Hello, fantasy football enthusiasts (and fellow sickos) and welcome back for the second edition of this dynasty stock watch column. Throughout the NFL season, we’ll be tracking some of the preeminent weekly risers in dynasty fantasy football formats here on DraftKings Network.
After a Week 1 in which scoring took a downturn, Week 2 of the 2025 NFL regular season made up for it with an excess of touchdowns and some massive fantasy football performances across the league. This week’s batch of dynasty risers and fallers is headlined by a couple of big-name wide receivers from the 2024 draft class as well as some other recognizable names, so let’s jump right in.
Top dynasty risers after Week 2
Rome Odunze (WR16)
There’s no better name to begin this list with than Rome Odunze, a top-10 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft who also commanded a top-three price tag in 2024 dynasty rookie drafts. While Odunze failed to live up to expectations during a disappointing rookie campaign with just 8.5 FPPG, his 54-734-3 receiving line showed signs of promise. Now operating under a much-improved situation with a better coaching staff under Ben Johnson and a stronger offensive line to protect quarterback Caleb Williams, the sky feels like the limit for the young wideout. The former Washington Husky caught six of his nine targets in Week 1 for 37 yards and a score, but he put forth a memorable breakout game this past Sunday with seven receptions for 128 yards and two scores. Odunze’s blend of size and athleticism at 6-foot-3 make him a prototypical X receiver — with Johnson now calling plays, getting the ball to the second-year starter seems like a priority. His 20 targets are eight more than the next-closest player and he’s commanding a target share slightly over 30% while making highlight grabs all over the field. If the team continues using him in a variety of ways both outside and in the slot with this kind of volume, we’re looking at a legit WR1 to justify his rookie-draft cost and current WR16 ranking in dynasty.
Zay Flowers (WR17)
He earned his way into this column last week, but after a couple of years finishing as a low-end WR2, the Zay Flowers ascension may have actually arrived at long last. The former Boston College standout posted a career-best 143 yards with a touchdown on seven catches in Week 1 against the Bills, and while his Week 2 line against the Browns didn’t pop off the page, seven catches for 75 yards sure wasn’t a poor outcome. Flowers averages 21.5 FPPG through two weeks, and as long as his high target volume continues, the production should follow. The 25-year-old saw nine and 11 targets in each of his first two contests, good for a massive 41.6% target share. There seems to be a renewed focus on putting the ball in Flowers’ hands as a clear-cut top option for Lamar Jackson. While Isaiah Likely’s return may eat into the wideout’s targets slightly, it feels as though this is the year Flowers finally becomes a starting option to feel excited about. He jumped from WR31 to WR21 after his season debut and now sits a few spots higher at WR17.
Jaguars running backs
An offseason of debate about who would lead the Jaguars’ backfield finally saw answers in Week 1 as Travis Etienne popped off as the clear top option in Liam Coen’s new offense. After trading Tank Bigsby away to the Eagles the day after that first game, both Etienne and fourth-round pick Bhayshul Tuten see a runway to fantasy football relevance. Etienne boasts 214 rushing yards on 30 carries for an ultra-efficient 7.1 yards per attempt thus far, and he’s caught five of his six targets for an additional 31 yards and one touchdown. With an average of 17.8 FPPG, he’s a weekly RB2 with high-end upside as long as he remains the lead back in Jacksonville, and the price point now reflects that following a jump from RB38 to RB21 in dynasty rankings. While backfield mate Tuten won’t see quite as much work, his value also jumped from RB39 to RB26 now that his path to a consistent role appears clear without Bigsby in the mix. The rookie posted 15.4 PPR points in Week 2 with eight carries for 42 yards plus two catches for 32 yards and a score, so he and Etienne can coexist as long as work remains consolidated between the two. Of course, Tuten can and will likely take on a larger share of touches with time, too.
Javonte Williams (RB25)
Major ligament tears are sometimes the pallbearers of difference-making fantasy production for running backs. However, it appears the demise of Javonte Williams’s dynasty value was greatly exaggerated as the 26-year-old now springs back into the top-30 halfbacks in positional rankings. Upon signing a one-year prove-it deal with the Cowboys after a couple of disappointing years with the Broncos after shredding his knee back in 2022, Williams hovered around the RB45mark through most of the offseason. With two weeks as the starter in Dallas under his belt along with 22.7 FPPG, he’s now skyrocketed to the RB25 slot. An inefficient 15 carries for 54 yards (3.6 YPC) against the Eagles in Week 1 were propped up by two touchdowns, but Williams totaled 97 yards on 18 carries (5.4 YPC) with a touchdown and six catches for 33 more yards in Week 2 against a Giants front seven that’s not devoid of talent by any means. He likely won’t post 20 points in weeks he doesn’t find the end zone, but he should see plenty of scoring opportunities in a capable Cowboys offense. Workhorse backs are rare nowadays, but Williams is one for this year at least — contenders should hold, but rebuilders should sell high if possible.
