Who Should You Draft with the 4th Pick in 2025?
The fourth pick in your fantasy drafts represents the first widely agreed-upon tier break across most platforms. According to our Multi-Site ADP Tool, Ja’Marr Chase, Bijan Robinson, and Saquon Barkley go in order as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd pick across the three major redraft sites (Yahoo, ESPN, CBS), and leave us with a bit of a tough decision on our hands. Below, we are going to take a look at the four best options still available to us, and whittle them down to decide on our optimal pick in each scoring format.
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RB Jahmyr Gibbs, Lions
Coming off the board as the fourth-overall selection on most platforms right now, drafters are clearly not too scared about David Montgomery splitting the Lions' backfield with Jahmyr Gibbs. But should we be?
Although Gibbs’ role in the rushing attack grew from his rookie season, his 46.8% of the team’s attempts still only ranked 24th among the league’s qualifying running backs, as he continues to take a backseat to the veteran in a lot of short-yardage situations. Even with Montgomery missing three games in each of the last two seasons, Gibbs has accumulated 39 total between-the-20s short-yardage runs (3 yards or less to go), a mark that was eclipsed by four backs in 2024 alone. With that said, his moderate 11 attempts from inside the opponents’ five-yard line (20th) as a rookie ballooned to 17 (10th) last year, as the team continued to lean on the run near the goal-line heavily.
Those are the most critical opportunities to attack in fantasy, but a close second would be targets in the passing game, and Gibbs has those in spades. While running a route on 46.6% of the team’s dropbacks, the sophomore was targeted at an 11.1% rate, racking up 1.85 yards per route run and 1.21 fantasy points per route run, all marks ranking in the top-11 among qualifying running backs. Those numbers undoubtedly would look even stronger if Montgomery were to miss even more time than we’re accustomed to.
Gibbs is a great pick basically anywhere in the first round, but has overall 1.01-worthy upside anytime he suits up without Montgomery.
WR Justin Jefferson, Vikings
Maybe it’s because most of the Vikings-related attention is going toward whether or not J.J. McCarthy is actually going to be a good NFL quarterback, but Justin Jefferson might be the least talked-about top-5 fantasy pick we’ve seen in recent memory. He’s fresh off his third 1,500-yard, 100-catch career performance, his second double-digit touchdown campaign, and finished as the overall WR2, falling below double-digit half-PPR points on only three occasions.
He’s also head-and-shoulders above his pass-catching teammates, he’s got Kevin O’Connell as his offensive play-caller, and Jordan Addison has been suspended for the first three games of the 2025 season. With all that said, a true ceiling outcome this year rests on McCarthy, who was already at a bit of a disadvantage coming out in the ‘24 NFL Draft due to potential concerns about his amount of college reps and a lack of need in moving to his second or third read. Maybe that leads to an even more outsized target rate for Jefferson as a first-read option, but if his raw targets plummet because of a change in offensive mentality, that’s not a trade-off that will benefit us in fantasy.
The Vikings made it a point to shore up the interior of their offensive line and get Jordan Mason to complement Aaron Jones, so we could be seeing more of a run-heavy attack than we’ve been used to as McCarthy gets his legs under him.
WR CeeDee Lamb, Cowboys
CeeDee Lamb’s mega-breakout came in 2023. As Dak Prescott fell just short of his bid for an MVP award, Lamb accounted for 181 targets and a massive 135-1,749-12 stat line that landed him the overall WR1 finish. With all eyes on a potential repeat, Prescott would end up missing half of the season, handing over the reins to Cooper Rush, a sprinkling of Trey Lance, and a rushing attack that couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain. The result was the 21st-ranked scoring offense and a middling WR1 finish for Lamb in 15 games.
Better quarterback play will boost Lamb (you don’t say?) back into consideration at the No. 4 pick, but an all-around better offense would also do wonders. We watched Lamb’s year-over-year red zone targets drop from 32-to-18 and his end zone targets drop from 22-to-11, resulting in his receiving scores being cut in half in addition to the less-efficient throws he was seeing along the way.
A threat to Lamb’s overall target share comes in the form of offseason acquisition George Pickens, but a defensive distraction may be just what the doctor ordered to get Lamb back into overall WR1 consideration. While Lamb has consistently been moved around the formation over the last five seasons (including a near 50% split between slot and wide snaps in ‘24), Pickens is going to line up as the traditional X-receiver on a vast majority of his snaps and add an in-his-prime vertical threat like Lamb hasn’t played with for years (sorry, Brandin Cooks).
A return to the lofty 30% target share region that Lamb experienced in 2023 seems out of the question, but I can see him making up the gap with more efficient looks and finding a happy medium between his drop in end zone targets on a more potent offense. His best-case scenario should pace Justin Jefferson and make the Cowboy our preferred wide receiver in the first third of the first round.
RB Christian McCaffrey, 49ers
What’s there to be said about Christian McCaffrey that we don’t already know? The best dual-threat RB option of this generation, McCaffrey averaged 19.6 opportunities (attempts-plus-targets) in his three full games last season, accruing 281 total yards as the workhorse back we’ve grown to know and love. But three full games is not what we want to sign up for, particularly if we’re offering up a first-round pick to get it.
Yet through all red flags we had last preseason, it was hard to shake the fact that this is Christian damn McCaffrey in a Kyle Shanahan offense, so he was still commonly coming off draft boards as one of the first two selections. Missing the preseason led to being questionable for Week 1, which ultimately resulted in missing the entire first half of the regular season. Eventually, a PCL injury ended his season, leaving fantasy managers in disarray.
That brings us to 2025, where CMC is still very much in a Kyle Shanahan offense, this time without Deebo Samuel around to gobble up those short-area passes, and Brandon Aiyuk’s ACL injury keeps him out for at least the first month of the season. If McCaffrey is fully healthy —and this time there’s no reason to think otherwise— there’s no doubt that he will earn an outsized share of the targets, and could easily lead the position in receptions on a weekly basis. The No. 4 pick is just too pricey after all of his injury scares last year, with other fantastic options in this same area. I won’t talk you out of adding McCaffrey to some squads, just do it in drafts where you’re in the back-half of the first round.
Who Should You Draft?
Jahmyr Gibbs, CeeDee Lamb, and Justin Jefferson all have legitimate cases to be selected at the 1.04, while I’d rather wait a bit on Christian McCaffrey, even if I do believe he’s in line for a bounce-back season. My choice would be CeeDee Lamb in PPR, while Jahmyr Gibbs gets the nod in half-PPR and standard formats. Lamb’s target volume and role in one of the league’s most pass-heavy offenses give him an unmatched floor in full-PPR scoring, while Gibbs offers the rare combination of consistent production and legitimate overall RB1 upside if David Montgomery were to miss extended time.
Jefferson is as reliable as they come and still has WR1 potential, but his ceiling is more dependent on J.J. McCarthy’s development than we’d like for such an early pick. Gibbs would be my second choice in PPR, with Lamb taking that spot in the other two formats, as both present similar ranges of outcomes but through very different paths to fantasy points.
My pick at the 1.04 in each format:
- PPR: CeeDee Lamb
- Half-PPR: Jahmyr Gibbs
- Standard: Jahmyr Gibbs
Lamb’s reception volume gives him the edge in full-PPR scoring, but Gibbs’ dual-threat workload and increasing red zone usage give him a slightly higher path to smashing his draft slot in half-PPR and standard formats.
