John's favorite rookie waiver wire pickups, fantasy football breakout candidates heading into Week 2 of 2025. Which NFL rookies have league-winning fantasy upside?
Time and time again, rookies prove to be absolutely pivotal to many fantasy football team's prospects throughout NFL seasons. First-year players that aren't drafted in the first two rounds of the NFL Draft tend to be overlooked, leading to the prospect of fantasy managers getting major value for picking them up.
The "green flags", or signals that players are on the verge of breakouts, are already there for many rookies. For others, we can look at their talent, and the opportunity that could be presented by their teams not performing well at their positions, to identify them as great stashes.
Last season, my "Rookie Report" column helped identify the looming breakouts for both Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Bucky Irving and Jacksonville Jaguars WR Brian Thomas Jr. before their first massive games. I've done a lot more research since then, and I think I'll be able to help you get more free league-winners this year, so let's dive in!
Right now, Thornton is stashed in just 40 percent of fantasy leagues. The good ol' "The team has so many other receivers! [Insert player name here] will never get a shot!" argument is preventing many fantasy managers from capitalizing on a golden opportunity.
Thornton is a unique athlete. Almost nobody that's ever played in the NFL has his combination of size and speed. We saw the aforementioned Thomas, who is 6-foot-2 and ran a 4.33-second 40-yard dash, dominate in the NFL last season. Teams weren't able to deal with his huge overall length.
Thornton is in a great offense that should allow him to shine. His quarterback, Geno Smith, uncorked quite a few deep passes in Week 1, and led the NFL in average depth of target. That's a match made in heaven for Thornton, who's capable of blowing by cornerbacks and making great catches downfield with his size.
The reason it's so hard to defend these plays is because even if a corner is able to hang with the player's speed, there aren't any cornerbacks that can outreach him, and Thornton can simply reach over them and catch well-thrown balls out of the range of any defensive back that's behind him.
If the throw is well-timed and accurate, only double coverage or safety help can reliably prevent a long reception. Thornton was close to an 87-yard touchdown in his first game as a pro, and he was considered a raw talent. As he develops, he could get more looks on different types of routes, too.
He has massive potential and should be stashed in all leagues. The offense is already trying to get him involved, and he has a clear role that should only grow as the season progresses.
Fannin was targeted nine times in Week 1, catching seven passes for 63 yards in his pro debut. He actually led his team in total targets, having seen one more look than second place, WR Cedric Tillman. Even though the Browns already have TE David Njoku, who's been productive in the past, Fannin came out the gates swinging.
Fannin had arguably the best tight end season in college football history in 2024, and thought he played for a smaller school, Bowling Green, his production against bigger schools was impressive. Fannin is undersized for a TE, but his team essentially used him as a receiver.
The most encouraging thing by far was Fannin's usage. He was incredibly involved. Playing time is hugely important for rookies, and often indicates the level of confidence the organization has early in their ability to contribute to the team's offense.
It wasn't a great overall day for the Browns, as they lost 16-17 to the Cincinnati Bengals, and the Bengals have had a lackluster pass defense for several seasons now, but Fannin should be heavily involved in the offense moving forward. Nine targets for a TE is nothing to sneeze at.
Fannin is now on 51 percent of rosters, but that number should be higher. It's incredibly difficult to find tight ends that consistently get heavily targeted that you don't have to invest early picks for in fantasy drafts. Fannin might fit that bill.
I've been a massive advocate for Tuten for months. I've long had him ranked as my RB1 in the class, and while he didn't get much playing time in Week 1, a big barrier to his potential for more playing time was just removed. The Jaguars traded the RB2 on their depth chart, Tank Bigsby, to the Philadelphia Eagles just a few days ago.
Tuten is now the clear RB2 for the Jaguars on the depth chart, behind RB Travis Etienne Jr. and third-string man LeQuint Allen Jr. Tuten and Allen are the two RBs the Jaguars drafted in the 2025 NFL Draft, under the new coaching regime lead by head coach Liam Coen.
Coen selected a fourth-round pick last season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bucky Irving, who had a massive season, despite playing on a team that also featured a high-scoring fantasy running back in Rachaad White ahead of him on the depth chart.
Etienne just had a huge game, rushing 16 times for 143 yards and catching three passes for 13 yards, totaling 18.6 PPR fantasy points, but he played against the worst rush defense in the NFL. The Carolina Panthers allowed a league-high 5.2 yards per carry last season.
