While being a “workout warrior” and becoming a 2025 NFL Combine winner is a far cry from guaranteed success on Sundays, plenty of historical data supports that hitting certain thresholds at the Combine can signal fantasy stardom. It also significantly influences NFL general managers and front offices, which translates to a vital variable in predicting prospect outcomes: draft capital.
The 2024 version of this article highlighted Xavier Worthy, Brian Thomas Jr., and Ricky Pearsall. Here are three 2025 NFL Combine winners that should be somewhat prioritized during your 2025 dynasty rookie drafts and one-year/redraft fantasy football leagues.
Omarion Hampton: RB, North Carolina
Few college running backs have been as prolific as Hampton in the past two seasons. He burst onto the scene in 2023 as a 20-year-old sophomore to play all 13 games for the Tar Heels as a true bellcow: 253 rushes for 1,504 yards and 16 total TDs, adding 29 catches for an additional 222 yards.
As a 21-year-old junior in 2024, he improved on all of those numbers with 281 carries, 1,660 rushing yards with 17 TDs, and significantly improved his receiving production to 38 catches for 373 yards.
Durable and efficient early-declare with excellent counting stats at a young age, the only remaining obstacle for high draft capital – both in the NFL and fantasy leagues – was athleticism. He answered those questions emphatically with a dominant combine (courtesy of PlayerProfiler):
A hulking 6’0″ at 221 pounds, Hampton is built like a wrecking ball with 4.46 speed (93rd percentile speed score, which accounts for size) and elite explosion (38″ vertical, 10’10” broad jump). Throw in his elite dominator rating and target share, and you’ve got a ready-made star who can win on all three downs:
I’m pivoting from Hendo to Hampton as RB2.
RD1 buzz is real & Hampton checks every box for me.
⁃ Highly-recruited (4 Stars; 93 Prospect Grade)
⁃ Early-breakout (1,500+ rushing yards as a SO.)
⁃ Great after contact (4.20+ YAC/attempt & 1,000+ yards AFTER-contact both… pic.twitter.com/6sa88oLnea
— David J. Gautieri (@GuruFantasyWrld) March 4, 2025
If he receives early 2nd-round draft capital or better, he’s got some very juice comparisons per RotoViz’s Box Score Scout:
As far as fantasy football goes, Hampton has few, if any, warts. He’s as likely to become a superstar as any back in the class after Ashton Jeanty: dominant production at a young age, receiving chops, durability, athleticism, and (soon to be) excellent draft capital. He’s arguably the 1.02 in all rookie drafts, regardless of format or NFL landing spot.
Matthew Golden: WR, Texas
Golden has now continued a tradition that 2024 late-season breakout rookie Xavier Worthy started: a small University of Texas wide receiver running the fastest 40-yard dash at the NFL combine.
Unlike Omarion Hampton, Golden does not have excellent early-career production. He spent his freshman and sophomore seasons at the University of Houston and amassed a total of 76 catches, 988 yards, and 13 TDs before transferring to Texas. Though a much-heralded Isaiah Bond transferred from Alabama to Texas after leading the Crimson Tide in receptions as a sophomore, it was Golden who was the dominant 2024 receiver in Austin.
Golden finished 2nd on the team in receptions (58), 1st in yards, and 1st in TDs (987 and 9) while Bond (a potential 1st round pick coming into 2024) finished 6th, 3rd and 5th on the 2024 Longhorns in those respective categories.
It wasn’t just his 4.29 40-yard dash time that impressed scouts and front offices. The ever-respected Daniel Jeremiah of NFL.com had (what at the time was) quite a bold take in January:
Just finished studying Texas WR Matthew Golden. He could easily be the top WR in this draft class.
— Daniel Jeremiah (@MoveTheSticks) January 14, 2025
His excitement was echoed by fellow super-scout Todd McShay and former NFL GM Mike Tannenbaum, who had similar sentiments during Golden’s combine explosion:
I have identical grades on three very different WRs at the top of that pos. group: Tet McMillan, Matthew Golden and Emeka Egbuka. Golden running a 4.30u 40 doesn’t hurt case for climbing to the top of that bucket.
— Todd McShay (@McShay13) March 1, 2025
As discussed on @espn with @HannahStormESPN; after his Combine workout, there’s no doubt—Matthew Golden will be the first WR off the board in the Draft. Teams won’t pass on the speed/route-running ability. #NFLDraft #Combine
— Mike Tannenbaum (@RealTannenbaum) March 2, 2025
While Tannenbaum’s take may be a tad hyperbolic (Tet McMillan has the prerequisite size and production that will likely make him the WR1 in this draft), Golden’s speed, junior year production, and draft capital earned him some very exciting comparable players per RotoViz’s Box Score Scout. For this exercise, we are assuming top-20 draft capital (a pretty good bet considering the aforementioned hype):
Considering his smaller stature and only breaking out during his junior year, his list of comps is filled with both mega-stars and mega-busts. Plenty of your fellow dynasty drafters will take the bigger names of Emeka Egbuka and/or Luther Burden ahead of Golden. Especially considering the RB-heavy nature of the 2025 class, Golden could become a nice value in the mid-to-late 1st round of 2025 dynasty rookie drafts. He’s arguably the biggest 2025 NFL Combine winner.
Quinshon Judkins: RB, Ohio St.
College football enthusiasts will remember Judkins’s sensational freshman season at Ole Miss, where he led the SEC in attempts (274), yards (1,567), and rushing touchdowns (16) as a 19-year-old. He was good, but not as good, during his sophomore year (4.3 yards per carry) before searching for greener pastures by transferring to Ohio State.
Alongside fellow star RB TreVeyon Henderson (a likely 2nd-3rd round selection during the 2025 NFL draft), the duo formed their own “Sonic and Knuckles” partnership (hat tip to David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs) en route to a National Championship this past year.
Judkins has been considered an excellent NFL prospect dating back to his freshman-year breakout, but he separated himself at the combine with similar measurements to fellow combine star Omarion Hampton (courtesy of RAS):
To put his 9.88 RAS score in context, his size/speed/explosion metrics shown at the combine rank him as the 23rd-best RB (in terms of athleticism) out of 1,909 qualifiers since 1987. Note his elite vertical and his 11’0″ (98th percentile) broad jump… at 221 pounds!
With Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson underwhelming at the combine, Hampton and Judkins are pulling away as the shoo-in RB2 and RB3 in their own tier after their domination in Indianapolis. While some dynasty owners may still prefer Henderson to Judkins, we see Henderson is a late declare who took an obvious backseat to Judkins last year. Henderson also never once eclipsed 184 carries in his four-year Ohio St. career, while Judkins’s career-low is 191 carries.
The one knock against Judkins is his middling receiving production and progression – he caught only 22 passes in both his sophomore and junior seasons. Unlike Hampton, Judkins is likely to begin his career as a two-down thumper, so his landing spot is going to carry more weight than Hampton’s. Even so, Judkins is nearly a lock for top-50 draft capital.
But with Judkins’s long speed more than confirmed to accompany his punishing running style, he’s likely to gobble up yards and touchdowns in the NFL just like he did in college. It is unlikely he will make it outside of the top half of 2025 dynasty rookie drafts after his elite combine performance.
