The Fateful Eight: Christian McCaffrey, Tyreek Hill and other high-variance draft picks

NBC Sports

20 hours ago

You know all the clichés. Risk/reward. Boom/bust. As much upside as downside. He's 'better in best ball.' Football is a volatile game — the unavoidable fate of a sport where the world's most athletic 6-foot-2, 230-pound athletes are diving at your knees — but some players highlight the fact better than others. Going round by round through the first eight frames, here's a look at some of the draft picks most likely to either single-handedly win or lose you your fantasy league. Players whose range of outcomes vary more widely than most.
A note on ADP data: There is no shortage of wonderful fantasy football services and unique ADPs, but for the purposes of this article I will use Sleeper's PPR data, which meets somewhere in the middle of the more hardcore and casual platforms.
Round 1 - Ashton Jeanty (1.11)
Rare is the rookie running back who lands in the first round. Sight unseen, Jeanty is going ahead of players like Bucky Irving, A.J. Brown, and even Christian McCaffrey depending on the service. That's a heavy crown for any head. That's the fancy way of saying there's inherent risk when you invest your most important pick in a player who has never played NFL football. It goes without saying Jeanty's upside is self-evident, too, but the downside is creeping in more than fantasy managers might have expected. Jeanty looks big. Raheem Mostert might play third downs. Pete Carroll, whose 2023 Seahawks ran the fewest plays in the league, operates slow, methodical offenses. Etc. etc. The highest drafted running back since Saquon Barkley and second highest since Leonard Fournette, Jeanty looks like a special player. He is going to have to be to justify his ADP.
Round 2 - Christian McCaffrey (2.2)
McCaffrey has appeared in 11-or-fewer games three of the past five seasons. The other two he was the RB1 and RB2 by average PPR points. There's 'no in between' and then there's that. One of the lost years, of course, was 2024. CMC's four appearances were the second fewest of his career, while his 12.5 average PPR points were his fewest. He is now 29 years old with a lot of miles and an even longer injury history. He's also tearing up 49ers training camp while every Plan B behind him has either gotten injured or traded. 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan is all in. Even if you aren't, the reality is that if McCaffrey makes even 13-14 appearances, there's a good chance he is winning your fantasy league from the second round. It goes without saying he could lose it, too. Risk, reward, and Christian McCaffrey.
Round 3 - Tyreek Hill (3.2)
How not to celebrate your 30th birthday? Appear in all 17 games and post 840 fewer yards than the year prior. Hill pulled off that seemingly impossible feat in 2024. Alibis abound. Hill was playing through a wrist injury, and Tua Tagovailoa was limited to 11 starts. You would still like to think Hill could have cracked 1,000 yards. He also failed to reach 2.00 yards per route run for the first time in his career. The league's pre-eminent big-play wideout had just 13 gains of 20-plus yards after that number was a league-leading 29 the year prior. By any reasonable measure, Hill's production fell off a cliff. He then muddled through an unfocused offseason where each day seemed to bring a new social media trade request. In between, Hill was winning random foot races and claiming he was as fast as ever. That, coupled with likely better quarterback health and efficiency keep Hill's upside in the upper echelons. He's just never had this kind of downside before.
Round 4 – Rashee Rice (4.9)
Rice's legal imbroglio was already one of the most confusing fantasy situations of the summer. It got even more so when the league announced his disciplinary hearing won't take place until September 30, which is four games into the Chiefs' season. Rice's surprise July plea agreement was supposed to provide clarity — he would be suspended, and it would begin in Week 1 — but now we are arguably back where we started. Will there be a settlement? Are the sides at loggerheads, hence the hearing? Will any potential post-hearing suspension be immediate? Might a ban end up being much longer than expected? At this point the most likely outcome appears to be that Rice, who is coming off a major knee injury, plays four games and then is suspended. That creates the very real possibility he doesn't get into a groove until some time around Thanksgiving, which would make him a nightmare of a fourth-round pick. The best-case scenario is that he's been healthy for months, hits the ground running as the clear-cut No. 1 wideout for a resurgent Patrick Mahomes, and takes a three-week October breather. Absent injury, no player has a wider range of potential 2025 outcomes.