Etienne only forced three missed tackles on his 16 rushes. Carolina's defense provided very little resistance, and their offense wasn't able to produce much, either, allowing the Jaguars plenty of flexibility in their game plan and forcing their defenses to constantly remain on the field.
Coen's run-blocking schemes were elite in Tampa Bay. There's evidence that Irving might struggle this year, largely because Coen's ability to give him tons of space to run isn't present there any more. Coen's elite rushing attack in Tampa Bay could become another monster for defenses to handle in Jacksonville.
Tuten doesn't even need to become a workhorse back to have massive fantasy value. His elite athletic profile is matched by very few RBs in NFL history. Only Tuten and Chris Johnson ran a 4.32-second 40-yard dash or faster while weighing above 195 pounds.
Tuten should be stashed in 100 percent of leagues. He should quickly become a must-start back.
Hunter's path to fantasy relevance has bigger barriers in place than Tuten's does... for now. RB Kyren Williams is still the clear lead back for the Rams, and Hunter was a healthy scratch for Week 1. Still, encouraging signs for Hunter to work his way to fantasy relevance were present in the team's first game.
Blake Corum, the RB2 on the team's depth chart, was involved decently down the stretch of last season. He had around five touches per game, logging two games with eight carries, as Rams head coach Sean McVay tried to get him worked into the rushing game. Those plans might have been abandoned already.
It shouldn't be much of a surprise, considering how awfully inefficient Corum was last season. Even though Williams regressed massively in nearly every statistical category, suffering huge reductions in yards per carry, missed tackles forced, and yards after contact, Corum was much, much worse.
The data suggests that it's actively bad for the team to give rushes to Corum. Hunter, meanwhile, though he might need more time to learn the offense to become active on game days, easily dusted both Corum and Williams in efficiency in college, despite playing in the SEC, arguably the toughest conference in college football.
Hunter has the talent and draft capital to get a significant workload at some point this season. Of course, McVay tends to work his rookie backs in very slowly. He runs a complex offense. It might take some time for Hunter to get carries. But an injury to Williams would make it much harder for McVay to keep the rookie off the field.
And Hunter might just be more talented than Williams in the first place. I think so, at least. In redraft leagues, there isn't a ton of imminent upside, but the Rams offense is a wonderful place to get your fantasy players from, and with Corum performing so poorly in it, it's hard to see Hunter not getting a shot to show his skills soon.
Explosive, athletic rookies on teams that don't feature well-performing players at their same position are excellent stashes to make in fantasy football. The Chiefs obviously have one of the league's best offenses, and it tends to be screen-heavy. It's one of the few teams, if not the only one, that consistently succeeds on screen passes.
We saw the two-headed backfield of Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt produce very poorly in Week 1. Pacheco managed just 4.8 PPR fantasy points, rushing five times for 25 yards and catching two passes for three yards, and Hunt rushed five times for 16 yards and caught two passes for ten yards.
Pacheco was the team's workhorse back in 2023. A broken leg put a stop to that in 2024, so it's odd that, now that he's fully healthy, he hasn't regained his role. He's in a split backfield with Hunt, having exactly split opportunities with him. Pacheco is the much more explosive player, so this might not make sense initially.
But the above play is a nice example of why. Pacheco has serious vision problems. He often charges into whatever hole immediately presents itself without following his blockers for potentially bigger plays. The above play could have been a touchdown, and was schemed brilliantly, but it wasn't.
Pacheco took the gap to the inside when he could have followed his lead blocker on the outside to throw a block on the nearest defender, using his speed to bounce it outside and at least get much closer to the goal line. Hunt does a better job of following his blocks and not throwing away positive gains.
Smith, meanwhile, is a matchup nightmare for linebackers. He's a converted receiver that ran a 4.39-second 40-yard dash at the 2025 NFL Combine. He has major pass-catching upside on a team that could use an RB with such skills. Pacheco is not a good pass-catcher, and Hunt lacks juice.
Still, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid works his rookies in very slowly, so Smith is a stash for now. It's encouraging that he got playing time in Week 1, even if he wasn't targeted. But Kansas City has a serious need for better running back play. Smith can provide it for them.
We hardly saw much involvement from WR Rashee Rice as a rookie until late in his first season. That's the way Reid likes to do things. The moment Rice had a big game, that was all forgotten, and there was a mad scramble to pick him up off waivers.
If you have the bench for it, you can avoid this by stashing Smith now. The same thing is likely to happen with him. The Chiefs lacked WR talent and Rice filled in that chasm nicely. Smith can do the same with the lack of good RB play the Chiefs have. There is huge upside here.