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Fantasy Football: Analytical sleepers from the 2025 rookie running back class

2YPK29W Virginia Tech's Bhayshul Tuten celebrates after a touchdown against Virginia during the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024, in Blacksburg, Va. (AP Photo/Robert Simmons)

  • Bhayshul Tuten has a shot to be considered among the top-five backs in this class: Offering a strong profile and ideal speed, Tuten could emerge as the best Day 3 back in this class.
  • Tahj Brooks offers a sliver of hope as a very deep sleeper: Potentially going beyond the top-200 in the NFL Draft, Brooks is arguably the best of those deep options.
  • 2025 NFL Draft season is here: Try PFF's best-in-class Mock Draft Simulator and learn about 2025's top prospects while trading and drafting for your favorite NFL team.

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes


After going over some of the standout analytical data from the top-five running backs in this year’s class, we'll now shift our focus to potential sleepers who rank outside of the top five on the PFF big board and could be deserving of more love heading into the draft.

A few notes before diving into these running backs:

  • These “sleepers” will be players who are projected to go outside of the top-100 picks of the NFL Draft.
  • These sleepers will also be standouts in the running back prospect model, which was covered in detail here.
  • That model includes all 253 running back prospects since 2017, highlighting percentile ranks for each player’s strengths and weaknesses.
  • Strengths are considered production data points where a particular running back scored the highest in comparison to the prospect pool dating back to 2017.
  • Weaknesses are the areas where a particular running back scored below the 50th percentile in that particular production category compared to the prospect pool since 2017.

Click here for more draft tools:

NFL Draft Big Board | Mock Draft Simulator | NCAA Premium Stats
2025 PFF Draft Guide | Mock Draft Hub | Prospect Data Profiles
Draft Position Rankings


DJ GIDDENS, KANSAS STATE

No. 9 ranked running back on the PFF big board
No. 8 ranked running back on consensus big boards

Giddens’ career college analytics strengths:
MetricValueRank among RB prospects since 2017
Career PFF rushing grade93.484th percentile
Career missed tackles forced per attempt0.2879th percentile
Career yards per route run1.2467th percentile
Career rushing grade versus a stacked box86.793rd percentile

Giddens is currently projected to go just outside the top-100 players in this class, and he offers a strong enough college profile to feel encouraged about his potential to turn into a starting fantasy running back in the right situation. Giddens comes through with strong rushing metrics, but helping separate himself a little from others in this class is by having experience as a receiver, where he’s racked up one of the better yards per route run totals for this class, which will be a key to potentially taking on a larger role in the NFL.


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