When preparing for your fantasy football drafts, knowing which players to target and others to avoid is important. The amount of information available can be overwhelming, so a great way to condense the data and determine players to draft and others to leave for your leaguemates is to use our expert consensus fantasy football rankings compared to fantasy football average draft position (ADP). Beyond our rankings and ADP tools, our analysts will let you know which players we draft and avoid in fantasy football. Here are my must-have fantasy football quarterbacks to draft.
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Fantasy Football Must-Have Quarterbacks
Let’s dive into my fantasy football must-have quarterbacks for the 2025 NFL season.
Fantasy Football Must-Have Draft Picks
What can Jayden Daniels do for an encore after a triumphant rookie season? Selected No. 2 overall in last year’s NFL Draft, Daniels earned Offensive Rookie of the Year honors after throwing for 3,568 yards and 25 touchdowns, with an additional 891 rushing yards and six TD runs. That output was good for a QB5 fantasy finish. The Commanders feathered Daniels nest in the offseason by adding WRs Deebo Samuel and Dyami Brown, and, perhaps most significantly, stalwart left tackle Laremy Tunsil. Expect more fantasy goodness from the NFL’s brightest new star at the QB position.
Bo Nix was the sixth quarterback selected in the 2024 NFL Draft, but Jayden Daniels was the only rookie QB to put up better fantasy numbers than Nix last year. The University of Oregon product quickly got comfortable in head coach Sean Payton’s offense, completing 66.3% of his throws for 3,775 yards, with 29 TD passes and 12 INTs. Nix added 430 rushing yards and four TD runs on his way to a QB7 fantasy finish. Nix averaged 19.3 fantasy points per game and boosted his output over the second half of the season, averaging 22.0 fantasy points per game from week on. With Payton as his mentor and a strong offensive line in front of him, Nix looks like a solid investment for 2025.
Caleb Williams is a polarizing figure in the fantasy community. Depending on whom you ask, his rookie season was somewhere between alarmingly poor and reasonably decent considering the headwinds into which he was sailing. The Bears’ play-calling was questionable under offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, and it was hard to see improvement in that department after Waldron was fired in-season. The Bears’ offensive line was a sieve, as Williams took a league-high 68 sacks. He finished with 3,541 passing yards, 20 TD passes and six INTs in 17 starts, adding 489 rushing yards but no rushing touchdowns. The Bears have diligently spruced up Williams’ ecosystem, hiring highly regarded playcaller Ben Johnson as their head coach, dramatically upgrading the middle of the offensive line in free agency, and adding TE Colston Loveland and WR Luther Burden in the draft. Williams is known for his ability to make plays out of structure, but if he can start making plays *in* structure, he has a chance to take a huge leap forward in his second NFL season.
Will 2025 bring the long-awaited Trevor Lawrence fantasy breakout? The No. 1 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, Lawrence has never finished better than QB12 in fantasy points per game. He was limited to 10 games last year, missing time due to a concussion and an AC joint injury in his shoulder that required offseason surgery. There’s optimism that 2025 will be the best season of Lawrence’s career. New Jaguars head coach Liam Coen coaxed a career-best season out of Baker Mayfield last season in Tampa. And the Jaguars aggressively traded up to the No. 2 pick in this year’s draft to take two-way college star Travis Hunter, with the intention of primarily using Hunter as a wide receiver.
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