The term “bust” is a common one in fantasy football, but it’s also often misunderstood. This list is not of bad players. Many of the players that will be busts will be incredible players on the field and help their NFL team – just not their fantasy team.
Bust is relative to fantasy cost, and in many of these cases there is a very high cost to acquire these players whether that is in Dynasty trades or Redraft drafts. I’ve identified the 5 biggest bust candidates this season based on their current Underdog Fantasy ADP.
Brian Thomas Jr
ADP 13 (WR8)
Brian Thomas Jr is a stud of a football player. He is incredible, and he is coming off an incredible rookie season. But do you know who else is a stud of a football player that is likely to have an incredible rookie season? Travis Hunter.
I recently ranked Thomas fourth in my projections for the sophomore wide receivers this season. That’s mainly because people are heavily discounting the type of impact Hunter can make right now.
Liam Coen is an offensive head coach. Teams with offensive minded head coaches don’t give up a future first and 36th overall pick to trade up 3 picks and draft a cornerback. Hunter is a wide receiver and will play the vast majority of passing downs right away.
While Thomas was incredible last season, his great finish came primarily from a stretch at the end of the year where he averaged almost 12 targets a game. That happened to overlap with Evan Engram and Christian Kirk, the two other most targeted players on the team, being out due to injury.
If this was a Joe Burrow led team then sure, it’s possible for Thomas to finish as a top 10 wide receiver while Hunter also lights it up as a rookie. Trevor Lawrence though, is no Burrow. There simply isn’t enough evidence that this offense can hold up two elite pass catchers, and that’s what this team has.
Rashee Rice
ADP 22 (WR12)
The Fantasy Football community continues to value the Chiefs offense as if it’s 2022. Patrick Mahomes is not throwing 35+ touchdowns and 4800+ yards a year like in the past. That’s not to say Mahomes isn’t a good quarterback capable of those things, but the Chiefs have found a much safer and more reliable way of winning games.
Rashee Rice is far from the only target for Mahomes to throw to. Xavier Worthy showed development as the season progressed last year, Travis Kelce is far from worthless despite showing some age-related decline, and Hollywood Brown is back and healthy.
I don’t doubt Rice can be the leading fantasy performer of that trio, but in a mediocre passing offense from a production standpoint, that’s unlikely to result in WR1 numbers for a receiver coming off a major knee injury.
Jameson Williams
ADP 43 (WR24)
The Lions are seeing a lot of changes this offseason. Losing Ben Johnson alone could drastically alter this offense in a negative way. Add in All-Pro center Frank Ragnow retiring, and I’m expecting the Lions offense to come back down to earth this season.
It’s not common for the top offenses to maintain their firepower year over year. Since 2018, the top offense from one season has finished 10th on average the following season, scoring almost 100 less points on average. If the Lions are not an extremely high-powered offense, Jameson Williams is the most likely player to take a hit.
Ragnow retiring means the offensive line will be less reliable in both the run and pass games. That reduces the amount of time Jared Goff has in the pocket for long developing routes and reduces the effectiveness of the play-action game. Those are two areas where Williams has seen most of his production.
One other area Williams sees a lot of opportunities is trick plays. That is a Ben Johnson staple, and with him gone, it’s likely the Lions don’t run the same volume of trick plays or have the same success with them.
Amon-Ra St. Brown has shown he will get his share of the offense no matter what. Sam LaPorta is a steady presence over the middle of the field. Williams’ longer developing routes down field are the most likely to see a major decline in effectiveness with a Lions offense that isn’t the highest powered in the league.
Alvin Kamara
ADP 58 (RB19)
Alvin Kamara will be 30 years old when the season starts. Kamara has had 4 straight seasons of less than 4.2 yards per carry. Yet, to this point, Kamara has managed to stay fantasy relevant. Why? Necessity.
The Saints have attempted to bring in reinforcements to shift away from the plodding Kamara, but they have failed spectacularly. After a breakout season from Jamaal Williams in 2022, he was given over $8 million guaranteed by the Saints to put up 589 total scrimmage yards over 27 games. The Saints also drafted Kendre Miller in 2023 who has only managed 14 games and 80 carries across his first two seasons in the NFL due to various injuries.
Kamara didn’t maintain volume because he earned it. He was bad, but the rest of the running backs were either awful or injured. Now the Saints look to have addressed the problem. Miller is back healthy, they added a 5000+ yard college back in Devin Neal, and recently brought in veteran Cam Akers, all to ensure Kamara wouldn’t need to be an inefficient high-volume back for a 5th straight season.
While we may not know which of the many other backs in the Saints running back room will take away significant carries, it’s clear someone will. Add in that the Saints are projected to be among the worst offenses in the league, and Kamara is a very obvious bust candidate heading into 2025.
RJ Harvey
ADP 59 (RB20)
The Denver Broncos were a great landing spot for RJ Harvey. Sean Payton has been incredible at churning out productive rushers for fantasy. Unfortunately though, that hype has led to Harvey being overvalued.
The Broncos recently added veteran JK Dobbins on a one year deal. While Dobbins has certainly struggled with injuries throughout his career, he’s also been extremely effective when on the field. For as long as Dobbins is healthy, I expect he will at the very least split time evenly with a rookie Harvey.
Harvey hasn’t fallen completely off my board, but at RB20 you’re drafting someone that should be the RB1 on their team with a fair deal of confidence. If the post-draft hype around Harvey continues to cool, and the Dobbins news pushes him into the RB26+ range, I think he provides some upside at that price.
As it is though, Harvey is much more likely to disappoint people drafting him as their team’s RB2 than he is to exceed or even meet expectations.