Five offenses to target in 2025 fantasy drafts

  • There’s an old, overly simple adage fantasy football: draft good players on good teams. Generally, that’s a decent enough philosophy, but good players on good teams are also usually the most expensive players to draft, so it’s not always feasible to stick to it.

    As I’ve been drafting best ball teams, participating in industry contests and mock drafting to prepare for redraft leagues, I don’t necessarily find myself gravitating toward the best teams in the league. Instead, I love drafting players on teams with great value opportunities up and down the draft board, and significant upside for their higher percentile 2025 outcomes. I find those teams can come from many different tiers of team quality throughout the league.

    So, without further ado, here are the five offenses I’m drafting players from the most this summer. Note: All ADPs referenced are half-PPR averages as compiled by Fantasy Pros.

    San Francisco 49ers

    Favorite player to draft: TE George Kittle, ADP 37.0

    Coming off of a down year, the San Francisco offense has plenty of options available up and down the board at friendly prices. Starting at the top, Christian McCaffrey often goes much later than the mid-first round because of injury concerns, even though his upside is comfortably the No. 1 overall player. Kittle is the third of the elite TEs this year and is priced much more affordably than the other two, sitting at the 3-4 turn in 12-team leagues. I love stacking Kittle and QB Brock Purdy, and Purdy is the 11th QB off the board down near pick 100.

    The biggest buying opportunity with the Niners comes through calling your shot with their receivers, none of whom have any ADP below 99. At least one of Jauan Jennings (ADP 99.3), Ricky Pearsall (104.0) and Brandon Aiyuk (124.7) will surely have a massive fantasy impact for at least a bulk of the 2025 season, but folks aren’t sure which one will be the most valuable. I’d lean slightly toward Jennings of the three, but Pearsall likely has the highest upside for 2025 league-wnning impact. All in all, this is an incredible deep fantasy offense, and that’s without mentioning the recently injured backup RB Isaac Guerendo, who was a much stronger buy before his injury.

    Chicago Bears

    Favorite player to draft: WR Luther Burden, ADP 149.3

    Ben Johnson has supercharged your fantasy teams for years now, and the Bears are in the process of being remade in his image. This year, instead of his highly priced weapons with the Lions, none of the Johnson’s Bears go in the first three rounds of drafts, and a few are incredible values in the middle and later rounds.

    The best value could be the quarterback, as Caleb Williams enters his second year with the Ben Johnson bazooka, instead of whatever Shane Waldron, a coordinator who has gotten his head coaches fired in consecutive years, gave him. Williams goes as the 15th QB off the board right now, despite having a more fantasy-friendly skillset than Jared Goff, who Johnson made a regular QB1. Williams has four intriguing pass catchers to throw the ball to. My favorite overall is Rome Odunze, one of the most obvious second-year WR breakouts I can remember who somehow has an ADP of 83.7. That’s the 7-8 turn, similar to where another Shane Waldron survivor, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, went a year ago. The best upside value on the board is likely Burden, a dynamic playmaker with five-star talent who, if healthy, will see a bunch of Johnson’s creative manufactured touches. The Bears also drafted TE Colston Loveland with the 10th-overall pick, and the analogue to Sam Laporta’s incredible rookie season is obvious, yet Loveland’s ADP sits at 125.

    I actually don’t love the Bears’ supposed WR1 and RB1, D.J. Moore and D’Andre Swift. The vibes around Moore in Chicago and with Johnson after last season aren’t great, and it’s never a great sign when your new coach immediately decides to spend his first two picks on pass catchers. Still, it seems like Moore could have a Deebo Samuel-like hybrid role based on early camp-hype, which offers some tantalizing production possibilities, and his 4-5 turn ADP isn’t egregious by any means. Swift just isn’t a very good RB, and I prefer the veteran RBs drafted around him like Tony Pollard and Isiah Pacheco, not to mention upside bets on Kaleb Johnson and TreyVeon Henderson. Even so, I’m drafting more than enough Williams, Odunze, Burden and Loveland to balance out my Moore and Swift fade.

    Arizona Cardinals


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