4 Overvalued Fantasy Football Draft Picks to Sidestep, According to RT Sports

Posted by The News Pulse June 25, 2025 Post a Comment

One of the easiest (and most often overlooked) ways to gain an advantage in fantasy football drafts is to look for outliers in average draft position (ADP) or default rankings of the site you are playing on.

Simply comparing these to The News Pulse’ expert consensus rankings (ECR) can give you an excellent idea of overpriced players to avoid, underpriced values to target and larger positional trends to be aware of. Today, we will be diving into this process for RT Sports drafts. I already identified the best values on RT Sports , so this article will focus on the other side of the coin: Overvalued players whose ADPs are simply too high.

Although it’s not as fun as finding values, this exercise may be more helpful. Where you can always get sniped on theoretical ADP bargains by another savvy manager, avoiding overpriced ADPs is always within your control. This article will identify players who can be essentially crossed off your draft boards on RT Sports, assuming they don’t fall multiple rounds past their ADPs. Let’s get started.

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Overvalued Fantasy Football Players to Avoid on RT Sports

Early-Round Running Backs

The main purpose of this article is to identify individual players who are overpriced on RT Sports, but I simply have to start by acknowledging the massive positional trend present in this ADP. Compared to ECR, running backs are flying off the shelves in RT Sports drafts, especially in the early rounds.

The seven players with the largest percentage differences between their ECRs and RT Sports ADPs are all running backs being selected in the first four rounds, ranging from Saquon Barkley at the top (ADP:m3.5/ECR: 9) to RJ Harvey in the early fourth (ADP: 37.3/ECR: 73).

When a positional trend is this strong, you can’t just ignore it and draft off a cheat sheet. Blindly following ECR in an RT Sports draft is a surefire way to end up with a stacked receiver room… and zero startable running backs. Instead, there are multiple ways to approach the position. If you want to play it safe, just ignore overall rankings and draft the highest-ranked running back on your board whenever you feel your roster needs a back.

Alternatively, I broke down in last week’s values article how these insane running back prices are perfect for a Hero RB build. You will still have to overpay compared to ECR, but overpaying in round one is not as important as you might think, as you’re still getting a true stud with league-winning upside. Then you can avoid all the massively overpriced backs in the rest of the early and middle rounds, scooping value at other positions.

Load up your bench with dart throws running backs in the late rounds (even if you have to reach to do so), and you should be in an excellent place to succeed. Of course, proceed with caution, as any sort of Hero RB strategy comes with fragility if your early running back goes down or you fail to hit on a capable RB2.

RJ Harvey (RB – DEN) | ADP: 37/ECR: 73

Even in a whole cohort of overpriced early-round running backs, RJ Harvey sticks out as the worst pick of the bunch. Looking at positional rankings shows that the gap between the rookie’s ADP and ECR isn’t just driven by the position-wide trend: He is the RB26 in ECR and the RB16 in RT Sports’ rankings. A 10-pick positional difference this early in the draft is massive.

To be fair to RT Sports drafters, there’s a lot to be excited about with Harvey. He’s an explosive young back with second-round draft capital, unknown upside and an excellent landing spot in Sean Payton’s Denver offense. But this ADP is simply absurd.

Harvey is being drafted ahead of fellow rookie Omarion Hampton , who also earned an excellent landing spot and went not just nearly 40 picks before Harvey but in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft. He’s also being drafted ahead of workhorse veterans coming off productive seasons like Kenneth Walker III , Chuba Hubbard and Joe Mixon .

Could Harvey outperform those players if everything breaks right? It’s possible, but certainly not probable, especially with the Broncos recently having added J.K. Dobbins to the fold. Even if you are trying to keep up with the rest of your draft room at running back, Harvey is a clear fade at this ADP.

Colston Loveland (TE – CHI) | ADP: 109/ECR: 149

Fantasy managers on RT Sports love rookies, as we have another first-year player being selected well ahead of their ECR. As with Harvey, Loveland certainly has the upside to pay off this price. He received first-round draft capital and lands in an offense that could be incredibly explosive with Ben Johnson scheming things up and Caleb Williams at the controls.

But the Bears’ offense is also loaded with potential playmakers in the receiving game. Loveland will have to compete for targets with a proven NFL No. 1 WR in DJ Moore , last year’s eighth-overall pick in Rome Odunze and another highly drafted rookie in Luther Burden . That’s assuming he earns a full route share over Cole Kmet , who isn’t an elite talent but has proven himself as a solid option.

Especially given that tight end is a position where players are notoriously slow to adjust to the NFL, the most likely outcome for Loveland is that he doesn’t provide fantasy consistency in Year 1. His upside makes him worth a pick as a backup tight end, which is where he lands in ECR as the TE18. But RT Sports’ ADP has Loveland as the 10th tight end overall, which means you’re either drafting him to start for your team in Week 1 or overpaying for your TE2.

I’m normally a big believer in chasing upside, especially at tight end, where backend TE1 options are often easily replaceable. But this price is simply too much to pay. Drafting Loveland as the TE10 means taking him over more reliable veterans who also have their own upside scenarios, like David Njoku and even Dalton Kincaid (and I hate picking Dalton Kincaid). Unless he falls multiple rounds past his ADP, I don’t recommend adding Loveland to your RT Sports roster.

Cooper Kupp (WR – SEA) | ADP: 83/ECR: 104

Although the 32-year-old is no rookie, Kupp continues the trend of high-upside players being overpriced on RT Sports. The last time he played a full season, Kupp won the receiving triple crown and scored nearly 100 more PPR points than the next-best receiver.

You can’t have more upside than that. Even last year, in what was undeniably a disappointing season, Kupp ranked as the WR22 in PPR points per game and ranked fourth at the position with an elite 29% target per route run rate (minimum 300 routes). There’s reason to believe Kupp still has at least some of the juice and could bounce back with an excellent season if he stays healthy.

On the other hand, there are plenty of reasons why experts have Kupp ranked outside the top 100. His elite target-earning last year came while catching passes from breakfast buddy Matthew Stafford . In 2025, he will be catching passes from Sam Darnold , a downgrade by any measure. He will also be competing with Jaxon Smith-Njigba , a younger player with a very similar skill set.

Even putting the specific issues of his new situation aside, Kupp is a 32-year-old receiver who hasn’t played more than 12 games in a season since that historic 2021 year. While his target numbers have stayed high, all other advanced metrics paint a picture of a player clearly in decline.

When aging, declining, injury-prone receivers move teams, we very rarely see great fantasy results. Kupp is worth a stab as a WR4 (his ECR is WR46), but you shouldn’t draft him as even a backend WR3, which is where he is ranked in RT Sports ADP.

Ted Chmyz is a fantasy football contributor for The News Pulse. Find him on Twitter and Bluesky @Tchmyz for more fantasy content or to ask questions.