PlayerProfiler is home to award-winning dynasty rankings and tools. Our Dynasty Deluxe package includes complete Dynasty Rankings, Rookie Rankings, Trade Analyzer, Draft Planner, Mock Drafts, and more. Check it out. Below Ted Chmyz looks at the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine fallers from a fantasy football perspective.
And just like that, the NFL Combine is Scouting over. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed by this year’s Combine. The trend of top players not participating continues to grow. This year, Travis Hunter, Ashton Jeanty, Cameron Ward, and Shedeur Sanders led the list of high-profile opt-outs. Even some non-stud prospects chose not to participate in drills. Perhaps the rise of in-game tracking data has made the underwear Olympics less of a priority for NFL front offices, in turn reducing the incentives for prospects to participate.
Whatever the reason, this year’s combine continued a trend from last year of not quite living up to the hype. And, unlike last year, we didn’t get a record-setting performance from Xavier Worthy to keep things interesting. With all that said, the Combine still came with plenty of new information for those of us in the news-starved fantasy football community to sink our teeth into. Since I started this article on a down note, I might as well keep being a hater. Here are the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine Fallers for fantasy football.
2025 NFL Scouting Combine Fallers
WR Isaiah Bond, Texas
Coming into Saturday, Isaiah Bond was boasting about his ability to potentially set a record in the 40-yard dash with a 4.1X time. Instead, he didn’t come anywhere close to the record, finishing with a 4.39. Don’t get me wrong, that’s still a decent time and probably less than half of how long it would take me to run 40 yards. But this was a clear case of overpromising and underdelivering from the Texas wideout.
Now that we know that Bond isn’t the truly elite speed freak he claimed to be, I expect him to fall in both consensus NFL Draft and fantasy football rankings. After all, Bond is a smaller prospect who doesn’t have particularly impressive college production to fall back on. His 16.8-percent College Dominator rating ranks in just the 16th percentile, and his 1.78 yards per route run in 2024 landed him outside of the top 100 wideouts in this draft class. Before this week, Bond was considered a likely second-round pick with first-round upside. Now, he may be more of a third-round option hoping to squeeze into the second.
RB Devin Neal, Kansas
As with Bond, Devin Neal mostly lands on this list for failing to live up to high expectations. He was expected to post a fast time in the 40-yard dash. Instead, he was the fourth-slowest RB to run, finishing in 4.58 seconds. To be fair to Neal, he did weigh in at a solid 213 pounds, so perhaps expecting him to be lightning-quick was unfair. Even still, those two numbers combine to give him just a 96.8 Speed Score. That was the fifth-lowest mark of all backs to run at the Combine and easily the lowest of any back with projected draft capital as high as Neal’s.
Of course, a slow 40 time is not a death blow for a running back’s fantasy outlook; nor is a lackluster speed score. Kyren Williams earned a miserable 83.0 Speed Score, and he has managed just fine so far in the NFL. On the other hand, Kyren fell to the fifth round in a running back class that was far weaker than this one. Coming off this performance, Neal may also end up with less-than-ideal draft capital. Hopefully, PFF’s seventh-graded RB in this class will be able to overcome that to provide some fantasy production.
TE Gunnar Helm, Texas
The second Texas player to make this list, Gunnar Helm unfortunately had a rough showing when tight ends took the field on Friday. Once again, the standout number (in a bad way) was his 40 time, as he posted a shockingly slow 4.84 (which was initially reported as an even worse 4.93). This number is a red flag for multiple reasons. For one, it’s likely to hurt his draft stock, especially when combined with his relatively low 241-lb weight.
Additionally, tight end is a position where 40 times do matter for predicting fantasy success. We want fast tight ends who can create mismatch nightmares for defenses and rack up yards after the catch. As a receiving-first TE with below-average athleticism, it suddenly is difficult to project what role Helm will play in the NFL. Don’t cross him off your draft board just yet, but this performance makes Helm a much riskier pick than he seemed to be a week ago.
RB Cam Skattebo, Arizona State
Everything Cam Skattebo did at the Combine was completely fine, if not impressive. His 10’3” broad jump was decent, and his 39.50” vertical jump tied for the second-best among running backs. However, those were the only two events Skattebo participated in. The CFB hero skipped every other event, including all four speed-related events. He is reportedly dealing with a low-grade hamstring issue.
Of course, skipping events isn’t always an issue. But Skattebo wasn’t a Heisman finalist like Jeanty or Hunter, nor is he a top QB. Instead, he’s a Day 2 prospect who already had some athleticism-related question marks. Given his size and impressive college resume, even a mediocre 40-yard dash could have secured Skattebo a solid landing spot. Choosing not to take that opportunity is a red flag that Skattebo and his camp may have been concerned that he would post a disastrously slow time and tank his stock. The rest of Skattebo’s profile is very enticing for fantasy, so hopefully he shuts me up by posting some respectable times at Arizona State’s Pro Day. Until then, he will slide down my rankings, if only by default.
QB Shedeur Sanders, Colorado
I’ll admit, this one may be a bit of a reach. Unlike Skattebo, there’s a very real chance that Shedeur Sanders had a good reason to sit out of the entire Combine. In a year where multiple teams picking at the very top of the draft need QB help, the consensus QB2 may already know exactly where he will be playing in 2025. But I wanted to include a quarterback, and Sanders choosing to sit meant he had the “worst” Combine of the fantasy-relevant signal callers in this class.
After all, I just said that Sanders is the consensus QB2 behind Miami’s Cam Ward. That right there is a potential argument that the Hall of Famer’s son should have participated in an attempt to claim the top spot. Like Skattebo, Sanders also has a potential weakness that he could have cleared up on Saturday. He is very accurate, but his arm strength is considered to be below average for a top QB prospect. In a perfect world, Sanders could have put those concerns to bed with an impressive showing in the QB passing drills, even if he still skipped all the other events. None of this may matter, and I’m certainly picking nits here, but that’s sometimes what draft season is all about.
Ted Chmyz is a fantasy football contributor for PlayerProfiler. Find him on Twitter @Tchmyz for more fantasy content or to ask questions.
