Who Should You Draft with the 1st Pick in 2025?

The first overall pick is a strange place to be. On the one hand, there's a "chalk pick," and some people will laugh at you if you don't make it. On the other hand, at 1.01, you have complete freedom to decide who you believe will be fantasy's most valuable player in 2025, and to snag that player with impunity. If you believe the guy going sixth in ADP is going to score the most points at a critical position, there's no law preventing you from "reaching" to pick him at the top.

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Oh, and on the subject of "chalk." Here's a look at the consensus 1.01 from the last five years, and where they finished in fantasy points, both at their position and overall (in half-PPR). And no, this is not a cruel joke.

Forget the Madden curse — no player drafted at the consensus 1.01 has played more than 11 games in the last five years! The first pick has been an absolute disaster for half a decade or more. But why? Well, one major reason immediately stands out. Almost exclusively, the 1.01 in a given year is the highest-scoring running back or wide receiver from the previous season. The only exception on the list above is 2021 Christian McCaffrey, considering he played just three games in 2020 ... but CMC was the highest scorer in PPG (27.3) in those three games. And who can blame fantasy managers? They just watched these guys scorch the league a few short months prior, and typically, little has changed in the subsequent year. Why not run it back?

The law of averages, regression to the mean, and the physical toll of elite volume. That's why. When a player has a season good enough to finish number one in fantasy, it usually means everything went right, nothing went wrong, and they saw a ton of touches. Unfortunately, mathematics, statistics, and human physiology don't play well with that recipe from year to year.

So what am I saying? That neither Ja'Marr Chase nor Saquon Barkley should be in consideration for the 1.01? Not necessarily. But maybe. Read on to find out.

The Candidates (in ADP Order)

WR Ja'Marr Chase, Bengals

Alright, here we go, the top-scoring wide receiver from 2024, Ja'Marr Chase, comfortably atop consensus, first overall in just about every rankings list, mock draft, and ADP aggregator. Chase was historically dominant last year, coasting to the rare receiving Triple Crown with 127 catches, 1,708 yards, and 17 touchdowns. The last player to do that was Cooper Kupp in 2021, and before that, it had been 16 years since Steve Smith in 2005. Chase is still (currently) healthy, still has Joe Burrow at quarterback, and still plays for one of the most fantasy-friendly teams in the NFL. By all accounts, he should be the best again. He's the chalk 1.01 for that reason.

But. Do we need to reconsider? In 2024, Chase scored a touchdown on 9.7% of his whopping 175 targets. The two years prior, he'd scored on just 5.7% of his targets. In 2024, Chase's best game of the year — a 264-yard, three-TD affair in Week 10, came with Tee Higgins inactive. Give Chase 20 fantasy points that game (instead of 49.9), and his PPG on the season drops from 20.0 all the way to 18.2. The Bengals defense was awful ... and they've since swapped coordinators to fix the problem. Like it or not, these are the kinds of outlier factors that tend to correct the year after a No. 1 finish, and that make it so hard to repeat. No one has ever scored 17 receiving touchdowns in consecutive seasons, and less than a handful have hit 125+ catches or 1,700+ yards consecutively. And in fantasy, no wide receiver has finished atop the position in back-to-back seasons since Antonio Brown in 2014 and 2015.

If we ignore all the history, Chase is the clear 1.01 ... if we don't, the field breaks wide open.

RB Bijan Robinson, Falcons

Nearly as concretely as Chase is the consensus first pick, Bijan Robinson is the consensus second. He was only the RB4 last season, but with doubts over Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry's ages and perhaps over Jahmyr Gibbs' post-Ben-Johnson offense (see below), Robinson has climbed the ladder to be the top-drafted running back in fantasy. He was incredibly consistent in his second career season, with double-digit fantasy points in 14 games, even despite highly questionable quarterback play (and a late-season swap from Kirk Cousins to Michael Penix). With Penix now operating the offense through the summer, it's not hard to imagine Atlanta getting better with the ball and Bijan benefiting.

Robinson also offers a rare combination of upside as both a rusher and a receiver, which makes him uniquely game-script-proof. Last year, he became just the second player to top 300+ carries and 60+ receptions in any of the last six seasons (Najee Harris in 2021). His 518 carries and 119 receptions through two years have only ever been exceeded by LaDainian Tomlinson, Le'Veon Bell, Matt Forte, and Edgerrin James. And Justin Edwards has Atlanta's offensive line ranked No. 4 for the 2025 season. The one major concern is his 2024 workload — as we'll break down further in the Barkley section below, usage of Robinson's magnitude is hard to maintain and even harder on the body. That said, Robinson is still just 23 years old, which helps counteract the concerns of a post-volume breakdown. And even if he takes a small step back in volume, he's a prime candidate to finish atop the position if healthy.

