FantasyPros Staff | Sat, Jun 28th 2025, 7:22am EDT

Fantasy Football Draft Strategy & Advice (2025)

Pat Fitzmaurice has gone position-by-position to provide you with fantasy football draft strategy and advice. Here’s how Fitz is preparing for his fantasy football drafts. His primers include fantasy football draft strategy, targets, rankings, tiers, and more.

Here are each of Fitz’s complete Fantasy Football Draft Primers: QB | RB | WR | TE

Below we dive into some of his fantasy football draft strategy and advice for each position.

Fantasy Football Draft Strategy & Advice

Let’s explore some fantasy football draft strategy and advice from Pat Fitzmaruice for each position.

Quarterbacks

The big question is how much to invest in the quarterback position. Is it best to draft one of the top quarterbacks in an early round, or to focus on other positions in early rounds and draft a quarterback later?

There is obvious appeal to investing in a top quarterback. The quarterbacks who provide needle-moving rushing stats on top of their passing stats are highly valuable.

Josh Allen has averaged 24.2 fantasy points per game over the last three years, never averaging fewer than 22.6 fantasy points per game in any of those seasons.

Allen’s average draft position (ADP) is 28 overall, so he’s typically drafted early in the third round in 12-team leagues. Players with similar ADPs include receivers Garrett Wilson, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Terry McLaurin, and backs Chase Brown and Kyren Williams.

If you wait to draft your top quarterback, Kyler Murray and Jared Goff are among the other options. Murray has averaged 18.5 fantasy points per game over the last three years (but has missed 15 games over that stretch). Goff has averaged 18.2 fantasy points per game over the last three years.

While Allen is either the first or second quarterback selected in most fantasy drafts, Murray has an ADP of QB0 (78 overall) and Goff is at QB10 (85 overall).

Murray is typically drafted in the mid-seventh round of a 12-team draft; Goff in the early eighth round. Wide receivers with ADPs between Murray and Goff are Deebo Samuel, Calvin Ridley and Rome Odunze. The one running back with an ADP in that range is Tyrone Tracy.

You could draft Allen in the early-to-mid third round and one of Samuel, Ridley, Odunze or Tracy in the early-to-mid seventh round.

You could also draft one of Wilson, Smith-Njigba, McLaurin, Brown or Williams in the early-to-mid third round, and either Murray or Goff in the early-to-mid seventh round.

Is the 2025 fantasy scoring gap between Allen and Murray/Goff going to be bigger than the gap between the third- and seventh-round wide receivers/running backs?

The key factor to this is opportunity cost. At what point do we get an affordable opportunity cost for drafting a quarterback rather than a player at another position?

In a 1-QB league, you only have to start one quarterback, but you have to start somewhere around 5-6 running backs and wide receivers, depending on lineup configurations. And it’s good to have depth at those positions to guard against injuries and underachievement.

You can probably guess which way I lean in the early versus late quarterback debate. I tend to load my shopping cart with receivers and backs early on and find my quarterback somewhere from the sixth to eighth round range.

I don’t want to be underpowered at wide receiver in any PPR league or in any league that requires you to start at least three wideouts. While I’m willing to be a bit more patient at running back, I generally like to get one in the first three rounds and another by the end of the seventh round.

Target: Justin Fields

Running quarterbacks are a cheat code for fantasy football.

When Justin Fields started 15 games for the Bears in 2022, his passing numbers were pedestrian (2,242 yards, 17 touchdown passes), but he ran for 1,143 yards and eight touchdowns. Fields ranked 26th in passing yardage that season, but was the QB6 in fantasy scoring.

Last year, Fields started the first six games of the season for the Steelers and was the QB6 in fantasy scoring over that span.

The Steelers benched Fields in favor of Russell Wilson last October. Now, Fields is with the Jets. He has his shortcomings as a passer, but Fields appears to have job security with his new team, and it’s a safe bet that he’s going to provide substantial rushing value.

Fields is unlikely to be one of the first 10 quarterbacks taken in your fantasy draft, but he has a good chance to finish in the top 10 in quarterback fantasy scoring.

Avoid: Justin Herbert

This isn’t about Justin Herbert; this is about his ecosystem.

Under offensive coordinator Greg Roman, the Chargers had the 10th run-heaviest offense in the league last season. They also operated at the second slowest pace in the NFL. The Chargers have since spent a first-round draft pick on running back Omarion Hampton.

Herbert averaged only 29.6 pass attempts per game and finished the season with 3,870 passing yards, 23 touchdown passes and only three interceptions. He added 306 rushing yards and two touchdown scores on the ground.

