Fantasy football analyst Matt Harmon breaks down how he's approaching the major positions this draft season. For more draft strategy, check out his Blueprint for 2025 drafts.
High-level QB Elevator Pitch
A once-hardened Late Round Quarterback-only drafter, I find myself, for the third year in a row, extremely interested in taking one of the elite quarterbacks this year. That’s especially true now that Jayden Daniels has made it a tier of three guys with Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen.
Right now, those three quarterbacks fall between the 21st and 29th picks in Yahoo ADP. There are some appealing wide receivers and running backs in that range, but the combination of weekly floor and ceiling with those passers is unmatched. They all have a chance to finish at the top of the league in passing efficiency and lead the position in rushing yards. That’s just a tough combination to beat. If any of them fall to Round 3, forget about it; I’ll take them every time over the Tee Higgins, James Cook, Breece Hall or Tyreek Hill group of FLEX-eligible players.
If I miss out on those guys, Joe Burrow or Jalen Hurts go a bit later and aren’t bad consolation prizes at all. Once those five are off the board, you can engage in a serious waiting game.
Quartback-6 to quarterback-17 in my rankings feels extremely flat to me this year. You can make a case for top-12 production with the right breaks for every single one of those players. That means I’m not often diving into the Patrick Mahomes, Baker Mayfield or Bo Nix waters (ADP between 50 and 70 overall).
Justin Fields as the 10th or 13th quarterback off the board in the 80s is where my interest in filling the QB1 spot rekindles.
Fields isn’t without risk of poor passing production but he is a top-two quarterback in scramble yards since he entered the league. Rushing production remains the key to cheap and cheat-code fantasy quarterbacks. Elsewhere in this tier, Brock Purdy is a solid answer after taking big steps as a dropback passer and scrambler in 2024. Kyler Murray is a frustrating player but it appears Yahoo drafters have penalized him enough with a 95th overall ADP. Pocket passers like Jared Goff, Justin Herbert and Dak Prescott should be at the helm of productive offenses with strong pass-catching options.
Even deep into the 120s, you’ll find good fantasy quarterback answers, including one of “my guys” who we’ll get to in short order. This position is extremely deep for streamers and those hunting QB2 options in SuperFlex.
High-level RB Elevator Pitch
Justin Boone and I have talked about this on The Yahoo Fantasy Forecast of late, but this does not feel like an optimal year to punt on running backs, or even go with a Hero-RB build early in drafts.
All of my top-seven running backs are bona fide first-round players, with the top tier of three — Bijan Robinson, Saquon Barkley and Jahmyr Gibbs — being worthy of top-five selections. There are wide receivers I like ahead of some names inside that top seven but if you walked away with a back over the wideout, I wouldn’t fight you.
The most controversial decision for managers to make early in the draft will be what to do with Christian McCaffrey. I’m sympathetic to anyone who just doesn’t want to go down that road again with a 29-year-old back coming off a frustrating year of injuries. At the same time, no player has more upside than McCaffrey in fantasy football, given his rushing efficiency and target ceiling.
Even with super conservative outputs in my projections, he comes out to RB3. With some level of trepidation, I’ve docked him to RB4 and my second tier at the position but he’s still a top-12 overall player, for me. I’m going to play my leagues to win and, therefore, will be willing to take the risk in the late first round, as long as the health reports remain clean through training camp.
Once we get outside of that group of top-seven backs, the third tier of backs is still quite plentiful with workhorses who will run away with the lead role in their backfields. One of those guys you aren’t used to seeing this high is Chase Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals, my RB11 this year. From Week 10 on, Brown handled 74.3% of the Bengals’ rush attempts (trailing only Jonathan Taylor) and was targeted 39 times (trailing only De’Von Achane). The Bengals didn’t add any significant challengers to Brown’s spot atop the depth chart, so he has room to regress on his 2024 usage and still pay off as a top-12 back. You’re getting a productive workhorse back on one of the best offenses in the NFL. He’s a great third-round selection. I’d have slotted him in the “My Guys” section this year if I didn’t already do it last year.
Names like Kenneth Walker III, Chuba Hubbard and long-time veterans like Alvin Kamara and James Conner make up the fourth tier. This is still a decent area to take backs with Walker and Hubbard at the top of my board. Walker should benefit from a change to the outside zone system under Klint Kubiak, while Hubbard is already established as a strong RB1 behind a good offensive line.
After that tier, the running back landscape takes a nosedive in terms of role certainty. That’s why I want to make sure I take two before the end of Round 4 or 5 at the latest. There are some intriguing names, most notably the rookies, and potential veteran discounts like Tony Pollard and Isiah Pacheco. Still, I want those guys as lottery ticket RB3 or FLEX options, not my second runner. Running back also rather neatly falls off right when the wide receiver board begins to look tantalizing around pick 55 to 60 in Yahoo ADP.
