Every year there are a few rookies who come completely out of nowhere (or so it seems!) to be relevant for fantasy football immediately in year one. There are more hits than misses in this category, however, hitting on this type of player provides the asymmetric upside needed to win large field best ball tournaments like those on Underdog Fantasy, DraftKings or Drafters Fantasy. We are big proponents of taking shots on a variety of rookies in your drafts, but the players in this article are the ones I am most excited for heading into 2025.
For this exercise, I only considered rookies who went on day 3 of the NFL Draft (rounds 4-7) or were undrafted. Additionally, there are some early “trendy” late round players (cough, Jaydon Blue, cough) who I’m ignoring here. The goal is to give you players who are generally “flying under the radar” but also have a real shot at major fantasy relevance in 2025, whether that be because of their individual talent, situational factors… or both.
I hoped to be able to provide a player at every single position, but both the QB and TE position didn’t quite hold up their end of the bargain in this draft class, so we will focus on 2 running backs and 2 wide receivers.
Tahj Brooks
RB – Cincinnati Bengals – NFL Draft Pick 193, 6th Round – Underdog ADP 213, RB68
After hitting on an eerily similar style running back prospect in Chase Brown in the 5th round of the 2023 NFL Draft, the Bengals may have just found another one here with Tahj Brooks. Like Brown, Brooks demonstrated an ability to carry monstrous workloads and maintain solid efficiency in college, even at a non-powerhouse like Texas Tech. This is particularly important because that was a key factor in Brown taking over the backfield in 2024 when Zack Moss went down. The Bengals welcomed Samaje Perine in as a passing down specialist, but if something were to happen to Brown or the Bengals simply want to lighten his load from the extremes of 2024, Brooks has the ability to hold up.
And not only can he hold up, but he can produce. In 2024, he never went under 100 rushing yards in a single game, with zero games under 4 yards per carry.
But, Tahj wasn’t just a volume hog that may not translate to the NFL. He has shown the ability to play on every down, including a skill and willingness in pass protection that is critical at the NFL level, plus solid hands as a receiver (and 62nd percentile target share). He also has a gusher-like sneaky amount of juice with the ball in his hands. Per Player Profiler, his overall speed and agility scores may not be amazing in a vacuum, but when we adjust for his size and weight (speed score & burst score below), he is about as elite as it comes. And strong too!
Kyle Monangai
RB – Chicago Bears – NFL Draft Pick 233, 7th Round – Underdog ADP 214, RB70
The rookie 7th rounder from Rutgers is another back who landed in a very high upside situation with the Chicago Bears. They completely revamped their offense around Caleb Williams after a disastrous 2024, from hiring head coach Ben Johnson away from his OC position with the Lions, to upgrading the entire interior offensive line, to drafting Colston Loveland and Luther Burden in rounds 1 and 2 of the NFL Draft.
What the Bears did not do, though, is add any depth to their running back room besides Monangai. He comes in next to vets D’Andre Swift, Roschon Johnson and Travis Homer. All 3 of these players are far from immovable objects on a path to playing time, especially for a coach who simply inherited them.
Monangai did not test well, but one way I like to find these “sleeper” types at the running back position are players in bad college situations that can overcome to continually produce. For his final 2 seasons, Monangai put the entire weight of a terrible Rutgers offense on his back and essentially carried them to 7 win seasons both years. They won 12 total games in the 3 years prior, and then handed the keys of the offense to him, and he produced, with more than 2,500 rushing yards on 498 carries. He was tied with Kaleb Johnson for 13th in the country in missed tackles forced last year, but it’s difficult to convert for many big plays when your team has zero passing game. In 2023, Rutgers averaged 137 passing yards per game. Monangai was their 6th leading receiver with 78 receiving yards. In 2024, it improved, but still to just 207 passing yards per game. 
To be able to continue to produce in a dreadful offensive environment is something I always take note of. It was helpful in leading us to another former Rutgers back Isiah Pacheco, as well as the aforementioned Chase Brown, among others.
One of my favorite (because it’s important!) things to study with rookie running backs is their ability and willingness in pass protection. A critical part of fantasy upside for running backs is tied into being able to gain passing down work. If you want to play on obvious passing downs (2 minute drill, 3rd downs, hurry up, etc.), the most critical trait, ironically, is not your ability to catch. It’s your ability to block! You have to make sure your QB stays up right, first and foremost. If you enjoy this super nerdy football blocking stuff like me, you’re going to want to check out Monangai in pass pro here.
I don’t imagine he’s going to overtake Swift for passing down work as a rookie, and he still needs to refine some of that pass blocking skill, but sometimes all RBs need is a little chaos during the season to shake out their way. If it does, you need to have this all around skillset to take advantage, and Monangai does.
Jalen Royals
WR – Kansas City Chiefs – NFL Draft Pick 133, 4th Round – Underdog ADP 215, WR98
I want to be exceptionally clear. There will never be another Puka Nacua. He is a unicorn. But if there were to be a 2024 version of Puka, I think we have two candidates, and Royals is the first. Royals was about to put up one of the better overall WR seasons we’ve seen in college football in a while, but the injury bug derailed him in 2024, limiting him to just 7 games. However, those 7 games were, uh, prettayyy good…
Prior to the injury, he was sitting at a really strong 3.0 yards per route run (YPRR) despite playing up in competition against the likes of USC, Utah, Boise, and UNLV while catching passes from Spencer Petras, a QB who basically couldn’t complete a forward pass at Iowa. He was targeted on 29% of his routes during that time, showing incredible yards after catch (YAC) ability (436 of his 839 yards were YAC) and he was targeted all over the field.
We were looking at a dominant college season for Royals, but I imagine the Chiefs don’t mind we didn’t get to see it. It allowed them to get Royals in the 4th round of the NFL Draft to add to their recent run of exciting, young WR talent alongside Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy. Travis Kelce has clearly regressed at his age, and Hollywood Brown played just 5 total games in 2024, never eclipsing 46 receiving yards despite playing without Rashee Rice for target competition.
There is a path here even without an injury for Royals to emerge as yet another exciting piece of the next wave of the Chiefs offense, and I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened sooner rather than later.
Tory Horton
WR – Seattle Seahawks – NFL Draft Pick 148, 5th Round – Underdog ADP 215, WR101
I repeat, there will never be another Puka. But if we had a 2nd candidate in 2025…
Horton looked like he was about to follow up 2 really strong seasons in 2022 and 2023 with a dominant final year at Colorado St., but then he too suffered a season ending injury. In just 5 games prior to that injury, Horton posted a 3.45 YPRR while being targeted on an incredible 40% of his routes.
Those 2022 and 2023 seasons are nothing to scoff at in their own right. He totaled just shy of 2,300 receiving yards with 167 catches on 243 targets. His YPRR over those two seasons was an impressive 2.75, while earning a target on 29.4% of his routes. Those are solid numbers, and it looked like he was about to take another leap in his final season prior to the injury. If so, the Seahawks may have gotten a steal in the 5th round. Which means, we might really be getting a steal in the last round of our drafts.
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