The 2025 fantasy football season was no different than any of the previous seasons in terms of chaos, breakouts, busts and valuable lessons that will shape our drafts for 2026. Here’s a few of my biggest takeaways from the 2025 Fantasy Football season. I will be making a video to recap this article as well.
1.) Late Round QBs Dominated – Again
Of the top 5 QBs in ADP, only Josh Allen (QB1) finished as a Top 5 QB, and Allen finished QB1 again for the third time in his career. Behind him in ADP, we saw injuries to Lamar Jackson (QB2) and Jayden Daniels (QB3). Jalen Hurts (QB4) played well enough for fantasy but finished with only 8 rushing TDs this year, down from his previous three seasons of 14,15 and 13 TDs. Joe Burrow (QB5) missed a large chunk of the season and Patrick Mahomes (QB6) had a season ending injury. Injuries are always tough, especially when it’s to a highly invested draft pick. Mahomes was playing like a Top 5 fantasy QB at the time of injury, and this leads into my next point.
It’s been a recent philosophy of mine when drafting QBs. I don’t like to draft one in the Top 5 of ADP. The upside is not very high and the downside is immense. It is easier for a QB and any other position to outperform his ADP the later they are drafted. My QB drafting philosophy is to target QBs that are outside of the Top 5 ADP that I feel have strong upside to finish as a Top 5 fantasy QB. Mahomes was QB6 in ADP and would have been a nice value had he finished the season. Baker Mayfield (QB7) disappointed in 2025, but Bo Nix (QB8) finished as QB7 and Dake Prescott (QB8) finished as QB5. These are small ADP wins, but they allowed you to draft RB/WR or TE in those 3rd/4th/5th rounds while the other Top 5 QBs were being selected. I believe QB points are the easiest to find off the waiver wire if you need it, so why take the risk on an early QB?
Now that group above were all ranked around QB6-10 in ADP. The 1st lesson of 2025 is that late round QBs dominated. Matthew Stafford finished as QB2 in 2025 and was the 26th QB off fantasy draft boards. Twenty six! There was a lot going on in August with Stafford’s back, but I think there’s a great lesson to be re-learned here with this. There were always be a few QBs that come out of nowhere and have great Top 10 fantasy seasons. Putting less draft value in the QB position, especially in a redraft league, seems to make the most sense. You can try drafting a QB in the 6-12 range and see if they work out, but always watch out for these undrafted QBs that become steals.
Other late round QBs that proved to be league winners included Trevor Lawrence and Drake Maye. Maye finished as QB3 and Lawrence as QB4. Maye was consensus QB15 off the board, and Lawrence QB20. Lawrence benefitted from an epic last season surge, and Maye was dominant all season. I think there’s value in hitting on a guy like Maye late in the draft, but also being OK with a QB by committee approach throughout the redraft season until you land that Lawrence type off waivers. Jacoby Brissett is another name that comes to mind. He played like a strong Top 10 QB most of the season. Other value QBs included Caleb Williams, Justin Herbert, Sam Darnold and Jaxson Dart.
2.) Wait To Draft Tight Ends
Sure, if you had Trey McBride on any of your teams this year, you may disagree. He was TE2 off the boards this year and was the dominant TE1 all season long. He only cost a late 2nd or 3rd round pick in your drafts. But what about the rest of the Top 5 ADP TEs? Brock Bowers was injured most of the year and the Raiders were dreadful. If you drafted Bowers in the 2nd round this year, you probably had a rough season. George Kittle was TE3 in ADP and was injured as well at various points. Kittle costed a 3rd/4th round pick and then we saw a large drop off to Round 6 where Sam LaPorta as TE4 suffered a season ending injury midway through the season. Tyler Warren as TE5 was a pleasant hit at ADP in the 6th/7th rounds.
I think the point for me here is to not invest a Top 5 Round pick on a TE. We see the most variance year to year and this position and if you don’t have the top 1-2 TE, they are roughly all the same after that. Waiting for TE allows you to play the waiver wire early and find guys like Harold Fannin Jr. (TE6), Jake Ferguson (TE4), and Juwan Johnson (TE8). It also allows you to draft some high upside TEs late like Kyle Pitts (TE2), Dallas Goedert (TE7) or even a rookie like Colston Loveland (TE12). I prefer loading up at RB/WR in my first 4-5 rounds of the draft, and then fill out QB/TE late. They are the easiest positions to find points off the waiver wire if your draft selections don’t pan out.
3.) Pass Up Aging and Mid Round RBs (rounds 5-7)
Here’s the list of RBs drafted in Rounds 4-7 in 2025: Walker, Kamara, Hall, Hubbard, Conner, Harvey, Pollard, Swift, Pacheco, Montgomery, Jones, Tracy and Croskey-Merritt. No league winners here. Several elder backs fell to injury. Most of them were on bad teams. The rookie Harvey took time but he finally became a nice RB2 down the stretch. The hit rate in 2025 in the range was very slim. This is the area where we could have kept adding WRs or considered pulling your QB1.
Invest early in RB and then circle back late. Here’s a list of RBs drafted Round 8+ that would have been hits: Warren, Charbonnet, Etienne, Javonte, Judkins, Skattebo, Stevenson, Dowdle, Marks, Rachaad, Monangai. If you drafted one or two of these late rounds RBs, you probably had a fun 2025 with this depth.
4.) Continue Drafting WRs in Their Prime (22-27)
Ten of the top 12 fantasy WRs in 2025 were under the age of 27. The outliers were Davante Adams (14 TDs) and AJ Brown. An interesting nugget here is that only 3 WRs that were drafted in the 1st Round ending up finished as Top 12 fantasy WRs. The 2nd Round only provided 2 WRs as well. It appears that the 2025 season was the year of the early round RB. I don’t think this will be the case every year, but it is something to keep in mind when drafting in 2026.
Young WRs in their prime like Smith-Njigba, Pickens, Olave, and Zay Flowers were all great hits at ADP. They were all the de facto WR1 on their teams coming into the season as well with Pickens as the exception. But with Pickens, we were expecting him to be finally unleashed. Continue drafting high profile WRs in their prime who are expected to serve as their teams WR1.
1st and 2nd Year WRs should also continue to be targeted in drafts, although we did not see any elite rookie seasons posted in 2025. We actually saw a lot of year two WRs drop off this year. Marvin Harrison, Nabers (injury), Odunze, Brian Thomas, Worthy, Pearsall, McConkey. I won’t let this scare me off in 2026, but it is something to remember.
5.) Don’t Get Too Cute
Often times, the best strategy is to stick to best player available and move on. This is probably my biggest lesson of the year. In my most important league, I simply tried forcing my 1st and 2nd round picks into what I wanted to see happen, ignoring the best players available. Instead of reaching on Nico Collins and BTJ, I should have taken an RB like CMC or JT and came back with Amon-Ra or Puka Nacua. All were clearly ranked higher among consensus, but I decided to try and look smart on draft day only to look silly a few weeks into the season. Balance is key. You need to maintain it and know when to take risks. The first and second round of your drafts are not meant for risks. They are the building blocks of your fantasy season. Value them.