Fantasy football RB sleepers for 2025

The 2025 NFL preseason is wrapping up and that means fantasy football draft season is underway. We finally made it people.

The key to assembling a roster that could carry you to your league’s championship game in January is hitting on the sleeper picks that you make in August, and that especially applies to the running back room that you put together. Superstars like Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry will be no-brainer choices for RB1 slots while the Chuba Hubbard’s and David Montgomery’s of the world will be excellent RB2 picks for starting lineups across the board.

However, it’s those potential Flex and backup options in sleeper territory that could make or break your season and that’s why we’re here.

Below, I’ll give you four sleeper running backs for you to consider ahead of your respective drafts. Considering that the average fantasy football league consists of 10-12 teams, I’ll define a sleeper for this exercise as someone currently falling in the 25-38 range of ADP (average draft position) according to FantasyPros. We’ll use PPR rankings for further clarity. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Pollard was one of the lone bright spots on dismal Tennessee team that finished 3-14 last season and ultimately earned the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. With Will Levis becoming a walking meme every week, the veteran tailback did well for himself as the workhorse of the offense, rushing for a career-high 1,079 yard on 4.2 yards per attempt. However, he only recorded five touchdowns in 2024 and those lack of trips to the end zone contributed to him finishing as RB22 in fantasy football.

The term “workhorse” was an accurate description for Pollard considering that he took 701 total snaps throughout the season, good for ninth in the entire league among running backs. On top of his workload on the ground, he was targeted 57 times through the air, hauling in 41 of them for 238 yards. That high usage rate will most likely carry over into this season as No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward learns the ropes at quarterback. And considering that backup running back Tyjae Spears is currently dealing with a high ankle sprain, Pollard will most likely shoulder a heavy load for the Titans offense right out the gate.

Given his importance to this offense, Pollard is almost a shoo-in to outperform his ADP this season and it would not be a surprise to see him end the season as a top-20 fantasy running back.

The Steelers decided to let starting running back Najee Harris walk in free agency this offseason, ending the 2021 first-round pick’s four-year stint with the organization. Even with backup Jaylen Warren still on hand, the team opted to use this year’s draft to find Harris’ replacement. Enter Johnson, who arrives to the Steel City after a successful three-year college career at Iowa.

At 6’1”, 224-pounds, Johnson has the build of a typical “bruiser” back, but is actually more known for his patience in finding the right running lanes according to scouts like NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein. He carried the Hawkeye offense in 2024 with 240 carries for 1,537 yards and 21 touchdowns, earning Big Ten Running Back of the Year honors in the process. That clearly caught the attention of the Steelers and he should be in line for a hefty dose of carries right out the gate.

The aforementioned Harris got 250+ carries in each of his four seasons with the team, toting the rock 263 times for 1,043 yards and six touchdowns in 2024. That was good enough for him to finish the year as a top-20 RB in PPR leagues, but those numbers were more of a product of volume. He wasn’t very efficient with his runs with just 4.0 yards per carry and had a success rate of just 35.4%. The Pittsburgh staff is certainly hoping that the rookie can do more with his opportunities.

There’s reason to believe that Johnson can live up to some of the early hype and it wouldn’t be a shock to see him cement himself as a solid RB2 option in fantasy as a rookie.

The Jags hit the reset button this offseason after a disastrous 2024 campaign and new head coach Liam Coen will take a shot at getting things turned around in Duval County. On top of getting Trevor Lawrence’s career back onto an upward trajectory, he will be tasked with getting Etienne back on track after a massively disappointing campaign last year.

Etienne finished as the third-ranked fantasy running back in 2023 with 224.4 fantasy points and experienced a huge drop off in production the following season. Dealing with a hamstring injury that sidelined him for two games, the veteran ended 2024 mustering up just 558 rushing yards on 150 carries and two touchdowns. That opened the door for backup Tank Bigsby to put up bigger numbers throughout the year, potentially threatening Etienne’s status as RB1 moving forward.

However, there are reasons to believe that the former Clemson standout is due for a big bounce-back year in Jacksonville. As offensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last season, Coen architected an effective ground attack that finished sixth in rushing EPA. Bucky Irving broke out with over 1,100 rushing yards as a rookie and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the similarly-built Etienne thriving like that in Coen’s offense. And even with the presence of Bigsby, he appears to be the Jags’ starting running back as the regular season nears.

Don’t give up on the veteran just yet as there’s potential for him to drastically outperform his ADP.

With Christian McCaffrey sidelined for much of the 2024 campaign due to injury, Mason stepped in and proved to be an effective replacement option within the San Francisco 49ers’ offense. The former undrafted free agent broke off three 100+ yard performances within the first four weeks of the regular season and ended up rushing for just under 800 yards and three touchdowns before a high ankle sprain ended his season in early December.

Traded to the Vikings in the offseason, he will now play a backup role to veteran Aaron Jones Sr., who is coming off a career tear where toted the rock for 1,138 yards. However, neither Cam Akers nor Ty Chandler made much of an impact as backups last season and that is part of the reason why the team brought in the bruising running back from San Fran to ease Jones’ workload.

Mason will enter the season as one of the top handcuff options in fantasy football and head coach Kevin O’Connell has been calling him and Jones a “1A” and “1B” backfield. He should get plenty of reps out of the backfield and that could especially be the case early in the year with wide receiver Jordan Addison suspended for the first three weeks of the regular season. Fantasy managers who feel like they’ve already established good RB depth at the top should waste no time to draft Mason of they have the chance.