Everything you need to know to get up to speed for 2025
Plus a couple follow-ups to Friday's post
I got some really cool feedback on Friday’s post, which is always super fun to see. Since it was a little more of an evergreen post, and because I haven’t written a ton recently, I wanted to drop a few links to some of my better evergreen stuff in the past for anyone newer who wants to check that stuff out (or anyone who wants a refresh).
I’ve also been reading back on some of my work from January, where I did kind of a lot of writing in the wake of the season, and a lot of that’s some of my very best work. The NFL offseason has a way of making you forget the intricacies of the sport itself, as everything gets analyzed in numbers for several months, and we all forget that the numbers themselves are impacted by so many variables, and the golden rule with football is everything is small samples, and also all the circumstances around each individual player are chaos. Injuries or just different levels of play among teammates, coaching changes, different ways that defenses approach different offenses, and the “multivariability” of each play, with 22 players moving at once, all conspire to make it imperative that we consider context.
That’s why I write my big “TPRR series” early every offseason, because pass-catching is the element of fantasy football that is stickiest from a skill-based perspective, and understanding what we think about each player’s skill level — typically the range that they are in at a specific point in their career, which includes error bars and a floor and ceiling element of what they could be — is extremely important to then figuring out how to play guys once we know more about their expected situations for 2025. I’ve always called this series my “TPRR series,” but joked on pods that it’s a bad name and I should have come up with something better, because it’s a signature series I do every year, and have for years, and it’s absolutely nailed some huge stuff from things like CeeDee Lamb breaking out in 2022, to veterans like Keenan Allen and Mike Evans looking like bounceback values in 2023 (both were big hits at cost), to understanding why guys like Nico Collins and Amon-Ra St. Brown were interesting bets before they became superstars, to understanding why countless players were overvalued relative to their ceilings, like Michael Pittman or Calvin Ridley or so many others.
Anyway, I renamed the 2025 versions of this post where I’m now calling it “Field Tippers,” because again I use TPRR as the foundational stat to dig into the profiles, and, well, TPRR could be pronounced “tipper” if you were, say, drunk.
If you’re looking for more to read right now, these are team-by-team breakdowns of all the league’s pass-catchers, and I’m re-reading each team myself as I prepare to do that team’s projection (I’m through 12 teams in my projections, so progressing nicely, and man am I excited to write up the findings of all that).
If you want more information on using TPRR as a foundational stat, and why all the flak per-route stuff tends to get is extremely misguided and people just aren’t using those stats correctly, read the intro to the AFC piece, which I re-read last week and — unlike most of my writing, which I typically think is cringey — I felt like was pretty good.
Other early 2025 links
I don’t want to re-write all the findings, because the point of this is to quickly get out some links so you guys can read the stuff there. But here is other stuff I’ve written so far since the end of the 2024 fantasy season.
How do we approach RBs in 2025?
This is another thing I found myself reading back this month, and actually felt like was good. It’s a really important look at the macro concepts that are impacting fantasy football in 2025, especially if you’re inclined to immediately believe that the health of RBs in 2024 immediately sets 2025 up as a smash Zero RB year. I do think there’s a lot of validity there, but I’m not going to ignore that the situation is beneficial to RB scoring in the 2025 NFL. Particularly in home leagues where the pressure on things like WR depth is limited, I think this clearly puts us on a trajectory for at least 1-2 early RBs (before really loading up on rookie RBs in the double digit rounds, because there’s clear value in a potentially generational rookie RB class stepping into this landscape, and I’m not sure people are learning enough from the Bucky Irving and Tyrone Tracy seasons last year simply because, again, the veterans all stayed healthy; if you don’t recall this crazy stat, around Week 11 or Week 12 when Jonathon Brooks returned to the lineup, all of the first 38 or 39 RBs in ADP were active at the same point, which is absolutely bonkers; anyway, there’s far more on RBs in that link above, and then far more will be coming down the pike).
The 5 biggest fantasy football lessons from 2024
I write a “three biggest lessons” piece annually, to talk about how fantasy football is a changing target, and what types of trends might define it going forward, as we wrap up one season and look ahead to the future. Because 2024 was so wild, I split the above RBs piece off from the “three lessons” and wrote it as a standalone piece, then still needed to make it a “five biggest lessons” piece (which includes more about RBs).
How is Jayden Daniels so good?
There’s more “real football” here than most of the fantasy-focused pieces, but I had a lot of fun talking about the specific dynamism Jayden Daniels provided in 2024, and how well he is set up to be a superstar in the modern NFL.
What does it mean when a young player has a tough year in a bad situation?
