Fantasy Football 2025 Sleeper Running Backs to Target in Late Rounds

When your fantasy draft arrives—and it'll be here sooner than you think—you should be aiming to accomplish two things.

First, you'll want to find as much talent as possible and ideally load up your roster with the brightest stars of the 2025 NFL season.

Second, though, you'll want to extract as much value as you can from every point on the draft board. That's a fairly straightforward process early in the draft, when everyone is selecting from elites, but it gets a lot trickier later, when you're scouring the backup ranks for overlooked contributors.

Luckily, we're here to start the search early by identifying three sleeper running backs with a great chance of outperforming their later-round draft cost.

Bhayshul Tuten, Jacksonville Jaguars

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After averaging the seventh-fewest rushing yards per game last season, the Jaguars went searching for a backfield spark over the offseason. In doing so, they happened to grab perhaps this draft's sparkiest runner in Tuten, a fourth-round pick who wowed with his explosiveness at the combine.

He paced the position with both his 40-yard dash (4.32 seconds) and his 10-yard split (1.49). His 40.5-inch vertical was also best among running backs.

He has legitimate blink-and-you'll-miss-him burst. Any time he finds he an edge, he has home-run potential. He's also a hard runner through the holes who won't go down on arm tackles.

There's some real talent here, in other words, and perhaps enough of it to command a fantasy-relevant workload. To be clear, there is competition in Jacksonville, but with Travis Etienne Jr. on the final year of his contract, and Tank Bigsby not really established at this level, Tuten should have a chance to put his elite physical tools on display at some point.

Jaydon Blue, Dallas Cowboys

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The Cowboys could have the league's most scalable running back room. The two veterans presumably perched atop it for now—Javonte Williams and Miles Sanders—appear underwhelming from almost any angle.

There should be opportunities, then, for Blue to at least see if he can provide more excitement. So far, that's exactly what has happened at training camp.

"The speed, the dynamic playmaking ability. I think he's a dual-threat guy," Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer said of Blue. "I think you can hand him the ball. He doesn't need a lot of space to make people miss, and his acceleration is uncanny. I mean, his ability to get to top speed is unique."

Blue, a fifth-round rookie out of Texas, could have a three-down role in his future. Maybe he doesn't see that kind of usage right now, but it wouldn't be a huge shock if Dallas determined sooner than later that he's the best candidate for the job.

Isaac Guerendo, San Francisco 49ers

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If Guerendo can fend off fifth-round rookie Jordan James, then the second-year running back could be one of fantasy football's most valuable handcuffs.

That's because Guerendo would be second on the running back depth chart behind only Christian McCaffrey, a 29-year-old whose injury history runs about as long as a novella. Just last season, he was limited to all of four appearances by Achilles tendinitis and a PCL injury.

Guerendo was one of several players to capitalize on the chances created by McCaffrey's absences. Guerendo handled double-digit carries in four contests, averaging 101 scrimmage yards and 0.8 touchdowns in them.

Even if McCaffrey is healthier this season, the 49ers would be wise to limit his workload by involving other running backs. Guerendo should be the early favorite for such a role. And since he's turbo-boosted by elite speed (4.33-second 40-yard dash in 2024), he doesn't necessarily need a ton of touches to leave a big imprint on the stat sheet.