Discussion of the Fantastic Football Day: Can you choose a top-5 QB and Top-3 Te and always like your team?
Each year, the fantastic football landscape is just changing enough to make us reconsider the way we approach the drafts. It may be a face in a new place, or maybe it’s a new head coach or an offensive coordinator. Or better still, an exciting recruit enters the league and fantastic expectations go through the roof with the hope of what could be.
After writing more than 60 best ball teams and made at least 45 sketches, I found a handful of situations that held me up at night by thinking about how I will approach a specific player or position.
The beautiful thing about fantastic football is that no one runs your team but you. You can read this whole article, think that it is waste and move on and write the players that are most passionate about. Or you can read this article and think: “Hey, Dopp had some good nuggets in there. I will keep them in my back pocket when I do my drafts this year.”
There is no good or bad way to write, as long as you write with conviction. Sports are emotional and fantastic sports are not different.
The biggest point to remember that I have made more than 100 sketches of different types is not to let your emotions make the most of you. Have a plan. Create levels rather than using static rankings and be at peace with your decisions. If you want to reach a turn to catch a guy you love, do it! You are the one who must define your range and live with the decisions you have made during the project, so do not compromise according to what others think.
With this little speech of encouragement away, let’s dive into some of my biggest observations of fantastic football draft this summer.
You can write a high level QB or a high level Te, but it is difficult to do both
Tackling the “islands” positions of the quarter-Arrière and the tight end is more important this year than in the years, especially at the end.
We have a higher level clear of four or five quarters (some do not have Joe Burrow in the same level as Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, Jayden Daniels and Lamar Jackson) and an even clearer ending level of Brock Bowers and Trey McBride, with George Kittle on the right on their heels. Obtaining a high -level QB or TE is fairly easy given the options available to us, but it is difficult to get an elite option in both positions due to what you have to get around the first laps to do it.
The QB mentioned above will generally leave the board in the third round beach at the end of the fourth round, the tight ends going from the end of the second to the start of the fourth. If you take the two positions early, you really leave your starting RB and / or your wr depth quite shallow.
If I decided to adopt this approach, I would probably lock the RBS as quickly as possible, knowing how deep the WR position is this year. But even then, it is not ideal. This does not mean that it is impossible, just difficult with the way the project will probably take place.
To this end, I just tried to write a QB and TE during the first four laps of a league at 10 teams, choosing in the draft slot n ° 5. You will find below my current start program. I let you judge if it is a team that you would be satisfied to leave the project.
QB: Jalen Hurts (fourth round)
RB: Derrick Henry (second)
RB: D’Andre Swift (seventh)
WR: Justin Jefferson (first)
WR: Xavier Worthy (fifth)
Te: Trey McBride (third)
Flex: DK Metcalf (sixth)
Travis Hunter is an enigma, and whoever tells you the opposite
None of us know how Hunter will be used in 2025. We know that he is a unicorn who will play on both sides of the ball, but what does that mean for us in fantasy? How many shots will he play in attack on the defense? We have heard that his endurance was unrivaled, but we still don’t know how he will resist the rigors of the NFL match for a full season.
Hunter is supernightful and should be written as a potential starter for your fantastic team. I consider it an WR3 / Flex option with advantages for more depending on how jags are approaching its use. On one of the recent episodes of the Podcast “Fantasy Focus Football”, our YouTube cat participated in a survey that asked if listeners / viewers aimed in the drafts or if they prefer to target a player with fewer questioning points surrounding his situation. A huge 63% of our listeners / viewers said they were avoiding the hunter in the sketches.
It is an enigma for sure. He will dominate in the PDI leagues where he will also get points to play on the offensive side of the ball, but in the standard fantastic leagues, he will not get points for plated, interceptions or forced escaped (unless your league director personalizes the score parameters, of course). The most important thing is how you see Hunter Before You head for your draft rather than just doing it.
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Why is there a risk in writing Saquon Barkley early
Tristan Cockcroft weighs when would be the best time for fantasy managers to write Saquon Barkley.
Saquon Barkley’s workload last season was incredible, but for 2025, that’s a problem
Barkley’s fantastic season in 2024 was one for records. It was also a season which gives the managers of informed fantasy a break given its ridiculous workload. Including the playoffs, it had 436 worn in total (tied in the past 25 years) and 482 keys (third over this same period). He also played in 20 games!
Historically, runners who see this kind of volume see a major drop in fantastic production the following season. Whether due to an obvious regression or injury, six of the last eight RBs who saw 450 keys in a season have seen an average production drop of at least 6 fantastic points per match the following season.
It is not a question of hating on Barkley or the Eagles of Philadelphia. He is one of the best RBS in football, which takes place behind one of the best offensive lines, in a team that launches the ball at the lowest rate of the NFL. It could regress by 2,300 yards in total to 1,600 yards in total and always be great, but I am simply not interested in trying to guess who will be a historic aberrant value.
This year, I transmit Saquon and its expected regression and I simply take the best player available on the board. Whether it is an WR or RB, it does not matter; I just can’t select a player who comes out of a career season during which he played 20 games, at least not at the cost of Barkley at the start of the first round. If you write Barkley this year, know that you will want to have an additional RB depth in case.
Buy the drop in players who came from injury at the end of last season
There are two players who returned to the field at the end of last season and clearly did not look like their old self: Isiah Pacheco and TJ Hockenson. I buy the drop in both.
My co-host on “Fantasy Focus”, Stephania Bell, often talks about the difference between players who come back to performance and does not amount to playing. Being there on the field is not enough, as the directors of Pacheco learned it in the section last season. He returned in week 13 after fracturing his fibula during week 2, and he was not like the angry runner that we used to see. He lost weight when he came out and clearly did not have the burst with whom we see him playing.
But the team has hardly approached the RB position this year. Behind Pacheco are Kareem Hunt, Elijah Mitchell and the recruit of seventh round Brashard Smith. It’s not a lot of competition, which is why I am running on Pacheco in projects this year. Last season, he was among the 12 to 15 rbs in air currents, but this year you can get it from the 20 to 25 range.
Hockenson has a similar profile. He returned earlier than Pacheco, returning after missing the first seven games while dealing with an ACL / MCL tear that occurred in 2023. He had a few weeks that made him look like the former TJ, with four fantastic games, but he had also watched offensive with the attack, turning in six fantastic games. He was not yet back in shape, and it showed.
Now Hockenson is completely recovered from his injury and will benefit from the absence of Jordan Addison for the first three games of the season, proposing it to the n ° 2 passes sensor in this offense. Old tight finishing option of the first four in drafts, Hockenson is now seen closer to the Te6 range in Te8. Personally, I have it like my te5, just behind Sam Laporta, and I buy its ADP dip. If I do not receive one of the first tight ends, I don’t mind waiting and grasping Hochenson in the middle towers. It will offer good value in a position that becomes thin faster than any other in fantastic football. Give me both PACHECO and HOCKENSON, as undervalued players.