While Herbert is widely regarded as an above-average quarterback in real life, the Chargers’ run-heavy approach and sluggish offensive pace will likely keep him from being a valuable fantasy quarterback.

Check out Fitz’s full Quarterback Fantasy Football Draft Primer

Running Backs

Running back is usually a volatile, unpredictable position. Weirdness at the RB position is the norm in fantasy football.

It’s unusual to get a season in which there’s relative stability and predictability at running back. The lack of RB weirdness made 2024 a weird year.

The Christian McCaffrey affair was an exception, of course. McCaffrey was the consensus 1.01 in fantasy drafts, and it wound up being a Hindenburg-level disaster for the people who drafted him.

McCaffrey had calf and Achilles issues in training camp that 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and McCaffrey himself downplayed. McCaffrey missed the first eight games of the season and wound up playing only four games.

There were some pleasant surprises, too, including Bucky Irving, Chase Brown, Chuba Hubbard and Rico Dowdle.

But otherwise, the RB position was unusually stable. Of the top 12 running backs by half-point PPR average draft position, eight actually finished as RB1s, and two of the misses (McCaffrey and Isiah Pacheco were injury-related).

Of the 12 running backs with ADPs in the RB13-RB24 range, nine finished as RB2s or better in half-point PPR scoring, and two more (Rhamondre Stevenson, Kenneth Walker) were near-misses.

One reason for the unusual predictability at the RB position was an atypical dispersion of injuries. Normally, running backs have higher injury rates than wide receivers, Last season was an exception. McCaffrey and Pacheco were the only running backs to miss significant chunks of the season due to injury.

Meanwhile, the upper reaches of the WR position were shredded, with Brandon Aiyuk, A.J. Brown, Nico Collins Stefon Diggs, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Tee Higgins, Puka Nacua and Rashee Rice all missing at least three games.

What does this mean for 2025?

After a year in which we had less RB volatility than usual and more injury-related WR volatility than usual, we might see more of a lean toward running backs in the early rounds of 2025 fantasy drafts.

The question is whether it’s wise to load up on running backs in the early rounds.

The key consideration is the number of wide receivers you’re required to start every week.

If you only have to start two wide receivers, you aren’t obligated to aggressively attack the WR position. It’s acceptable to merely keep up with your competitors at wide receiver as long as you’re building positional advantages elsewhere.

But if you have to start three receivers, investing heavily in the WR position is imperative.

Wide receiver is a crucial position in 3WR leagues simply because receivers make up such a large percentage of your starting lineup. If your league requires you to start 1 QB, 2 RBs, 3 WRs, 1 TE and 1 FLEX, at least 37.5% of your non-defense, non-kicker starters will be WRs. That percentage jumps to 50% if you put a WR in the flex spot.

In a league where you only have to start two wide receivers every week, drafting a pair of running backs in the first two or three rounds is a viable strategy.

In a league where you have to start three wide receivers every week, pounding the RB opposition in the early rounds puts you at risk of shorting yourself at the WR position — a position that has amplified importance because you have to start so many.

Four Approaches to Drafting Running Backs

Let’s look at four strategies for drafting running backs.

Zero RB: Pioneered by Shawn Siegele of RotoViz, this strategy involves bypassing RBs in the early rounds of your draft and focusing heavily on pass catchers with early picks.
Hero RB: A variation on Zero RB, this strategy allows for the drafting of a top running back in one of the first two rounds of your draft, with other early-round picks dedicated to non-RBs.
Robust RB: This strategy involves an RB-heavy approach in the early rounds – typically three RBs in the first four rounds.
Opportunistic RB: This is basically just a value-hunting approach to the position. Is there value at RB in the early rounds? Jump on it. If not, be patient and get your RBs later.

In years where running backs are injured more frequently, those RB injuries create opportunities for backups, and we’ll see late-round or undrafted running backs become immensely valuable.

That’s one of the reasons why Zero RB is a viable strategy: You can still do well for yourself at running back if you hit on one or two unexpected surprises at the position.

Another reason Zero RB is viable: The WR position typically does not yield many late-round gems, so it’s hard to play catch-up at the position without investing early-round picks.

Check out Fitz’s full Running Back Fantasy Football Draft Primer

Wide Receivers

The most important setting is the number of wide receivers you have to start each week.

If you’re only required to start two wide receivers, it’s OK to be somewhat laissez-faire in your approach to drafting wide receivers. It’s acceptable to merely keep pace with your competitors at the WR position, provided you’re building positional advantages elsewhere.

But if you’re required to start three receivers, you should invest heavily in the WR position.

Your goal in 3WR leagues should be to overwhelm your competitors with superior WR firepower. Ideally, your WR4 will be better than everyone else’s WR3 and perhaps even better than some people’s WR2.

