Stealing Signals

Stealing Signals

Draft Kit, Vol. 3: Final, updated guide

Just the key links you need for the biggest draft weekend

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Ben Gretch
Aug 29, 2025
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I’ve sent a couple of these “draft kit” posts out, and they’ve included some important links, as well as a lot of different content going back through the offseason. There is still a ton of key content from those earlier time periods, but if you want the full catalog of stuff to read through, go visit Draft Kit, Volume 2.

For this one, before the final Labor Day weekend that is the biggest draft weekend of the year, I wanted to pare down the links to the main, most important player series, the four key strategy guides (with one for auction and one for superflex), and then the rankings.

Here are the most important pieces of actionable content for a quick draft guide.


Draft Strategy

  • “Cut your fantasy football drafts into quarters” is a primer for how to think through your draft approach. What players do we target, and why?

  • “The best way to play home leagues in 2025” gives you the specific blueprint for winning your league, tailored to softer draft environments. In the past, I’ve used the exact home league blueprint to dominate in the high stakes space, as well.

  • My favorite picks in each round, with an emphasis on the ADPs at each major home league site between ESPN, CBS, Yahoo, and Sleeper

  • Auction strategy guide

  • Superflex strategy guide


Positional strategy, Targets and Fades

Each of these posts includes a long introduction about the position and how to understand it for fantasy football. It’s very important context about how to exploit the positions individually.

Then, I work through my tiered rankings and look at all the players a different way than the team-by-team nature of the Offseason Stealing Signals series, and updated with about a month of new information since those deeper dives were written.

  • QB tiers with emphasized Targets and Fades

  • RB tiers with emphasized Targets and Fades

  • WR tiers with emphasized Targets and Fades

  • TE tiers with emphasized Targets and Fades


Offseason Stealing Signals series

These are the aforementioned deeper dives with key stats about every player and every team, including why the different players have different ranges of outcomes in the different offenses.

The specific ways the different coaches and schemes fit, and what the players do within those schemes, is probably the biggest edge in fantasy football right now. If you’re looking for my thoughts on any given player, here’s that important context, with summaries for each team highlighting what’s “Signal” and what’s “Noise.”

  • The suddenly intriguing AFC South, including an introduction to the series

  • Some strong WR targets and young QBs in the NFC South

  • Unique offenses that challenge projection logic in the AFC East

  • Top-tier talents at QB, RB, and WR in the NFC East

  • Important team-level environment notes in the AFC North

  • Breakout WRs from four great offenses in the deep NFC North

  • Rookie RBs ready to dominate in the AFC West

  • Various degrees of target concentration in the NFC West


Preseason Stealing Signals series

Important weekly breakdowns of all the relevant snaps from each preseason week, including discussion of how key rookies looked on the field.

  • Preseason Stealing Signals, Week 1

  • Preseason Stealing Signals, Week 2

  • Preseason Stealing Signals, Week 3


A few other new pieces

Just because I haven’t linked these in other versions of the draft kit.

  • Breaking down the Rashee Rice suspension, with a focus on Xavier Worthy

  • Team HVT projections for predicting RB upside

  • My recent draft results in high stakes formats


Rankings

The rankings will continue to update daily through the weekend. The below rankings tool (behind the paywall) is an awesome way to track the players in live drafts, with the ability to click names to cross them out, and visually see the tier breaks, Targets, and Fades.

Additionally, if you’re looking for a spreadsheet version of the rankings, there’s a download .csv button on the top right of the tool. Good luck in your drafts!

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