Big Blue View
A look at the early-round players with the widest range of outcomes
Welcome back, readers! In my last column, I discussed the safest players in fantasy football for 2025. Today’s topic is the riskiest early-round players. What does “risky” mean, in the context of a fantasy draft? As always, thanks for asking! Let me try to explain.
Risk isn’t a bad thing, and in this little game we play it’s unavoidable. In fantasy football (and in other endeavors, like investing), you need to take on a certain amount of risk to succeed. Playing it safe might protect your downside, but it also limits your upside. If your goal is to finish fourth or fifth in your fantasy league every year, then just take the safest, “high floor” player available with each pick, and you should be fine. But, that’s no fun! The objective is to win, and we need to take some risks to do that.
As you get deeper into a draft, the fantasy points you can expect from each selection become more speculative. But you’re also paying out less draft capital, so you’re risking less. I’m not worried about taking big swings in the later rounds of a fantasy draft (or even a little before), or with my $1 and $2 picks in an auction format, as I’m not risking all that much on those picks. In fact, I’d say that’s the appropriate strategy. While it’s nice to have some higher floor options on your bench, you also want some players with bigger upside (like backup running backs), even if the downside case is that you’ll drop that player by Week 3.
Taking bigger risks early in drafts is more complicated, because of the opportunity cost. When you take a player with a wider range of outcomes in the first couple of rounds, you’re passing on some very good, high floor players. There’s an adage that you can’t win your fantasy league in Round 1, but you can certainly lose it right there. Those who took Christian McCaffrey last summer know what I’m talking about. Sure, every player carries risk. Any player can get hurt at any time, or fail to perform up to expectations for any number of reasons including usage, injuries to teammates, etc. The chances of these things happening vary from player to player, and our job as fantasy managers is to try to evaluate that downside risk against the cost to draft, the expected return, and the upside case.
What I’m getting at is this: A risky pick can still be a good pick. Some risks are worth taking, even early in drafts. I’ll gladly take some of the players listed below at Average Draft Position (ADP), because I think the risk is worth the potential reward. My goal with this column is to point out some of the early round players who have the widest range of outcomes, and I’m looking at it through the lens of opportunity cost (ADP). Generally speaking, I’m...
