Every year, the change in the fantasy football landscape is enough to rethink our draft style. Maybe it's a face in a new place, or a new head coach or offensive coordinator. Or better yet, an exciting rookie entered the league, fantasy expectation surfaced on the rooftops, hoping for something.
After drafting over 60 best teams and doing at least 45 mock drafts, I found situations that made me think about how to get close to a particular player or position at night.
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The beauty of fantasy football is that no one runs your team except you. You can read the entire post, think it's trash, and keep moving forward and draft the players you're most excited about. Or, you could read this post and think, “Hey, DOPP has some good Nuggets out there. I’ll put them in the back pocket when I do the draft this year.”
As long as you are convicted, there is no right or wrong way to draft it. Sports are emotional, and so are fantasy sports.
The biggest thing I get from over 100 types of drafts is not to let your emotions get the best results on draft day. There is a plan. Create hierarchies instead of using static rankings and stay peaceful with your decisions. If you want to catch someone you like in one round, do it! You are the one who has to set the lineup and follow the decisions you made during the draft, so don’t compromise based on what others think.
With that little inspiring topic, let’s dig into some of my biggest fantasy football drafts this summer.
You can draft a top QB or top TE, but it's hard to do both
The “island” position that addresses quarterbacks and tensions is more important than in the last few years, especially at the tight end.
We have a clear top of four or five quarterbacks (some don't have the same Joe Burrow as Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, Jayden Daniels and Lamar Jackson), and George Kittle is right behind. Given the options we can use, it's very easy to get a top-level QB or TE, but since you have to bypass both positions in the early turn, it's hard to find elite options in both positions.
The above mentioned QB is usually out of the board in the range of the third to fourth rounds, with a tight end in the second to fourth rounds. If you grab both positions early, you do leave the starting RB and/or WR depth.
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If I decide to take this approach, I might lock RB as soon as possible and know the depth of the WR position this year. But even then, this is not ideal. This doesn't mean it's impossible, it's just how the draft might work.
To do this, I just tried to draft QB and TE in the first four rounds of the 10 team league, picking from the 5th place draft. Here is my current starting lineup. I will make you the judgment of whether you will be satisfied with the team when you leave the draft.
QB: Jalen Hurts (Fourth Round)
RB: Derek 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 a puzzle, anyone who tells you is lying
We don't know how Hunter will be used in 2025. We know he is a unicorn and he will play on both sides of the ball, but what does that mean for us in fantasy? How many snapshots will he play in offense and defense? We heard his stamina is unrivalled, but still don't know how he will endure the rigor of the NFL game throughout the season.
Hunter is super representative and should be a potential starter for your fantasy squad. I think he is a WR3/Flex option and offers more upside according to how JAGS handles how he uses it. In the recent episode of the Fantasy Focus Football podcast, our YouTube chat took part in a poll asking listeners/viewers if they target hunters in the draft, or if they would rather target players with less question marks around their situation. We have 63% of our listeners/viewers say they avoid hunters in the draft.
He is definitely a difficult problem. He will dominate the IDP league where he will also earn offensive points, but in the standard fantasy league he won't get points for tackles, interceptions or forced turnovers (unless your league manager will of course customize the scoring settings, the most important thing is to know how to view the hunter before going into the draft, not just before throwing the hunter away.
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Why is it risky to draft Saquon Barkley early
Tristan Cockcroft's tradeoff is when it's the best time for fantasy managers to pick Saquon Barkley.
Saquon Barkley had a great workload last season, but in 2025 it was a problem
Barkley's Fantasy Season 2024 is one of the records. Given his ridiculous workload, the season also paused the savvy fantasy manager. Including the playoffs, he has a total of 436 (the most tied in the last 25 years) and 482 contacts (third in the same span). He also participated in 20 games!
Historically, the Running Defender has seen a major decline in fantasy production next season. Whether due to a noticeable return or injury, six of the past eight RBC have seen 450 contacts in a season, with an average of six per game dropping per fantasy points per game.
It's not annoying to Barkley or the Philadelphia Eagles. He is one of the best RBS in football, running behind one of the best offensive lines, the team shooting at the lowest speed of the NFL. He can go back from 2300 yards to 1,600 yards, but it's still great, but I'm just trying to guess who will be a historic outlier.
This year, I'm passing on Saquon and his expected return, just taking away the best players on the board. Neither WR nor RB matters. I just can't choose a player for a professional season, he played 20 games in that game, at least not the first round cost of Barkley. If you did Barkley this year, be aware that you need to do it just in case.
Buy dipping sauce for players who returned from injuries at the end of last season
Two players returned to the court at the end of last season, apparently not looking like their former selves: Isiah Pacheco and TJ Hockenson. I bought dipping sauce in both.
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My co-host of “Fantasy Focus” Stephania Bell often talks about the difference between a player returning to the show and just returning to the game. As manager Pacheco learned last season, playing on the court wasn't enough. After breaking the fibula in Week 2, he returned in Week 13 and he didn't look like the angry runner we've ever seen. He lost weight when he went out, obviously not as much as the burst we were used to seeing him play with him.
But the team has hardly solved RB positions this year. Behind Pacheco are Kareem Hunt, Elijah Mitchell and seventh-round rookie Brashard Smith. It's not a lot of competition, which is why I slammed Pacheco at the draft this year. Last season, he was one of the top 12 to 15 stocks in the draft, but this year you can get him in the 20 to 25 range.
Hawkinson has similar outlines. He returned from Pacheco, who returned after missing the first seven games while dealing with the ACL/MCL tear that occurred in 2023. He had weeks to make him look like an old TJ, with 4 games in 10 fantasy scores, but he also sometimes went out of sync with the offense, falling into six fantasies in six under six. He hasn't returned to his full state yet, which shows.
Now, Hockenson has fully recovered from his injury and will benefit from the absence of Jordan Addison in the first three games of the season, pushing him toward a second pass receiver in this offense. Hockenson is the first four games in the draft and is now considered close to the TE6 to TE8 series. Personally, I'm using him as my TE5, right behind Sam Laporta, and I'm buying his ADP dip. If I don't have one of the ends ahead, I don't mind waiting and grabbing Hawkinson in the middle round. He will provide good value in a thinner position in fantasy football. Give me Pacheco and Hockenson as underrated players.