-proof, at least when it's McCarthy. Kevin O'Connell has said that the team will add depth and competition to the quarterback room, but in early drafts, we will more than likely be drafting under the assumption that McCarthy will be the starter in 2026, which puts Jefferson firmly outside of the first round.

Kaleb Johnson | RB | PIT

If you do not know or do not remember who this is, it's OK, because a lot of people are trying to burn the memory of drafting Kaleb Johnson out of their memories. This is a prime example of rookie hype just going too far. Johnson was being drafted ahead of Jaylen Warren and went as early as Round 6 in some drafts. Over 10 games, Johnson had 28 carries for 69 yards and caught one of two targets for nine yards. HE HAD 8.8 TOTAL FANTASY POINTS! Aaron Rodgers and rookies don't tend to mesh well, and this is a sign that sometimes we need to have a limit on how high we're willing to draft a rookie with serious potential red flags going into a season. 

Lamar Jackson | QB | BAL

Justin Jefferson AND Lamar Jackson on a fantasy busts article?! Just stop.

Unfortunately, Jackson is more than deserving of being on this list. We can attribute a bad 2025 season to injuries that plagued him for what felt like the whole season, but even in healthy games, Jackson did not look like his regular self. He missed three games due to a hamstring injury, and by the end of the fantasy season, he only averaged 13.5 fantasy points per game from Week 9 to Week 17. Overall, Jackson finished as the QB20 and the QB16 in points per game.   

The Ravens are now moving in a different direction after parting ways with John Harbaugh after 18 seasons with the team. A new head coach will bring a new offensive coordinator and hopefully better days for Jackson and the Ravens as a whole. I believe Jackson will stay in Baltimore, but there are big questions since his salary-cap number rises to $74.5 million in each of the next two seasons. Jackson is still going to be ranked as a top four quarterback for me, but it's understandable if drafters in 2026 are more inclined to wait on drafting that position because of how many dud performances and injuries we got out of the top quarterbacks in 2025.

Matthew Golden | WR | GB

This one hurts my soul, but Matthew Golden was an absolutely awful fantasy draft pick last year. It felt like everything was going to align for him, especially because he was the first receiver drafted in the first round by the Packers since 2001, but alas, his role was not worth the eighth-round draft capital.

It was the same old Packers offense, and in reality, maybe I should have seen that coming, but I was too enamored with when he was drafted than looking at the whole body of work. Once Jayden Reed was placed on IR with his injury, it became evident that Golden was not going to be playable in fantasy. Reed was gone for a portion of the year, Christian Watson wasn't healthy until November and the team lost Tucker Kraft for the season, but that still only led Golden to a WR88 finish. Kraft will probably be the only pass catcher from this team that I will be comfortable taking in early rounds of drafts (if he's on track for Week 1). Another lesson learned about rookies! Sigh …

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