You have to swing for the fences in fantasy football. Draft for ceiling, because drafting for floor is a really good way to finish, like, fourth in your fantasy league. You need the home run hitters to lift you to the biggest heights.
Of course, the best, though, is when you can get a player who has an elite ceiling and an elite floor. A guy who can score 350 PPR points, 20-plus points per game, if everything breaks right, but who you can count on for a safe 15 most weeks even in a bad situation. That’s what makes a first-rounder. Theoretically at least, the guys taken in the first round can go nuts and put up record numbers, but they also provide you with a solid foundation that will help you if you can find the surprise home runs in later rounds.
That’s the theory, at least. In practice, we have 2025 Justin Jefferson.
Jefferson was supposed to be one of the safest players in fantasy. At least 1,000 yards in all five of his seasons entering 2025, even his 2023 season when he missed seven games. An average of 96.5 yards per game in his career, a clean 8.0 touchdowns per year. He wasn’t the clear best receiver in football — because Ja’Marr Chase, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Puka Nacua and a few others exist — but you couldn’t have that conversation without him.
And he wasn’t the product of a good quarterback situation, either. Sure, he had Kirk Cousins for most of his first four years and a fairly electric Sam Darnold last year, but he averaged 8.3 receptions, 11.3 targets and 139.0 yards in three Nick Mullens games with 2 touchdowns. You had every reason to believe in him as one of the safest picks in fantasy this year, and his ceiling would be excellent if J.J. McCarthy was great.
Well, you know what’s happened.
Is Justin Jefferson the biggest fantasy bust in recent memory? Let’s look at it
It’s not as simple as looking at total fantasy points scored, because a player who gets hurt and misses two-thirds of the season will have low point totals, but you can’t really call them a bust — first, you don’t want to hold an injury against a player, and second (and more importantly), if a player is hurt, he’s not in your lineup. You can replace him. Sure, “Malik Nabers is hurt, so I’m using Jakobi Meyers” means you’re taking a big step down, but at least there is a step down. A player who plays but struggles, especially when he’s a first-rounder, is a player you’re putting in your lineup every week and just being frustrated.
So just raw point totals isn’t great. But points per game is a decent starting point, and…
There are nine players below Jefferson in PPR points per game as first-round picks since 2016. By that measure, he was one of the biggest busts, not the biggest bust.
Of course, it’s not that simple either. Because points per game can still have a tiny denominator, a player who struggled through 3-4 games but then got hurt before he could break out, and then you still have the “well, you can play someone else” factor. Jefferson hasn’t missed a game this year.
So let’s scatter it. PPR points per game against percentage of team games played (to account for 16- vs. 17-game seasons, plus this year’s 13).
No first-rounder who has played all of his team games has a lower PPG average than Justin Jefferson this year. Maybe that means he’s the biggest bust. The only other option? Jordy Nelson in 2017.
The situations are very different. Nelson hit the age cliff — he went from 97-1,257-14 on 152 targets in 2016 as a 31-year-old to 53-482-6 on 88 targets in 2017 as a 32-year-old. And he was the 11th pick of the first round. Jefferson, meanwhile, is 26 years old and was the sixth pick in fantasy drafts this year.
It’s not Jefferson’s fault, of course. Or at least, we don’t think it is. J.J. McCarthy has been a disaster for most of the season (and when he finally had a great game Sunday, it somehow didn’t involve Jefferson). Max Brosmer was one of the worst starting quarterbacks we’ve ever seen. Jefferson did have good run with Carson Wentz starting, including WR8 and WR11 finishes in Weeks 4-5, but over the last six weeks, his per-game average is 3.4 receptions, 7.4 targets and 32.2 yards, with exactly zero touchdowns. That’s 33.1 PPR points in that span. Players outscoring Jefferson in the last five weeks include Tyrod Taylor (missed two games, got hurt Sunday with -0.8 points), AJ Barner, Tez Johnson and Isaiah Likely. Bucky Irving, who missed three of the five games, is within a point of Jefferson.
We’re 13 weeks into the 2025 NFL season. Justin Jefferson has 64 receptions, 810 yards and 2 touchdowns on 109 targets. Over 17 games, that actually is a 1,000-yard pace. He hasn’t out-and-out ruined your season, but he certainly hasn’t paid off your investment.
And, considering Nelson had the age warning signs and was an end-of-first-round pick in 2017, compared to Jefferson’s relative youth and middle-of-the-round value, I am fine saying it:
As of this moment (hey, maybe Weeks 15-18 will be great), Justin Jefferson is the biggest fantasy bust in the last decade.