High-Level WR Elevator Pitch
We remain in a golden age for wide receiver play in the NFL. I can go all the way down to the 40s in my “real-life” wide receiver rankings before I land on a player who I think has legitimate question marks about whether they can be a bona fide starting wide receiver and a top-two option on a team. It’s just one example, but my ranking of the top-15 wide receivers 25 and under helps show why this position gets better every year. The 2024 NFL Draft made it even stronger as several high-end talents entered the league and immediately established themselves as stars. If other guys continue to ascend and veterans don’t age out, we’re cooking. That’s why I think wide receiver is exceptionally deep with massive fourth and fifth tiers worth hammering in the mid-to-late rounds.
Starting at the top of the NFL Draft, it’s those 2024 rookies that made this position undeniably better at the top, Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr. at picks 13 and 16 in Yahoo ADP, respectively. I’m multiple spots ahead of ADP on Nabers (WR13 overall) and more than fine with where Thomas goes in the early second round. Without them, the wide receiver picks in the late first to mid-second would have been Puka Nacua, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Drake London and A.J. Brown. Now, you add these two young, ascending alphas and we’re talking about an embarrassment of riches at the Round 1 to 2 turn. Oh, and don’t you dare forget about fellow 2024 rookie Ladd McConkey at 24th overall, who was just as efficient a producer as Thomas and Nabers and for me, was the best on film in Year 1.
The players listed above wrap up the first two tiers in my wide receiver rankings. There’s a fine group of players in my third tier, which includes Tee Higgins, Garrett Wilson, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Marvin Harrison Jr. and veterans like Mike Evans and Tyreek Hill. While I don’t dislike this tier, which falls anywhere between picks 30 and 45, I just often find myself taking the running backs in this range. That’s especially true because I don’t see a steep drop to the next grouping at the wide receiver position.
To me, you can find plenty of usable wide receiver weeks in the fifth to eighth round range this year. We’re talking about established players still in their primes like Jaylen Waddle, Zay Flowers, DeVonta Smith and Jameson Williams. Those guys might not have the ceilings to be WR1s in fantasy but they are excellent picks at ADP.
Even better, this area of the NFL Draft contains veteran receivers who are viewed as boring by the community but have not aged out at all. Calvin Ridley played extremely well in Tennessee and battled for 1,000 yards in a broken passing game, with the second-best success rate vs. press of his career in Reception Perception. Stefon Diggs has made a miraculous recovery from a torn ACL in time to be on the field for training camp and is not someone I’d bet against, given how hard he works. He was still beating man coverage at a rate north of 70% in RP with the Texans last year. The ever-steady Jakobi Meyers is being disrespected at his ADP (99th overall) and could outkick several guys in the tier above him with Geno Smith under center. The fact that these guys aren’t fully aging out yet is what makes this position so strong.
We also know that rookie wide receivers have been massive hits in recent years as value picks. We have two going in this range in Travis Hunter at 74th overall and Tetairoa McMillan at 75th. McMillan should be the Day 1 starting X-receiver for Bryce Young and fits the downfield, horizontal route-based offense Dave Canales prefers. As for Hunter, head coach Liam Coen says he’s looking to play him on the offensive side 80% of the snaps while also attempting to play on defense. Hunter’s weekly projections might be tough as he pushes to do something that’s never been done before, but scared money don’t make no money. And Hunter is a special wide receiver prospect who should be fed in Coen’s electric screen game.
Lastly, there’s a crop of receivers later in drafts who go outside the top 80 picks who are hyper-talented but just need the right breaks to go their way.
Chris Olave is an example in New Orleans, as he looks like a big-time breakthrough player if concussions don’t rear their head again. Olave is 10th in first downs per route run among WRs with 500+ routes since he entered the league in 2022, surrounded by a bunch of guys we all agree are great players. He's also 11th in yards per route, 13th in targets per route and seventh in successful targets per route. There's another level for him to reach if all the conditions are right. His teammate Rashid Shaheed is also an electric talent who wins at all three levels. Both should see much improved deployment in Kellen Moore’s offense but the quarterback play is a major question. I will bet on the talent deep in drafts on both.
Josh Downs in Indianapolis is another player with elite efficiency metrics who grades out like a superstar in Reception Perception.
Downs won’t be a consistent producer if Anthony Richardson Sr. returns to the starting job at some point and still hasn't made a massive jump, but I know he’s a fantastic player I’ll happily take as my WR4.
A long-time favorite of mine, Rashod Bateman, has the talent of a strong starting NFL receiver and offered enough spike weeks to finish as WR52. He now goes outside the top 50 as no one wants to bet on any stability in that production, much less potential for growth.