Round 5 - Patrick Mahomes (5.6)
Mahomes threw for 50 touchdowns his first season as starter in 2018. He threw for 42 and won MVP as recently as two years ago. So how is it possible the best football player on planet earth has only 53 combined passing scores over the past two seasons, both of which ended with the Chiefs in the Super Bowl? That remains the primary concern for fantasy managers. Mahomes has turned the play-making spigot off and the Chiefs have barely missed a beat on the real-life gridiron. But would any quarterback, let alone Patrick Mahomes, truly choose to play this way? The quotes coming out of Chiefs camp suggest absolutely not, with everyone involved hoping to get back to a more explosive attack in 2025. Mahomes has an improved supporting cast, but one with plenty of question marks hanging over it. Rashee Rice's legal situation is the most concerning, but Travis Kelce's age and Marquise Brown's failure to stay healthy are close behind. The reality is that 2018 Mahomes is probably never coming back, but that 2023-24 Mahomes was also an aberration. Mahomes no longer belongs in the top fantasy quarterback tier, but neck and neck with Baker Mayfield? Yeah, that doesn't fly either. We must admit the possibility that legendary fantasy Mahomes is never coming back — and hence kills you as a fifth-round pick — but the far more likely outcome is that he finally returns to the 35-touchdown range and resumes helping instead of hurting the fake championship cause.
Round 6 - Travis Hunter (6.4)
Typically, you at least know what position your sixth-round fantasy pick will be focusing on. Hunter doesn't do anything in typical fashion. As promised, the No. 2 overall pick is playing all over the field, including nearly every snap as the No. 2 wideout in what should be a much-improved offense under new head coach Liam Coen. Although it obviously won't be his sole focus, Hunter does appear most focused on offense, making his sixth-round ADP one of the potential bargains of the century. If you just removed the 'CB' from his profile, the idea of a No. 2 overall wide receiver falling to the sixth round would be unthinkable. Then again, you can't just remove the CB from his profile. The risk is real. But the Jags' early usage hints at the more bullish outcome in fantasy, and Hunter's mid-round ADP feels too bearish from fantasy managers.
Round 7 - Rome Odunze (7.8)
Odunze had a disastrous rookie season, especially for a top-10 pick. He finished 65th in receptions (54) and an eye-watering 81st in yards per route run (1.18). He didn't compile and he wasn't efficient. So what's the upside case? I'll ask another question: Just how broken was the Bears' 2024 offense? Via the incomparable Rich Hribar, Odunze ran 144 routes where there wasn't even a target on the play. 144 times Odunze was asked to line up and fight and Caleb Williams couldn't even get an official attempt off. Stunning, brutal stuff, and why Ben Johnson was the Bears' first, second and third priorities when they fired Matt Eberflus. Odunze has plenty of 2025 concerns. For starters, he was probably one of the reasons Williams ate the ball so many times. Players weren't getting open. Luther Burden and Colston Loveland also arrive with high-end draft capital. This could be a target competition for the ages. But it's not too often a player with Odunze's draft pedigree and target opportunity falls to the seventh round. The risk is real. The potential reward is being underrated.
Round 8 - Tyler Warren (8.9)
Warren could be one of the most exciting young players in all of football – or the No. 4 option for one of the league's worst offenses. For as much buzz as Warren has generated, the opposite remains true for his potential quarterbacks, Daniel Jones and Anthony Richardson. Jones will never get a reporter tweeting poetic, while Richardson immediately got injured after his latest hype surge. Whatever the outcome, passing volume is unlikely to be this offense's forte. That's a problem for Warren since Michael Pittman and Josh Downs are both target hogs, and Alec Pierce and Adonai Mitchell are both potentially useful role players. It is unclear where that leaves Warren if he's not special from the jump. He could be. But rookie tight ends usually aren't, especially if someone like Jones or Richardson is the quarterback.