Amon-Ra St. Brown is a phenomenal player, and any real-life team would be thrilled to have them as their WR1. That’s simply a fact. All he has to do is continue his current yardage pace for another 14.5 seasons, and he will be the NFL’s all-time leading receiver.
He’s great, but if I’m picking in the first round, I’m looking elsewhere.
Is Amon-Ra St. Brown’s 2025 Fantasy Football ADP Setting You Up for Disappointment?
You can’t get blood from a stone.
Quick … name all of the fantasy-relevant players you believe will take a step backward this season.
How many names made your list?
My guess is one. Either you’re reducing David Montgomery’s production a touch, or you think that Jared Goff struggles to repeat a season that landed him at the MVP ceremony.
How do you expect to sustain and/or take a step forward?
That’s a longer list. Entering this article, I’m assuming that St. Brown is on there. Everyone loves the potential of Jameson Williams, and the case could be made for Jahmyr Gibbs to be the 1.01.
Oh yeah, and there’s a Year 3 tight end who didn’t have 55 receiving yards in a game until the middle of November last season. Sam LaPorta isn’t being labeled as a Tier 1 tight end, but most consider him a Tier 2 option that should trend toward his rookie season numbers (his PPR PPG dropped by 22.5% in 2024).
You can’t get blood from a stone.
Here’s a look at how the Lions produced last season. Goff was fantasy’s seventh-best quarterback, and Detroit as a team scored 39 more points than any other team in the league. Given what you just told me, you’re not penciling in much regression – but where is there room for this team to realistically improve? Especially if Goff was your choice for the regressing party.
We are drafting St. Brown’s teammates as if they are going to repeat (or improve) upon their numbers from 2024, and that production has to come from somewhere.
From a macro standpoint, the growth of his teammates is logical, and the schedule does him no favors. Not only do the Lions have to navigate a first-place schedule, they also “lose” a Bears matchup for our purposes, with it coming in Week 18. That’s not ideal, and things trend in that same general direction when you deep dive this profile.
Again, I’m nitpicking. Of course, there’s a price where St. Brown makes sense — it’s just not his current ADP.
Amon-Ra St. Brown was WR11 in expected PPR points per game last year — down from WR6 in 2023.
Jameson Williams seemingly in for a bigger role in 2025.
Jahmyr Gibbs and Sam LaPorta back.
St. Brown is a fade at current ADP.
— Jared Smola (@SmolaDS) June 4, 2025
We can agree that while capable of big plays, St. Brown’s production path isn’t the same as a Ja’Marr Chase or Nico Collins – physical mismatches that excel down the field. That’s not to say that he won’t make big plays, but if you’re counting on him copy/pasting his 2024 stat line into 2025 (he was flex player #9 last season and that’s roughly where he’s coming off of draft boards), you’re betting on an outlier and that’s a dangerous way to live life in the first round.
Passes Thrown Less Than 5 Yards
- 2024: 47 targets and 8 touchdowns
- 2021-23: 152 targets and 7 touchdowns
What if that takes even a minor step back? What if a LaPorta bounce back eats into not only that portion of his production diet, but also the red zone role (St. Brown has as many red zone catches as he had ever had red zone targets in a season prior)?
What if the coordinator change takes some getting used to?
If St. Brown loses just 1.5 PPG (an 8.1% haircut, not unreasonable given the number of moving pieces and the high-level efficiency from last season), he falls from the ninth-ranked flex player to number 20.
Even I wouldn’t argue that he should fall into the late stages of the second round, but you get the idea. You know how I feel about Nico Collins, and it’s not crazy to think that second-year receivers like Brian Thomas Jr. or Ladd McConkey could build ultra-impressive debuts.
MORE: Free Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator
At the running back position, you’re passing on Derrick Henry, Christian McCaffrey, De’Von Achane, and Bucky Irving, to name a few, all of whom I think have a path to leading the position in scoring this season.
You’re not losing your league because you draft St. Brown at his current cost, and if that’s how you like to draft, have at it. There is enough depth in this league for me to acquire “safe” production in the next handful of rounds — I want a player with some more league-winning paths than the St. Brown profiles present.
