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RB Sleepers 2025: Find This Year's Bucky Irving

Did you land Bucky Irving or Chase Brown or Tyrone Tracy in 2024? If so, then you're probably very familiar with their stories:

• Tracy came off the board as RB57 in late summer but finished on the RB2 fringe. From Week 5 on, only 15 RBs outscored him.
• Brown went from RB36 in ADP to RB10 in total PPR points for the season – and a top-5 producer over the final month.
• Irving leaped from an RB5 starting point to an RB1-level scorer over the season’s second half and now typically goes in Round 2 of drafts.

Now it's time to find the RB sleepers ready to make a similar impact on your 2025 season. Let’s get to it.

2025 Sleeper Running Backs

These five RBs are going too cheaply in drafts right now and carry the upside to define your season:

• Isiah Pacheco
• Jayen Warren
• Jaguars trio
• Justice Hill
• MarShawn Lloyd

Isiah Pacheco, Kansas City Chiefs

You probably should have expected Pacheco to lead this article. I started by targeting him (even earlier than I apparently needed to) in my first best ball draft of the year and have since talked him up multiple times on the podcast.

Last time we saw a healthy Pacheco, he finished top-15 in both total points and points per game across formats (unless your scoring subtracts points for the non-traditional spelling of “Isaiah”). Now? He’s going just 27th in best ball ADP.

Ignore His Late 2024 Performance

You said last time we saw him healthy … but didn’t Pacheco return last year and stink pretty bad?

Yep, and that’s why I said healthy.

Pacheco returned to the field in Week 13 last season and proceeded to average just 7.75 carries per game, 26.5 yards per game, and 3.4 yards per rush across eight contests – including the playoffs. He fell behind Kareem Hunt in work and trailed him badly in performance.

But that also came after Pacheco missed nine games – across 10 weeks – with a broken leg. I’ve never played NFL running back, but it looks pretty tough even when you’re at full strength. Imagine spending 2.5 months recovering from a leg fracture and then doing it.

Of course, I’m not a doctor, and I’ve never even been to Kansas City. I’m probably just a Pacheco apologist. So we should probably check another source.

Andy Reid and the Chiefs Aren’t Worried About Pacheco

“He was forcing that thing coming back [when he did]. Most guys probably wouldn’t have come back. If you know him for a minute, you know he wasn’t going to be held back. I think we’ll get a better player this year.”

That was Reid talking about Pacheco back in early April. And his words match the team’s actions. Here’s how K.C. has addressed RB this offseason:

• March 10: Signed Elijah Mitchell for one year, $2.5 million
• March 14: Signed Kareem Hunt for one year, $1.5 million
• April 26: Drafted Brashard Smith in Round 7
• April 27: Signed Elijah Young as an undrafted free agent.

That sure doesn’t look like a team worried about its lead back. It looks like a team confident in his rebound and trying to secure a better insurance plan than it had last year.

And if you’re still worried about Hunt’s return challenging Pacheco, then you’re almost adorably foolish. The Chiefs signed him after Mitchell, for less money than a guy who missed the entire 2024 season. He’s duct tape on a safety net.

But What Are We Actually Chasing Here?

Part of the fun – and perhaps the fear – is that we don’t really know what the ceiling is.

Pacheco flashed enticing rushing upside as a 2022 rookie but saw little receiving usage while sharing work with Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Jerick McKinnon. Pacheco then opened 2023 still sharing with CEH but took control in Week 4.

From then through Week 2 of last season (including the 2023 playoffs), Pacheco actually played 17 games. He racked up:

• 285 carries (16.8 per game)
• 60 targets (3.5 per game)

That would have ranked seventh in carries and ninth in targets among last year’s RBs.

That kind of volume for a 26-year-old averaging 4.5 yards per rush for his career – including last year’s post-injury struggles – in one of the league’s perennial top offenses?

That’s a ceiling well worth chasing from an ADP outside the top 24 RBs.

We highlighted Pacheco as a player to target in this RB Rankings video ...

Jaylen Warren, Pittsburgh Steelers

If you’ve been reading along this offseason, then you might remember Warren’s inclusion among our fantasy football breakouts. But you don’t need to believe in that vaulted ceiling to find him worth your draft attention in 2025.

Warren doesn’t need to suppress third-round rookie Kaleb Johnson to deliver helpful fantasy production in 2025. He could just repeat 2023.

Warren Leads Rookie Mate in Vital Area

That season saw Warren cede the team carry lead to Najee Harris by 106, averaging just 8.8 rushes per week. But Warren’s 74 targets tied for fifth among all RBs.