I haven’t read this one back, but I’m pretty sure it was kind of a heat check, where I was writing some fire pieces but then probably got out in front of my skis here. I don’t recall this piece being nearly as good as some of the other stuff I’ve already linked, but I talked a bit about Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze and what Ben Johnson might mean for them, so it’s probably still relevant.
There was a moment in time when it sounded like Matthew Stafford might be on the move, and the Giants were in the rumor mill (because obviously; Brian Daboll’s whole offseason was spent trying to upgrade QB), and I got really excited about how good Malik Nabers could be with Stafford at QB. A logical extension of this might be that Davante Adams now has some serious potential, but my TPRR writeup on him was quite muted, and I think well-argued, whereas the numbers for Puka Nacua are astronomical. I think Adams has some contingency-based upside if Nacua misses time, but probably doesn’t otherwise carry the ceiling (which is a “famous last words” thing when we’re talking about the stuff I write in this piece about Stafford, and also what we know about Sean McVay’s offenses).
I fired off about a dozen blurbs about different teams’ moves, and what I thought they signified for those teams’ outlook the rest of the offseason and into 2025. Some good stuff here to keep in mind, particularly some of what I wrote about offensive lines and general approach.
This was mostly just an excuse to argue Tetairoa McMillan has more ceiling than people realize, and I’ve only gotten more confident in that take after he did land the top-10 draft capital in a spot where his real strengths (the intermediate stuff, which I write about in the piece) should shine. You want translatable skills that can still win as competition gets much more difficult, and T-Mac’s ability to put up such a dominant age-adjusted production profile even as he didn’t demonstrably win in all the ways people want very much argues that the things he does well, he does very, very well, and we should be confident he will be able to carry that over to an NFL situation that should highlight those very things.
So what’s the deal with Travis Hunter?
My attempt to make sense of one of the most fascinating players to enter the NFL that I can ever remember, and in particular to talk about whether he can and will play both ways, and what that timeline might look like. I’m still very unsure about all of it, but I do think all of it trends toward him doing unprecedented things, because that’s what he’s going to push for, and that’s what he’s already shown he’s capable of at the lower level.
RJ Harvey is an asymmetrical bet
Part of why I wanted to write these little blurbs is to circle back on this piece. I still really like RJ Harvey, but a big part of this piece focuses on the other RBs in Denver, and how Sean Payton viewed them last year, and JK Dobbins landing in Denver absolutely changes that part of the analysis. What I felt was true was Harvey had a real hold on volume that needed to be respected, but with Dobbins in place, that’s a different calculus. I haven’t done my Broncos projection yet, but Dobbins had solid peripherals last year and can do a whole lot of veteran stuff right. With that element of it, the Sean Payton RB splits of the past become a real concern. When I wrote this piece about Harvey, I felt he was a lock to have a strong share of the backfield, with upside to really push through Payton’s split backfield tendencies and really dominate all the valuable work in the way a guy like Alvin Kamara did under Payton. That’s what made him an asymmetrical bet, i.e. “small miss, big hit” potential, where the small miss is him being productive on a less-than-elite backfield share but where the risk of him not being used much at all didn’t really exist. With Dobbins there, I think both sides of that take a hit, i.e. I think it’s a lot tougher to see the “big hit” of him consolidating the backfield (without injury to Dobbins) and fully expect to see both these guys be used a lot. And then the “small hit” or “high floor” side is still there — I still think Harvey is a really good bet to see a lot of work, given draft capital and profile, and I don’t think Dobbins alone pushes him to where he could be a real afterthought — but the specific nuances of that side of it, and whether the floor looks like 40% of the backfield or 30%, does get a little shakier when the other back is someone like Dobbins (who is himself interesting, because despite probably lacking the top-end athleticism after all the injuries, he’s going to pass block well and know his assignments and make guys miss and basically be a far superior version of what Javonte Williams was last year, and that’s kind of enough for Payton, who has a tendency to prioritize a lack of mistakes over game-breaking upside in a lot of cases).
Links to important pieces from 2021-2024
Anyway, that’s a recap of the many thousands of words I’ve already written this offseason looking ahead to the 2025 season. Additionally, I knew I linked to a bunch of evergreen stuff around this time last year, and I wanted to circle back to that. In pitching 2024 Stealing Signals plans, I dug into the archives and included a bunch of past links. Those included pieces on:
Tacit knowledge (2021)
Antifragility (2021)
How to evaluate WRs (2022)
Draft strategy, and “drafting for need” (2022)
How to approach RBs (2022)
How RPOs change target shares for No. 1 WRs (2023)
(We did get that No. 1 WR target share uptick in 2023)
Uncertainty in season-long projections (2023)
Some issues with how fantasy analysis is evolving (2023)
The 7 pillars of good fantasy drafting (2023)
Why the term “regression” is a crutch (2023)
How to learn to love rookies in redraft (2023)
And then of course I wrote a ton more in 2024.