RB Saquon Barkley, Eagles

The move from New York to Philly could not have gone better for Saquon Barkley. He saw a whopping 345 carries, gained 2,005 yards, and scored 13 touchdowns on the ground, while adding 33 catches for 278 yards and two more scores in the air. He ripped off eight plays of 40+ yards (tied with Ja'Marr Chase for the most at any position) and scored eight touchdowns from outside the red zone (most among running backs). He was consistent, explosive, and all but unstoppable while playing for the eventual Super Bowl champions with a top-10 offense and a top-two defense. And nothing, really, has changed in 2025.

So why isn't Barkley the consensus 1.01 in 2025? Because the fantasy community has at least started to understand the dangers of "the season after." Running backs stopped seeing 340+ carries on the regular right around a decade ago. Since then, only Derrick Henry (in 2020 and 2022), Josh Jacobs (in 2022), and Barkley (last year) have hit the mark. The succeeding seasons: Henry missed nine games and logged 219 carries 2021, then managed to hit 280 carries in 2023, while Jacobs saw just 233 carries in 13 games in 2023. At best — Henry in 2023 — there was a drop off of 69 carries (roughly 20%), which coincided with a fall from RB4 overall to RB8. At worst — both other seasons — the veteran backs missed significant time. If you expand the net a bit, say to 350+ touches, it gets worse. Over the last decade, 13 running backs have topped 350+ touches in a season and then played the subsequent season. Every single one of them saw fewer touches and scored fewer fantasy points in that second year, averaging 152 fewer fantasy points on 127 fewer touches in the aggregate. Barkley made the list himself when he finished as the RB5 with 352 touches in 2022 ... only to decline to 288 touches and RB13 in 2023. And that was Barkley two years younger.

As with Chase earlier, if we ignore all the history, Barkley is the clear RB1 and arguably the 1.01 ... but we simply cannot do that. And that means projecting Barkley for regression, even on the same team, in largely the same context.

RB Jahmyr Gibbs, Lions

Alright, so if we're looking for peak performance without the red flag of outlier volume ... maybe it's Jahmyr Gibbs? Gibbs scored two fewer points than Barkley last year — albeit in one extra game — but shouldered just 250 carries and 52 receptions. He was the RB2 in fantasy, a major step up from his RB10 finish the year prior, and like Bijan Robinson, is still just 23 years old. The big question mark for Gibbs — and the entire Lions offense — is how things will look after the departure of Ben Johnson. Realistically, they will be less efficient and score fewer touchdowns, while also potentially throwing downfield more often under new OC John Morton. They also lost both Kevin Zeitler and Frank Ragnow, stalwarts on the interior of the offensive line. None of that is good for Gibbs.

You could theorize that if Detroit is less dominant as a whole, and are playing close games (or from behind) more often, that Gibbs might see more work in the RBBC with David Montgomery ... but that's stretching for hope a bit. And on that note, it's worth remembering that Gibbs scored 91.2 fantasy points over the last three weeks of the year — the three games Montgomery missed. He nearly doubled his fantasy points per game average over that stretch, and might have finished closer to RB5 without that burst. Gibbs definitely has the upside to finish No. 1 overall, but it feels like a few more things have to fall his way than they do with some of the other candidates.

WR CeeDee Lamb, Cowboys

If you want the complete outlook for CeeDee Lamb, I wrote his full profile earlier this month. It's worth reading for the context and the details, but here's The Bottom Line from that article:

• With Dak Prescott at the helm, CeeDee Lamb has been arguably the best and most consistent wide receiver in fantasy for three years ... and Dak is back after missing the latter half of 2024.
• Lamb is unlikely to be affected much by the coaching changes or the addition of George Pickens in Dallas — if anything, Pickens' presence might open things up for Lamb, while leaving him comfortably atop the pecking order.
• Projecting Lamb in this offense results in an expected finish somewhere in the top five, and the All-Pro belongs squarely in the tier with Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson for "Most Likely to Finish No. 1 Overall."