Tucker Kraft (TE5)
There are tons of young tight ends making a case for the revival of the position in fantasy football, but for those who don’t roster the Brock Bowers and Trey McBrides of the world can still find top talent elsewhere. Packers standout Tucker Kraft made a case as one of the top young talents at his position last season with 707 yards and seven touchdowns on just 50 targets to average 9.6 FPPG. Now, it seems the third-year breakout may have arrived as he posted a 24.4-point performance with six catches for 124 yards and a touchdown in Week 2 against the Commanders. Kraft’s ability after the catch separates him from most other players at tight end, and he’s the favorite red-zone target for Jordan Love in a Green Bay offense which bears resemblance to the one which saw the quarterback throw 33 touchdowns just two years ago. With Love healthy (unlike last season) and top-tier coaching from Matt LaFleur, Kraft deserves every ounce of hype. With 17.1 FPPG this campaign, he’s now risen from TE8 to TE5 as a borderline top-50 asset in dynasty formats.
Top dynasty fallers after Week 2
Kaleb Johnson (RB34)
One offseason hype train that took off after the 2025 NFL Draft involved Kaleb Johnson, the Steelers’ third-round pick out of Iowa. Between the draft capital used to select the former Hawkeye and the departure of workhorse back Najee Harris, Johnson earned a spot in the mid/late first round of rookie drafts and brought expectations of an immediate role in his team’s offense under offensive coordinator Arthur Smith. While more of a freight-train back rather than an agile runner, the 22-year-old profiled as a potential lead option, at least until Jaylen Warren signed an extension just before Week 1. Now two weeks into the year, Johnson sits third on the depth chart with just two carries for a loss of one yard. After a kickoff bounced off his lands and he gave up on the play, allowing a Seahawks defender to pounce on it for a touchdown in the end zone, the rookie won’t even return kicks anymore according to Mike Tomlin. Between that mistake and poor pass protection, Johnson may not see the field much at all this year barring injuries to Warren or Kenneth Gainwell. He’s fallen to RB34 from his preseason spot of RB19, and that dynasty ranking will likely only plummet further.
Isiah Pacheco (RB40)
While not a star by any means, Isaiah Pacheco showed plenty of fantasy football upside with 15.3 FPPG in 2023 as the main runner in the Chiefs’ backfield. He showed immense potential for seventh-round pick with over 1,100 scrimmage yards and nine total touchdowns that year, and the Rutgers product picked up where he left off to start 2024 with 15.8 and 16.1 fantasy points before a fractured fibula sidelined him from Week 3 until Week 13. He understandably didn’t look like himself upon returning with a drop in efficiency and finished with 8.1 FPPG. There was some belief Pacheco could return to his prior form in 2025 once further removed from such a major injury, especially since it didn’t seem Kareem Hunt or Brashard Smith would truly challenge him for the lead role in the Kansas City backfield. Through two weeks, though, the 26-year-old now sees a steep decline from RB24 all the way to RB40 in dynasty rankings. Pacheco’s seen 15 carries overall for just 47 yards and hasn’t done much with his five targets in the receiving game. To make matters worse, Hunt seems to have taken over short-yardage and third-down work for the moment, out-snapping his counterpart in both situations. Without those opportunities, Pacheco’s value appears bleak. He’s also averaging just 3.1 yards per carry, though matchups against the Chargers and Eagles’ defenses don’t help the efficiency.
Eagles wide receivers
A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith are two of the best wide receivers in football, and together they form an absurdly talented duo. Unfortunately, they arguably see their potential wasted in a run-first offense. While Brown averaged 16.7 PPR points last season and Smith averaged 15.3 despite the Eagles’ shift to one of the league’s premier rushing attacks, the early results of 2025 under new offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo are less than encouraging. Neither player has cracked 10 PPR points yet and they’ve seen a combined 18 targets across two games. Now, it’s not necessarily time to panic since we know just how talented these guys are. However, the deep passing game has been nearly nonexistent to this point and Jalen Hurts only has 45 pass attempts to his name in the new season. Granted, Philadelphia’s played a couple of pretty close games in which they led the majority of the time and never truly needed to pass, and Brown himself may still feel lingering effects of a hamstring injury suffered in training camp. The spike weeks should come eventually for both, maybe as soon as Week 3 in a contest against the Rams which may call for more pass volume. With value drops from WR14 to WR20 for brown and WR21 to WR27 for Smith, fantasy managers who believe in the talent may see opportunities to buy low.
Mark Andrews (TE18)
The Ravens’ offense looks fearsome once more with 40.5 points per game through two weeks, but Mark Andrews has noticeably been excluded from the fun with minimal fantasy production despite his team’s impressive output. One would think the former All-Pro could capitalize as the main tight end on the field while teammate Isaiah Likely misses time due to injury, but Andrews only has four targets to his name with two receptions and seven yards to show for his efforts. Granted, he did drop a probable touchdown in Week 2 which would’ve added an extra seven-ish points in PPR formats, but the impending return of Likely only hurts the outlook for Andrews in fantasy football. At 30 years old, he’s not getting any younger and his lack of impact with 2.9 PPR points in two combined contests means a large drop in dynasty rankings. After averaging 11.1 FPPG last season while scoring a career-best 11 touchdowns, Andrews has now dropped from his preseason ranking of TE12 to TE18. He’s as touchdown-dependent as it gets with Flowers’ emergence and Likely’s return to play.