How player and stat comps miss the boat
Stats, variance, and not always trusting the numbers
The value of team-by-team analyses
Describing what I call “the modern NFL,” i.e. how the sport is played
A bunch of answers from a Reddit AMA (running this back in August!)
Misapplying the aggregate to the specific
What to think about when you’re on the clock, actually drafting
How much should we care about beat reporter speculation?
The most important way to think about RB usage
You gotta place your bets (some good stuff on the Saquon miss here)
Understanding how brief NFL peaks are will unlock everything
People still do not understand antifragility
If you’re looking for more to read, and were wishing for more content from me up to this point, I guess I’d suggest that I probably already wrote it, and you’re literally hundreds of thousands of words of reading behind. (Which isn’t to say I won’t have another hundred thousand or so more for you before Week 1, because I will.)
A few questions and then we’re out of here
Got a couple good questions in the comments of Friday’s post, and I fired off the kind of stream-of-consciousness stuff I know a lot of you guys enjoy, so going to finish up today by copying those over. From Imari:
Love this stuff Ben. Two quick follow up questions
1. In ffpc main event, we know the money is made in the sprint (weeks 15-17) but we also know we need to get off to a good start to make us eligible. Where in the draft do you look to get ur chaperones who will keep you in contention (before fading late) in September/October, like Kamara, so that your young studs (Treyveyon) can bring you home? Are you just waiting for later and getting chaperones like Pacheco or saying f*uck chaperone?
2. Was having this debate the other day, thinking through range of outcomes, who do you think has the LOWEST ceiling between R Rice/T Higgins/D Adams?
The “chaperones” almost by definition have to be inexpensive, because you only get so many chances to find the real difference makers, and you need that Round 5 pick or whatever to try to find that. So in your example, it has to be Pacheco and not Kamara. Obviously Kamara is a better bet to be "right" for that production, but everything is different variations of risk, and it's basically too conservative of a decision to target higher floor for that archetype.
But you can also ignore chaperones if that's the way it plays out, because if you get a nice blend of upside picks throughout, you can make that bet, and you're assuming that even if you start a little slow, a team with the juice to actually win the whole thing is going to come on enough by like Week 5 to build enough points by Week 12 and get in.
Shawn and I have done two main events so far. In one, we took Jordan Mason in Round 9, and J.K. Dobbins in Round 14, and those are probably our "chaperones," but a good part of that build is actually pretty dependent on the top picks filling those early-point roles, meaning that all the guys you take in the first five or six rounds should be scoring early points, so you at least have that.
In the other, we took Dallas Goedert in Round 12 (TE Prem obv) and Hollywood Brown in Round 14. Both of those guys add something on FFPC where they play in the early games Week 1 and if they have a big game we can choose to start them after the fact (the "take a peek" thing), which could present us with a big enough Week 1 to be in good position by Week 4, even if those guys don't do a ton in their "chaperone" role, or we're playing too many rookies.
Neither of these teams sacrificed upside at really any point, and I don't think either is a threat to not score enough early unless they just aren't the right players and the team isn't very good.
(Your second question is difficult, because Higgins' ceiling is injury-related, and Adams' is age + injury, but I do think it's probably one of those two, especially if you're weighting that for likelihood, which would be with an understanding that the difference between even 2% outcomes and 0.2% outcomes is pretty vast.)
From Sam:
Good stuff all around.
I live primarily in dynasty, and am noodling on if this applies in the same way in that world. Rookies and young players are often highly valued, some would say overvalued.
Ideally you want to get the hits that appear to project on to future seasons as well, rather than just a one year spike. Jayden Daniels instead of Sam Darnold, for instance.
But a lot of that already feels priced in, so not sure if this is a situation where you might even go counter trend.
(I don’t think the below is a super clean answer, but it is what it is.)
I think in dynasty, the question becomes less about points in Year 1, and more about a blend of points plus how value stores (and it's more about the value side). Old players can score and still lose value, so you're giving yourself a chance to win in Year 1, but getting weaker in your goal to be competitive over multiple years, which is really how to play.