Even outside the drafted players in the Yahoo pool is Browns WR2 Cedric Tillman. I’m not looking for new and creative ways to invest in the 2025 Cleveland Browns offense but if I’m taking one, it’ll be Tillman in the final rounds, not up in the top 100 with his teammates like Jerry Jeudy and David Njoku. Tillman showed he can play X-receiver last year and will be on the field for almost all the snaps. People have completely forgotten he was right in line with Jeudy’s production before he was lost for the season with a concussion.
These types of misunderstood wide receivers, where folks don’t understand how good they are in isolation, can be major profit points if the conditions ever turn their way. It might never happen but it doesn’t cost you much in drafts to simply find out and if it works, they can make your team. Don’t worry, I have some more candidates in the “My Guys” section.
High-level TE Elevator Pitch
Every year we do the “tight end is deep in fantasy” dance but that’s just never really the case. What the fantasy community has struggled to grasp — and it’s what causes this position to get overvalued — is that, from a conceptual standpoint, the vast majority of NFL offenses do not want to funnel targets to the tight end position. They’re very rarely the first read in concepts and even most secondary perimeter or slot receivers are going to draw the quarterback’s eyes before the tight end.
That’s why, to find real solutions at the position, you need to find legitimate unicorn talents or tight ends who are going to get boosted up the target pecking order based on the situation and surrounding players. As Justin Boone and I have discussed on the Yahoo Fantasy Forecast, unless the tight end you’re chasing has a chance to be a top-two target-earner on his team, you’re going to have to count on outlier efficiency and touchdowns to get home.
Luckily, we have a clear top three at the tight end position who should be able to easily get into the top two on their teams in terms of target share.
Brock Bowers drew 153 targets as a rookie and he’s going TE1 and 22nd overall in Yahoo drafts. There is an ever-so-small part of me that wonders if he will see a downtick in overall volume now that the team has added some young receivers in the NFL Draft, like Jack Bech and Dont’e Thornton Jr., and are unlikely to repeat as the third-most pass-heavy offense (64.3%) with a better coaching staff. However, that’s not enough for me to call Bowers a fade at ADP.
Trey McBride ranked 10th in the NFL with a 33.6% share of the first-read targets in Arizona, per Fantasy Points Data. That’s 10th among all pass catchers, not just tight end, where he’s the clear runaway No. 1 in the metric. Even if Marvin Harrison Jr. takes a step forward, McBride still projects for the type of volume he needs to justify an early third-round ADP.
In my view, George Kittle should be the third man of this first tier, and Yahoo drafters seem to agree, as his 31st overall ADP isn’t too far from McBride's. Kittle’s 2.65 yards per route last season led all tight ends by a significant gap, with McBride at 2.15 and Bowers at 2.02. He’s less likely to see the same number of raw targets as those two but is an elite efficiency player and has a chance to push north of 115 given the state of the wide receiver room. No Deebo Samuel Sr. or Brandon Aiyuk at the start of the season should allow you to bump Kittle up the projections.
If you made me choose between going elite quarterback vs. elite tight end, I’d probably choose the ceiling/floor combination of the former. However, what gives me pause is that I’m really not interested in the next tier of tight ends going between 48th and 90th overall, except for two possible exceptions that fit our “top two targeted players on the team” rule.
T.J. Hockenson will start the season as the second target in Minnesota behind Justin Jefferson now that Jordan Addison is suspended for three weeks. The Vikings get matchups vs. the Falcons and Bengals; not a bad way to start off with your TE1 in fantasy. Addison likely usurps the role for Hockenson upon his return, as he out-targeted Hockenson, 71 to 58, from Week 10 on last year. However, this offense will focus on shorter, high-percentage passes. Hockenson is much more the safety blanket of this passing game.
Evan Engram is a tempting pick right around the 84th overall range in ADP. Engram is a proven target-earner on a depth chart with few proven secondary receivers. Last year, Cortland Sutton ran a route on 90.5% of the Broncos’ dropbacks but no one else cleared 50%. If he stays healthy, Engram is a lock to beat that route participation.
Since I don’t dabble much in either of these tiers, mostly because I like players at other positions, I usually end up taking my tight end into the 100s. You’ll find the two guys I end up with most as my deeper TE1 play in “My Guys” below, but one guy I’ve been sprinkling in a bit is Dalton Kincaid. Boone made a compelling argument for him as a rebound pick and Kincaid goes way later than last year.
Three ultra-deep names: If Cam Ward is good, Chig Okonkwo can present sneaky value after a strong finish to 2024, Brenton Strange should be the TE1 in Jacksonville and I’m really intrigued by Theo Johnson, who could be the second target for Russell Wilson in New York and isn’t being drafted in Yahoo leagues. The 6-foot-6, 259-pound Johnson posted a 91st percentile 40-yard dash, 96th percentile vertical jump and 93rd percentile broad jump at the 2023 NFL Scouting Combine. Closing your eyes and taking athletes has been a profitable strategy at this position in the past.
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