Stealing Signals Draft Kit, Volume 1
Links to all the content and rankings
One of the realities of the newsletter format I’ve learned over the past few years is how the links and various things aren’t always accessible. It’s common to get questions about where the rankings are and those things. As such, I’ve started to do these “draft kit” posts in recent years to summarize everything.
This is the early August version, and doesn’t include much in the way of big strategy stuff. The home league draft guide piece will roll out this week, combining the strategic tenets we’ve talked about over the past five years with the specific 2025 drafting landscape. I have strong takes there and am excited to put that one together.
And then the next big project is going position by position and discussing the tiers, targets, and fades. Those are always hugely important pieces for how to play things. Then I’ll be hitting on the alternate formats, so Superflex and Auction stuff that you guys have been asking about. And then I’ll have breakdowns of my own drafts, important research stuff like my Team HVT article, and much more right through to Week 1. We’re still building out the framework but the final product doesn’t end with the tentpole stuff.
But there’s already been a ton of player-specific stuff I’ve hammered out, including probably the most in-depth team and player breakdowns you’re going to find in the Offseason Stealing Signals series. Volume 1 of this draft kit the place for all the links of what we’ve done so far, and I’ll always drop the rankings links at the very bottom of these Draft Kit posts, so I can keep them below the paywall but easily findable.
If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can get all the goodies for $19 by subscribing monthly (make sure to turn off autorenew in your Substack account after you subscribe, if you just want the draft content).
Offseason Stealing Signals series
Team-by-team breakdowns of all the key trends of each offense, and why the different plays 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, as everyone flocks to aggregate research and individual player profile notes without understanding the relevant context.
The reason we don’t have really any stats in football that are extremely predictive is because of all that nuance. Analysts love to figure out what stat is “best” and then apply that to individual situations, not recognizing that best of a lot of bad options is relative, and the uniqueness of the individual situations is exactly why the predictiveness of said stats remains low. We have to have some art with our science.
Here’s that context, on a team-by-team and player-by-player level, 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
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
Field Tippers
While this series is from January, I’d argue that means better-contextualized data discussion very close to the end of last year, and it’s research I referred back to extensively through my projections process this summer.
Preseason Stealing Signals series
Game by game breakdowns of all the relevant snaps from each preseason week.
Rankings changes
Three pieces with blurbs and some Q&A about players that have been rising and falling. Most of these moves are relatively minor, but they document things we’re seeing and how we’re reacting to them in a way that provides more helpful context.
August 1 — A couple of changes, plus a lot of Q&A from initial rankings release
August 5 — Roughly 20 blurbs about rankings movers
August 8 — Roughly 20 more blurbs detailing camp news, more movement
August 13 — More rankings changes, risers and fallers
August 15 — Overall top 50 rankings, plus more movers
More blurbs posts from earlier this offseason
Strategy
A piece called “Cut your fantasy football drafts into quarters” is a good primer for draft strategy, and how to think through your team-building approach.
“The best way to play home leagues in 2025” gives you the blueprint for winning your league, specifically tailored to softer draft environments.
A piece called “One of the most common forms of analysis is actively harmful to good fantasy play” aims to help you understand other interesting analysis you’re seeing out there.
“The 5 biggest lessons from 2024” reminds us “it’s hard to board a moving train,” RB scoring has evolved, and more about the way fantasy evolves over time. I wrote about how to approach RBs in 2025 in a separate piece.
A long answer on how to navigate rookie RBs as possible roster cloggers in home league redraft situations from an impromptu mailbag
How and why touchdowns were up in 2024, and what that means for fantasy in 2025
Player specific pieces
Jan. 19 — How is Jayden Daniels so good?
Jan. 25 — Caleb Williams, Rome Odunze, and big situational improvement
Feb. 27 — Matthew Stafford, Kingmaker
Apr. 24 — How much can Travis Hunter play?
May 1 — RJ Harvey is an asymmetrical bet (pre-J.K. Dobbins signing, still relevant)
July 2 — Achane, and the Dolphins as the most important team for 2025
July 17 — Why I ranked Jahmyr Gibbs RB1 (with a bit more here)
Projections
Full projections release, plus why you should pay more attention to the rankings than the projections
Biggest lessons learned from the projections process for all 32 teams
A projections correction and discussion about uncertainty and faux precision
Rankings
The below rankings tool is an awesome way to use the rankings in live drafts, with the ability to just click names to cross them out and track who is available in different tiers, 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.