Finally, I concluded by stating that "I'm personally willing to spend the 1.01 overall to land him in some drafts." Sooo ... that's a bit of a giveaway on my thoughts. When Lamb was the WR1 just two years ago, only four players outscored him in fantasy: Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, and teammate Dak Prescott at QB, plus Christian McCaffrey at RB. A fantasy drafter who could see the future in August of 2023 would have taken McCaffrey or Lamb at the 1.01, depending on which position they preferred. I'm inclined to believe we might be in for a repeat in 2025.

WR Justin Jefferson, Vikings

Three seasons ago, Justin Jefferson was the best wide receiver in fantasy and trailed just Austin Ekeler and Christian McCaffrey for overall fantasy points. And while he caught a monster 128 passes for 1,809 yards on 184 targets that year, he actually suffered from poor touchdown efficiency, scoring just eight times — below the league average for "touchdown rate" on targets. Through five career seasons, Jefferson has averaged 16.2 fantasy points per game, trailing only Ja'Marr Chase for most in NFL history ... not just most in a player's first five seasons, most period. He's arguably the best wideout in the NFL and in fantasy.

And yet, in 2025 drafts, he's going sixth overall, as the WR3 in multi-site ADP. Why? Two reasons. The first is a hamstring injury that cropped up in late July and remains unresolved entering late August. Of all the issues that could sideline a player late in training camp and into the preseason, hamstrings are among the most concerning. They're often precursors to other injuries, and tend to linger far longer than we'd like. For proof, Jefferson missed seven games in 2023 due to a hamstring injury (on the other leg). The second reason is "second-year rookie" QB J.J. McCarthy, who takes over the Minnesota offense after the 10th overall pick missed his entire (actual) rookie season (knee). Sam Darnold was shockingly efficient in McCarthy's absence, and while head coach Kevin O'Connell's history suggests he can get more of the same out of McCarthy, he's still a far less proven commodity than Joe Burrow or Dak Prescott.

Should Jefferson shake the hamstring issue and McCarthy have a breakout season, there's little reason the All-World receiver can't be number one at the position again. That's just, currently, two more red flags than you'll get with Chase or Lamb.

RB Christian McCaffrey, 49ers

Funny enough, I also wrote the full profile for Christian McCaffrey earlier this month. That one is even more worth reading than Lamb's, given all the questions and confusion around CMC and his 2025 outlook, but here's The Bottom Line again:

• When healthy, Christian McCaffrey is the best running back in fantasy, arguably the best fantasy asset at any position, and potentially the best to ever grace our fantasy lineups.
• Health is a legitimate concern, with a substantial history of multi-game absences, lower-body and soft-tissue injuries, and Achilles tendinitis from last season. We can't ignore the risks, but we should also weigh them appropriately with McCaffrey's five healthy seasons and the upside he brings when active.
• At a current ADP of RB4 (1.07 overall), the investment to get McCaffrey is massive. You're spending your first-round pick, and if he misses half the season, it could kill your chances at the championship. But, if he plays 17 games of vintage CMC football, you'll be getting the number one player in fantasy six picks later than he should have gone.

It's not actually all that complicated. McCaffrey is outside the "consensus" conversation for 1.01 purely because of the injury concerns, but if you project him for a clean bill of health — which is less "foolishly optimistic" than it sounds — he'd be a favorite ... maybe even the favorite for the first overall pick.

Who Should You Draft?

I hope I haven't made this harder on you by presenting seven legitimate options for the first overall pick. But the reality is: any one of these guys has a nearly equal shot at earning the pick through the 2025 season ... and the real winner could come even later. Last year, Ja'Marr Chase was the consensus 1.07 in drafts. In 2023, Christian McCaffrey was the 1.02, and in 2022, Austin Ekeler was the 1.03... but in 2021, Cooper Kupp was a fourth-round pick before winning the Triple Crown and breaking the wide receiver fantasy points record. Anyone who tells you that Jefferson or McCaffrey is a "stupid" pick over the chalk of Chase doesn't understand how fantasy football works.

My pick at the 1.01 in each format:

• PPR: CeeDee Lamb
• Half-PPR: Bijan Robinson
• Standard: Bijan Robinson

Yeah, you read that right. Lamb is my personal WR1 over Chase (see both sections above to understand why), so he's my pick at 1.01 in full PPR formats, where the catches make him a little more valuable than my top running back. As for my top back, that's Bijan Robinson, who comes with fewer concerns over monumental carry counts (Barkley) or accumulated injuries (McCaffrey), and has likely not yet reached his full fantasy potential through just two seasons. Still, while I'd learn Lamb or Robinson over the other names included here, none of them are bad picks. Ultimately, I'd recommend taking the player — of this group — that you like most.