Even last year’s disappointing campaign found Warren edging Harris in receptions, yards per catch, receiving success rate, and yards per touch, despite losing two games and parts of others to injuries.

Johnson comes off limited receiving experience on three poor-passing Iowa teams.

If Warren could spend his second NFL campaign usurping the receiving lead from a dude who caught 70 passes across his final two seasons at Alabama, then he should easily keep that work away from a third-round rookie.

The Market’s Too High on the New Guy

We like Kaleb Johnson around here. Just check out Shane’s pre-draft evaluation.

But drafters are currently taking Johnson two full rounds ahead of Warren in Underdog Fantasy ADP. Even in full-PPR drafting on Drafters, ADP has Johnson at RB25 and Warren at RB31, a round and a half behind.

Steelers RBs collectively ranked 13th and seventh in scoring the past two years. Landing the top scorer of that backfield as the second Steelers RB drafted makes lots of sense.

Jacksonville Jaguars Backfield

Including this whole group instead of laying claim to any individual seems like a copout here. But the bunching is kind of the point.

No member of this backfield stands out as the guy to grab right now. Here are the ADPs as of this writing:

• Travis Etienne at RB34
• Bhayshul Tuten at RB40
• Tank Bigsby at RB50

But there’s reason to believe in Jacksonville’s collective upside.

Liam Coen Brings a Nice RB Record

New HC Liam Coen coordinated Tampa Bay’s offense last year. That crew ranked second in the league in RB PPR points per game.

The year before, he coached a Kentucky offense that jumped from 3.3 yards per rush to 4.9 (and fell to 3.9 last year after Coen left).

His 2021 Kentucky offense featured the biggest season of RB Chris Rodriguez’s career, including 6.1 yards per rush on 225 carries. Even Coen’s 2022 stint as Rams OC coincided with the best season of Cam Akers’ career.

We don’t know that Coen’s a RB whisperer, but he sure seems like a positive influence.

But What’s to Like About His New Crew?

Just last year we saw Coen run an offense that turned fourth-round rookie Bucky Irving into an RB1-level, late-season producer. So why isn’t the draft market excited about at least one of this year’s Jacksonville RBs? For much the same reason it wasn’t excited about Irving …

Etienne’s a former first-round pick with two top-15 fantasy seasons behind him. But he stunk last year. Draft markets have trouble escaping recency bias, but Etienne’s 2024 also positioned him as a less-efficient rusher than Bigsby.

The latter enticed us by leading all RB scorers in Week 5 last season, an apparent backfield flippening. But Bigsby then finished just two more weeks higher than 29th among PPR backs amid six weeks at RB50 or worse.

Enter Tuten, who hasn’t given us anything to dislike on the pro level yet but arrived as just a fourth-round pick. The market wants to like him best and temporarily boosted the rookie ahead of Etienne in ADP. But all it took was positive words from Coen in early June about the vet to move Etienne back ahead.

Ignore Jaguars RBs, and You’re Giving Away Points

So what should we do with the lack of clarity in this backfield? We could just ignore the whole group and let other drafters figure it out. But that’s a weak strategy when the entire trio is going no earlier than low-RB3 range.

Look back at last year’s Bucs one more time. Irving was the breakout star, but a declining (in relevance) Rachaad White also finished 21st in PPR points per game. Even Sean Tucker, a 2023 undrafted free agent, popped for a RB1 overall Week 6 finish.

There will be RB points from a Liam Coen offense. So choose your fighter, get shares of all three Jags if you’re drafting at high volume, or simply grab the guy who best fits your flow in a particular draft.

Just don’t cede those points to your league mates simply because you aren’t sure how the situation will play out.

Justice Hill, Baltimore Ravens

Hill has set career highs in fantasy points and points per game each of the past two seasons. That’s not really why he makes this list. But the reason does reside within that.

Hill managed only 47 carries across 15 games last year. That 3.1 per contest ranks just fourth among his five seasons of NFL activity. But his receiving work has shot up. Hill jumped from 0.6 receptions per game and 5.9 yards per catch through 2022 to:

• 1.8 receptions per game and 7.4 YPC in 2023
• 2.8 receptions per game and 9.1 YPC last year

Despite running as the distant No. 2 RB in Baltimore last season, Hill ranked 21st among all RBs in route share and 12th in target share. That propelled him to six top-30 PPR weeks – including three among the top 12 – even alongside a healthy Derrick Henry.

That helps Hill as a best ball asset, but it doesn’t make him startable in most redraft outfits. Of course, that’s not why we’re targeting him.

