The Proven Way to Draft Rookies in Fantasy Football
What six years of data reveals about rookie performance — and how to draft smarter in 2025
Beware the Rookie!
New NFL players are the lifeblood of the league, with the draft being the most exciting offseason event. It can really turn a dying team around – just look at the Commanders this time last year. But does the in-game and online hype translate to fantasy value? Is there a strategy for drafting rookies effectively? Absolutely there is and, as always, we dug into the data to find out the answer (with the help of our AI model).
You think you’re eyeing up the new Malik Nabers, but you’re actually looking at Jameson Williams. And at the same time, you’re wondering how on earth you can catch the next Puka Nacua. Don’t worry. It’s not all guesswork.
Just checking…
We started this investigation by looking at the correlation between ‘rookie hype’ (we proxied this by taking the average draft position, ADP, from dynasty leagues for each player) and output, through PPR fantasy points per game. A correlation of -0.53 suggests that the less hyped a rookie is, the more likely they are to underperform in fantasy terms (negative because lower rookie ADP would indicate a better, more hyped player). However, there are two important notes here. The first is that it varies by position, and the second is that this actually tells us very little about how to go about drafting rookies.
For each of running backs, wide receivers and tight ends, they had a correlation coefficient smaller than -0.5 and the p-values (the probability that the test we ran gave us an incorrect result) were all extremely small. This aligns with general expectations that more hype leads to better performance. For quarterbacks however, the coefficient was -0.35, which suggests that this same trend exists, but weaker than for other positions — and it’s less statistically robust due to a smaller sample size. It’s not fully reliable, but definitely worth remembering that rookie quarterbacks are more inflicted by ‘hype blindness’. It’s therefore better to avoid them, unless you’re either sure of a great player or left without much of a choice.
Ok, but what does this tell us? It only tells us that consensus is (relatively) good at deciding which rookies are going to perform well in a given year, in comparison to other rookies. The important question becomes whether we know how their performance shapes up against the serious contenders, that you’re committing valuable fantasy draft capital to. We approached this by digging out a lesser-used metric that holds valuable information.
Welcome, FPOR
When scrolling through a table of fantasy points, it can be hard to cut through the noise and understand what you’re looking at. The top players clearly stand out, but all the middling ones blur together. Fantasy points over replacement (FPOR) resolves this issue. It compares each player’s fantasy points to the level at which you would no longer what them in your team. It takes the difference between their fantasy points and the replacement player’s fantasy points. Obviously, the replacement player level varies by league, but to keep it standardised we’ve set the benchmark as QB12, RB24, WR36 and TE12. Any time a player has negative FPOR, that indicates the opportunity cost of having them is greater than the benefit they’re providing. And for those with positive FPOR, it suggests that they’re worth keeping (depending who’s on the waiver wire), and the extent to which this is the case is made evident.
FPOR is not a predictive tool, as is the case for almost every metric used in the fantasy football community, but we’re here to understand the statistical trend – not guess at the future. We then apply our learnings of the pattern to our draft strategy. In order to understand whether rookies are worthwhile, we took our rookie hype metric, rookie ADP in dynasty leagues, and compared it to FPOR for rookies from the past six seasons.
There’s an immediate indication that rookies are, in fact, not lucrative options. Interestingly, out of the rookies with dynasty ADP lower than three, only four out of sixteen had negative FPOR, and for each case it was only marginally negative – likely not worth replacing. So, the rookies with the very highest hype do actually perform in line with expectations, but this drops off very quickly. Also, it’s worth considering what ADP position these players were taking in redraft leagues – maybe low enough to be a wasted pick anyway.
After the rookie ADP mark of 5, things go downhill. Apart from standouts like De’Von Achane (ADP 11 with FPOR 4.88) and Sam LaPorta (ADP 19.5 with FPOR 4.11), there is little to be excited about. Most rookies end up with negative FPOR. Only 44 out of 299 rookies had positive FPOR (and you can see from the distribution that the positive FPORs tend to stick around the 0-2 mark while negative FPORs run away with themselves), meaning 14.7% of rookies were worth taking. What is it that keeps drafters coming back to rookies? Speculative hype, probably.
The more relevant question is – what are the common success factors between the expectation-beaters?
Finding Puka
One very noticeable trait from the offset is that people were underwriting them because of some characteristic that was supposed to be their downfall. Achane was too small. LaPorta and Jefferson were questioned about their system fit coming out of college. Puka had an unspectacular career insofar and was not exactly stellar in the combine. A 40-yard dash of 4.57 seconds meant he didn’t even make the top third of wide receivers that year. Ok, there were reasons to underweight these players. That’s unsurprising, because these are the very reasons they had the ADP that they did. But what was it that got them to shine?
It mostly comes down to the team they played on; a combination of positional vacuum and system fit. At the same time, they also all have the skillsets that age well in the NFL, adding to which increased usage from proven effectiveness, maintains their fantasy production in the following years. This largely comes down to route running and football IQ.
Let’s look at the starboy outlier, Puka Nacua. Positional vacuum? Absolutely. Cooper Kupp was dealing with a hamstring injury in the summer of 2023 that left the Rams’ WR1 spot vacant. Puka was able to start the year with a four-game 95.5-fantasy-point masterclass. When Kupp returned the following week, Puka of course saw more volatile output, but performed nevertheless. This is the most important indicator. The rookie class is always full of extremely talented players. Unless they’re given the opportunity to prove themselves, they won’t be doing much. Just take a look at the rookie running backs in San Francisco last year.
Clue one, taken. The second is about fitting into the system. Sean McVay’s vision meant Puka had to take on the slot-production role and work well within the tight-timing offense. We wouldn’t be talking about him if he didn’t make it work out. This one is much harder to foresee because it’s so difficult to tell how a player will work. Puka was spectacular in small spaces and was a genius route-runner, so he was a natural success. But we are impacted by hindsight bias here, and there are plenty of others who would have been flagged.
Jameson Williams is an excellent cautionary tale. Firstly, he went into the start of the year injured. Obviously, this is an immediate red flag because he missed out on the chemistry building process of camp and early games. Also, his play style doesn’t translate nicely to fantasy production. The deep targets make him a volatile producer, and meant chemistry took much longer to build. And despite the Lions’ hope of making him their WR1, that never took off due to a mix of his initial injury and his character.
You can’t lose if you don’t play
We’ve established some signs. But it’s very easy to say that was what was behind their fantasy success in hindsight. So, I give you my ultimate verdict on drafting rookies: unless you are more-than-confident, hopefully on a rookie going at the very lowest ADP because consensus has clocked in the great opportunity, do not try to draft rookies. They are highly volatile, and their production depends on far more than themselves. Usage is often unclear. Coaches are the villain in this story. They do not care if their future-star rookie is the one to score the touchdowns and rake in fantasy points. Because, as long as the rookie is learning how to be a star, they are doing what they have to.
That said, keep flags on the rookies that meet the criteria I’ve highlighted. The most important one is positional vacancy, because this is where the boom potential lies. Look at strong offenses that have injury-prone or currently-injured big name players. To this, you can commit as little as a very late round draft pick or keep an eye on for the waiver wire in the first few weeks.
And a final tip for you. Do not draft tight end rookies. It’s easy to be hung up on Brock Bowers and Sam LaPorta. But they were the only two tight ends in the past six years who ended with positive FPOR. In their rookie year, tight ends are almost always used in a fantasy-unfriendly way. As I suggested before, keep an eye on them for early-year pickup. Do not waste valuable draft capital on them.
Remember, if you’re drafting rookies, it’s about more than just the name.
See you next week, where we’ll be tackling unchartered territory within draft rankings.
— Valentino