Conversely, if a young player like a Marvin Harrison can have a bad Year 1 but still be worth a ton in trade, his range of outcomes in terms of how it impacts your roster over multiple years is very high, because that's also how you get the ceiling (you could have had Malik Nabers instead of Harrison, who is valued even higher and is probably just going to be one of the very best WRs in the NFL over the next several years, situation permitting). And re: Harrison's value, I drafted him 1.01 last year in a non-SF league and was able to trade him this offseason for Xavier Worthy, plus I moved back from 1.02 to 1.04 so from Omarion to Treveyon, and for those two "downgrades" that are probably pretty neutral, I got 2.04 (Tuten) and a 2026 R2, so Harrison's value clearly was still pretty significant. Maybe Harrison will still be way better than Worthy, but I'd suggest that there shouldn't be a massive gap right now, and that even if he'd actually scored more points, this is the kind of trade you'd probably expect to be getting (maybe one of the R2s would be a R1, but a current-year 2.04 is a pretty valuable R2 that I was able to snag).
So anyway, my answer on dynasty is that it's a different game, and a different value equation than I think most people understand, but that the natural lean toward youth actually makes it an atmosphere where it's closer to being valued properly. The other players who become values are legit proven producers who are not in their prime but beyond their age peaks and sometimes get really cheap as a result. The trick for me is I still don't want to target guys who only have one or two years left, but you can sometimes get guys who have 3-4 good years and aren't at all priced like it. My last startup was 3-4 years ago, and that league has unfortunately already folded, but I took CMC in like Round 4 or Round 5 at that time, the offseason before his trade to SF, and the next two years he scored at such a high level that I think it justified that investment. But also, he wasn't a guy I was able to trade even after his overall RB1 season, when I wanted to cash in. The value can't rise, because people who were out on him are just still out on him. If CMC getting traded to SF and then having the overall RB1 season doesn't make him tradeable as he ages, you understand there's a sliding scale of what veterans have to do just to maintain value, let alone gain (they basically can't gain value after they've been deemed "too old," and rightfully so I think). Put differently, if CMC can have those results and I can still question whether taking him in Round 4 or Round 5 was worthwhile because I had two very strong seasons but I don't think I won that league either year (it wasn't just a standalone league but rather a 5-league, 60-person thing, and I know I finished like top five overall one year but I don't think I even won my own league), that's also an indication that those types of picks and "cheap" points aren't actually cheap. (Put still differently, one player hitting a massive scoring peak doesn't guarantee you any titles, so even the very highest outcomes of point-chasing at the expense of knowing it's a depreciating asset aren't guaranteed to bring you even one title, and more to the point you should be trying to build a team that can win multiple titles.)
So anyway, my answer is that while this stuff is more priced in, it's not totally priced in, as you alluded to. It feels priced in by comparison to redraft, but it's even more important in dynasty to be building this way because you have to have teams that are multi-year value stores, and guys you invested heavily in going over age cliffs can absolutely decimate the overall value of your roster, so it's not like some sly move to go counter trend, it's just a really risky bet on a short-term window with a guarantee of no long-term upside because age is going to come for every player.
Sam’s follow-up:
All interesting stuff.
Re: value cliffs, part of what I've struggled with is I've been on the wrong end of trying to get out from under guys before they crash.
EG I traded away Kittle and Mike Evans, both 29 at the time, in 2022. Both have continued to be starting caliber players and in retrospect it would have been better to ride them into the ground.
Put simply: Those are the misses you have to live with. I've had similar, and at times the young guy you acquire is unproductive before the old guy is done. I traded away Kelce for Ridley and OJ Howard once, and particularly on the Howard side of that I had gone to a value of zero while Kelce was still dominating. But that's part of the reality that you're never going to bat 1.000, and in dynasty your misses are going to be multi-year things that feel worse, because that's what you're playing. (I've learned to understand that I like redraft more, because of that, specifically that there's so much uncertainty that the outcomes don't follow good analysis even in the shorter timeline of redraft, so of course so much of dynasty is just how much the different bets break your way, and you gotta enjoy that part of the struggle I think.)
That’s it for today. Until next time!
Hi Ben. New subscriber here. Really appreciate this collection of evergreen content all in one location. I’m mowing through it all at a pretty good clip.
Do you have any articles talking about how amateur fantasy football players can best spend their time and attention to take their game to the next level? Obviously devouring your content is essential, but in terms of developing our own takes and how to apply them appropriately in our leagues, what else should we focus on?
Do you recommend deep dives on player profiles? Combing through advanced stats and projections to develop some numerical literacy? Is there merit in watching condensed games from last year or even some player-specific film? Mock draft a ton?
I’m sure it all helps, but I’d love to get your thoughts on what would best help us separate ourselves from the pack in home leagues. Thanks!
One thing I was wondering if your thinking had changed on at all: Jayden Reed and the Packers WR room in general.
In your TPRR article you were bullish on Reed, does that change at all with the additional competition from Golden + Savion?