Hill’s an Injury Away from a Points Bonanza

The 27-year-old will remain unpredictable as long as Henry’s healthy. And Henry has sat out just one game among the past three seasons. But the year before that saw a broken foot end his 2021 after just eight contests.

I’m not rooting for a Henry injury, of course. But when you carry 19.1 times per game as he did last year, sheer luck says there’s a chance something goes wrong. And if Henry goes down, Hill’s stock would shoot up.

He’d go from the lead receiving back in a run-heavy offense to the overall backfield leader on a team that has run 50% or more of the time in five of the past six seasons.

Hill as Baltimore lead back would at least make for a weekly RB2 starter, with upside into RB1 range.

MarShawn Lloyd, Green Bay Packers

Let’s get silly here and start with the negative …

Lloyd did basically nothing as a rookie. Instead he watched Josh Jacobs dominate work, ranking sixth in carries and fifth in total touches. Emanuel Wilson emerged as the No. 2 RB, claiming another 103 carries while beating Jacobs in yards per rush and rushing success rate.

How is there room for Lloyd to even be relevant in 2025?

Jacobs Not Likely to Repeat His 2024

Last year didn’t mark the first time that Jacobs reached 300 carries, and his 17.7 carries per game actually stand as the second-lowest rate among his six seasons. But it was also just the second time in six years that Jacobs played more than 15 games.

HC Matt LaFleur’s history also suggests he doesn’t want a single RB handling quite that much work. Check out the per-game carry leader for every previous LaFleur Green Bay season:

• 2023: 12.9 (Aaron Jones)
• 2022: 12.5 (Jones)
• 2021: 11.4 (Jones)
• 2020: 14.4 (Jones)
• 2019: 14.8 (Jones)

Sure, Matt. But those were all Aaron Jones, a smaller dude than Jacobs. LaFleur probably made that player swap last year so he could feed Jacobs more.

Maybe. But right before he landed with the Packers, LaFleur OC’d the Titans. That offense gave Derrick Henry – in his third season – just 13.4 carries per contest vs. 9.7 for Dion Lewis.

Perhaps LaFleur just likes Jacobs that much. But history says he likes spreading work even more.

Don’t Forget About Lloyd’s Talent and Draft Capital

Of course, Jacobs shedding some work isn’t enough to make Lloyd a RB sleeper. We need to believe in the player as well. And you should.

Lloyd racked up 7.1 yards per rush in his final college campaign and averaged 13.3 yards per catch for his career. He backed up that efficiency with a 4.46-second 40 time at 220 pounds and delivered a 93rd-percentile speed score for the position.

That’s why the Packers snagged Lloyd in Round 3 of the 2024 draft, as the fourth RB off the board – and just a month and a half after the team had thrown money at Jacobs in free agency.

Do Look Past Last Year’s Health Woes

Lloyd’s near-total absence from 2024 football obviously set him back. But was it a red flag or just bad luck?

Hip and hamstring issues disrupted his summer, with the latter lingering into the regular season. Lloyd made it back for Week 2 … and promptly sprained an ankle. That sidelined him until mid-November, when appendicitis grabbed the baton to finish the season-wrecking relay.

None of those issues affected the start of his 2025 work with the team, and Lloyd even sought consultation on the hamstring trouble from University of Wisconsin specialists who previously helped Packers Christian Watson and Eric Stokes.

“The science around it is crazy,” Lloyd said in January. “Already started my plan. I’ve been working on things that I need to work on. … I was able to figure out some things about myself.”

A Healthy Lloyd Should Get Work

Here’s what RBs coach Ben Sirmans said about Lloyd in May:

We’ll obviously need to track Lloyd’s progress and depth-chart status throughout the summer. We shouldn’t disregard Emanuel Wilson, who has played well through two seasons. But Wilson was also already on the roster when the Packers added Jacobs and Lloyd. So Green Bay clearly viewed Lloyd as an upgrade a year ago.

We’re not expecting Lloyd to cut so far into Jacobs’ work that he becomes an early-season fantasy starter. But Green Bay’s No. 2 RB will at least carry big handcuff upside in what’s been a RB-friendly system since LaFleur arrived.

Want More Sleepers?

Late-round players with huge upside are the key to your fantasy football season. That’s why we focus so much on them throughout the spring and summer. It’s why we do ceiling projections for every player.

And it’s why your Draft War Room comes equipped with Upside Mode to capture those difference makers.

Jared's been curating his list of fantasy football sleepers all offseason. Check them out before your next draft. 

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Fantasy Football Sleepers 2025: Sneaky Good, Stupid Cheap

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