The 2025 fantasy football season is officially in the books (unless you have an incompetent commissioner who has the championships going into the largely meaningless Week 18). This year saw multiple breakout players, veterans who set career highs, and players who were once fantasy outcasts returning to the circle of trust once more.
It also had a slew of players who had years to forget, whose on field performance likely torpedoed your hopes of bringing home a fantasy title for your squad. Here are the players who, based on where you likely selected them, were the biggest fantasy football anchors of the year.
Quarterback
Lamar Jackson, BAL
Largely viewed as a consensus top 3 fantasy quarterback heading into the season, Jackson owners faced a painful dilemma for the second half of the season:
-Do you continue to start Jackson and hope he can play through the injuries/regain his previous form?
-Do you start someone else and risk him having a 30+ point performance on your bench?
Normally we give players the benefit of the doubt when they’re dealing with injuries and omit them from lists like these. However, Baltimore continued to trot out Jackson despite whatever injury designation (back, lower body, hip, knee, ankle etc.) he was battling just about every week.
The former league MVP, and top scoring fantasy player of 2024, started off strong with week winning performances vs. Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit. But that was about all Lamar owners got out of the dual-threat QB from there on out. Jackson got dinged up against Kansas City in Week 4, putting up a paltry 11.68 points before missing his team’s next 3 contests.
When he returned in Week 9 vs. Miami, he gave owners hope that he could bounce back with a 4 TD day, only to dish out stinker after stinker for the rest of the season. All in all Jackson had 4 weeks where he put up less than 10 fantasy points, and failed to reach his projected points total in 7 of 12 starts. Considering most leagues saw him as the 2nd QB off the board behind Josh Allen, that kind of production from the QB spot is what kills fantasy seasons.
Wide Receiver
Justin Jefferson, MIN
You can blame the poor QB play all you want for Jefferson’s WR28 production in 2025, but the matter of the fact is that someone in your league took JJ in the first round, and were wildly disappointed all season long.
With the carousel of QBs that Minnesota trotted out this year it wasn’t surprising to see Jefferson’s yards total fall. But for him to only post 2 receiving TDs on the season was an absolute fantasy blackhole. Like Lamar, owners couldn’t justify benching the Vikings star, but then had to hate-watch their WR1 get overthrown every Sunday afternoon all season long.
Jefferson posted ZERO 20 point games, and exceeded his projected points total only 3 times all year. By the end of the season most fantasy services had his usual 16-19 point projected points falling to somewhere in the 11-13 point range which just isn’t going to cut it for someone who you likely spent a top 8 pick on to acquire.
Brian Thomas Jr., JAX
Brian Thomas Jr. was a fantasy stud in 2024, putting up 1,282 yards and 10 TDs in his rookie season as he established himself as the new WR1 in Jacksonville. Many believed this meant he would be entering the discussion as the “next great wide receiver out of LSU” similar to Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase. Some services (such as CBS fantasy football) had him listed as the number 13 player OVERALL heading into the season. That made him a bubble 1st round pick/early 2nd round pick in plenty of leagues across North America.
Instead, he tumbled down the depth chart (due in large part to a solid case of the dropsies) in Liam Coen’s new look offence, so much so that the team traded for and then extended former Raiders WR Jakobi Meyers midseason.
Despite being healthy for most of the year, BTJ exceeded 10 points just twice, and scored only 2 TDs on the season. Even in PPR leagues, the talented wideout had just 2 games with 5 or more catches on the season, and failed to eclipse 100+ yards in any contest in 2025.
Running Back
Kenneth Walker III, SEA
Watching KW3 play every week was a test of mental fortitude as owners had to sit idly as Zach Charbonnet vultured touchdown after touchdown from the veteran RB. Walker scored fewer than 10 points in 10 of his team’s 17 contests, with 4 of those being fewer than 5 points.
Walker had two 100 yard rushing games on the year, but 12 with fewer than 75 yards. When you couple a lack of rushing TDs with a back who isn’t particularly involved in his team’s passing game, you’ve got a nightmare scenario for fantasy owners.
It would be one thing if Seattle was struggling to move the ball on offence, but owners had to watch the Seahawks put up the 7th most total TDs, and 8th most total yards across the entire NFL, only to see a fantasy dud in the boxscore from the team’s supposed top running back. The saving grace here is you likely drafted Walker as your RB2, because if he was your bell-cow back, it’s highly likely you ended up at the bottom of the fantasy standings this season.
Chuba Hubbard, CAR
Last season’s waiver wire hero turned into this year’s most droppable player as the Canadian fell out of favour in Carolina behind the all world skills of *checks notes* Rico Dowdle…
To be fair, there were other fantasy killers we could have put here (Bucky Irving, Alvin Kamara etc.) but they missed large swaths of time due to injury. You could at least put them on an IR spot. Hubbard suited up for all but 2 contests, and was wildly ineffective from Week 3 onwards.
Carolina remained a run first offence, but Hubbard was unable to turn his touches into anything resembling fantasy production, failing to record a single game with more than 85 yards on the ground and going over the 10 point mark just 3 times all year (two of which came in weeks 1 and 2).
Hubbard was regularly going somewhere in the 4th to 5th round of most fantasy drafts, and was a consensus top 20 RB heading into fantasy drafts across most services. So if you took him over someone else in his “mock range” like a George Pickens or Tetairoa McMillan, you were likely kicking yourself for most of the season.
Tight End
T.J. Hockenson, MIN
Another victim of Minnesota’s poor QB play, the usually reliable T.J. Hockenson put up a dud stat line on the year, getting outpaced by tight ends such as: Colby Parkinson, Chig Okonkwo, AJ Barner, and Theo Johnson.
Hockenson went over the 10 point mark exactly 1 time this season despite being healthy throughout the 2025 NFL campaign. The veteran went over 50 yards only twice, and caught 5 or more passes only 4 times, killing his value in even PPR leagues.
ESPN had the Vikings pass catcher listed as their TE5 in their preseason rankings, with most leagues seeing him get selected somewhere in the 5-6th rounds. In a year where the tight end position reverted back to a wasteland following a brief resurgence, Hockenson still managed to disappoint, and likely ended up on your waiver wire at some point.
FLEX
Kaleb Johnson, PIT
If you bought the preseason hype for Johnson, we have to assume that your zero RB strategy blew up in your face. To be fair, the recipe for success was right there. You have Pittsburgh, who is one of the most run happy teams in the league, a highly touted prospect, and minimal entrenched competition in Jaylen Warren and Kenneth Gainwell. Put that all together and there’s a case to be made that Johnson should have had the season that TreVeyon Henderson did.
Instead, you got 28 carries for 69 yards. That’s right, the team’s much hyped rookie put up 69 yards on the ground FOR THE YEAR.
ESPN had Johnson ranked as their RB 29, meaning that in just about every league, he was taken as someone’s RB2 or at worst a FLEX consideration. He was ranked ahead of veterans such as Javonte Williams, and Travis Etienne Jr. but managed to get involved in no more than 20.8% of the team’s offensive snaps at any point of the season. He also had as many games with a negative point total as he had games where he scored 2 or more points.
Not only was Johnson droppable, but was essentially a wasted mid-round pick for whatever poor soul ended up with him on their roster this year.
Conclusion
There were a litany of other fantasy killers this season (Malik Nabers, James Conner, Tyreek Hill etc.) but those were injuries and were outside of the player’s control. Injuries suck, but they happen. In the case of the players above, they were available, but there are a bunch of fantasy owners who probably wish they weren’t throughout the 2025 campaign.
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