In my 3WR leagues, at least three of my first five draft picks are wide receivers, and in many drafts, four of my first six picks are receivers.

The scoring system is another important league setting.

Full-point PPR leagues tend to drive up the overall value of wide receivers — particularly the high-volume receivers. Standard (or, if you prefer, “non-PPR”) leagues reduce the overall value of receivers and close the gap between high-volume receivers such as Garret Wilson and lower-volume, big-play receivers such as Jameson Williams.

Wide Receiver Depth Is a Myth

There seems to be a perception among many fantasy gamers that wide receiver is a deep position.

It’s deep in that there are a lot of wide receivers who get significant playing time. There are 32 NFL teams, each team starts at least two wide receivers, and NFL offenses use three-receiver sets on more than 60% of plays.

But we want receivers who are doing more than running routes and getting in their cardio work. We want receivers who are actually catching a lot of passes, piling up a lot of yardage and scoring touchdowns. We want receivers who score a significant number of fantasy points.

The number of receivers who reliably deliver significant point totals is smaller than some fantasy managers think.

For example …

Only 33 wide receivers played at least 10 games and averaged double-digit points in half-point point per reception (PPR) scoring last season.
Only 34 wide receivers drew at least 100 targets.
Only 27 wide receivers had more than six TD catches.
Only 21 wide receivers had 1,000 or more receiving yards.

In a league where you’re required to start three receivers every week, your roster will ideally have three receivers who reach all of the thresholds listed above. To get your fair share, you need to attack the WR position early in the draft.

Check out Fitz’s full Wide Receiver Fantasy Football Draft Primer

Tight Ends

Rookies have led all tight ends in fantasy scoring the last two years. First, it was the Lions’ Sam LaPorta in 2023, then the Raiders’ Brock Bowers in 2024. Kelce hasn’t hung ’em up yet — he just had 97 catches last year in his age-35 season — but Bowers looks like the new standard bearer at the TE position.

Trey McBride is coming off an 111-catch season and is only 25. LaPorta’s second NFL season wasn’t quite as successful as his first, but he still finished TE7 in half-point PPR fantasy scoring.

Two tight ends were selected in the top half of the first round in this year’s NFL Draft. The Bears took Michigan’s Colston Loveland 10th overall, and the Colts took Penn State’s Tyler Warren 14th overall.

The Packers’ Tucker Kraft is another promising young tight end. And we’re still lighting prayer candles in hopes that Dalton Kincaid and Kyle Pitts will start living up to their early-career hype.

Mix the young tight ends with the quality veterans — Kelce, Pitts, Andrews and perhaps a handful of others — and suddenly the TE position looks pretty fertile relative to years past.

Tight end is now a buyer’s market, giving fantasy managers a number of different ways to attack the position. There’s solid value at a variety of price points.

Want to spend up for Bowers, McBride or Kittle? I think you can justify it.

Would you prefer to wait a bit and grab LaPorta, Kelce or T.J. Hockenson? OK, cool.

Wait even longer and try to get value on Andrews, Evan Engram or David Njoku? Sounds good.

Or punt the position until the double-digit rounds and gamble on Kincaid, Pitts or some other bargain-basement tight end? Hey, as long as you’re building advantages at other positions in the early rounds, go for it.

I’m not wedded to a single approach to the TE position in my 2025 drafts, but I’m more amenable to drafting a tight end in the early rounds than I used to be. That said, there will be at least a few drafts in which I punt the position and go dumpster-diving in the later rounds.

Target: George Kittle (SF)

Kittle continues to amass outstanding seasons. He cleared 1,000 receiving yards in 2024 for a second straight year, finishing with 78-1,106-8 despite missing two games. Since his second NFL season, Kittle has finished TE3, TE2, TE3, TE4, TE2, TE5 and TE1 in half-point PPR fantasy points per game. Kittle turns 32 in October, and his violent style has led to some injuries over the years, but he has shown no signs of slowing down, and he has a bright 2025 target outlook for a 49ers offense that might not have a clear alpha wide receiver.

Avoid: T.J. Hockenson (MIN)

Hockenson had a mid-June ADP of TE5, 85th overall. That’s too rich. The veteran tight end tore his ACL and MCL late in the 2023 season and didn’t make his 2024 debut until Week 9. From that point on, he was TE19 in PPR fantasy points per game. Granted, Hockenson was unlucky not to score a single touchdown last season, but it’s not as if he’s been a TD machine at any point in his career. Hockenson has never scored more than six touchdowns in a single season. Hockenson will be sharing targets with stud WRs Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison.

Check out Fitz’s full Tight End Fantasy Football Draft Primer

NFL

MLB

NBA

NHL