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    FantasyPros Staff | Sun, Jul 13th 2025, 3:32am EDT

Fantasy Football Late-Round Draft Strategy, Advice & Picks (2025)

Welcome back to another summer of best ball drafting. There’s no better way to gear up for the start of fantasy football redraft season than by drafting best ball teams to your heart’s desire.

This piece will break down the double-digit (late) rounds of fantasy football drafts. It’s Part III of a three-part series and is a part of the FantasyPros best ball draft kit. We are tackling the late rounds of best ball drafts. Before diving in headfirst, be sure to read my Early Round Fantasy Football Strategy: Best Ball (2025), (Rounds 1-4) and Middle Round Fantasy Football Strategy: Best Ball (2025), (Rounds 5-9).

If you want more best ball content, be sure to check out the weekly FantasyPros Twitch show, featuring me and the United Kingdom’s No.1 fantasy football fanatic/addict (his words, not mine), Tom Strachan. Tom’s also been doing a ton of best ball work for the site.

Enough housekeeping, let’s dive into the analysis. Here’s my late-round fantasy football draft strategy and advice.

Fantasy Football Draft Strategy for the Late Rounds

Late-Round Takeaways

  1. Engage in “What If” Scenarios: Consider potential changes in a player’s value if unexpected events occur, such as injuries. This can lead to valuable picks late in the draft when you select players who might step up if a teammate goes down.
  2. Don’t Overinflate Early-Season Roles: Focus on potential long-term outcomes rather than immediate roles. Players drafted in later rounds are often more about their ceiling in an expanded role as the season progresses, not their Week 1 status.
  3. Value Over Immediate Need: In the late rounds, prioritize talent over early-season opportunities. Look for players whose ADPs are suppressed due to uncertain situations but have proven themselves when given opportunities. Consider players who have defined roles and players who are the “discount version” of more expensive options.
  4. Target Proven Performers and Breakout Candidates: Players who have increased production due to injuries around them should be on your radar as potential late-round steals. Stockpile talented players, discounted due to situations or injury-prone teammates.
  5. Draft Rookies Aggressively: Rookie WRs often do not have their potential fully priced into their ADPs. Being aggressive with rookies can yield high rewards as their roles expand throughout the season.
  6. Consider Air Yards and aDOT: Players with high air yards and average depth of target are prime candidates for breakout weeks, especially at WR and TE.
  7. Veteran and Rookie WR Combinations: Pairing a cheap veteran with a pricy rookie WR from the same team can be a strategic move, leveraging the potential for one to exceed their ADP if the other underperforms. It can also be done with players on two different teams.
  8. Tight End Strategy in Late Rounds: If you miss out on a top TE, focus on drafting multiple potential breakout TEs in the late rounds. Players like Tucker Kraft and David Njoku might offer good value. Bet on a tight end emerging from a crowded receiving corps versus a WR on the same team.
  9. Emphasize Upside with Balance: While chasing high-upside players is essential, balance your team with some steady performers to avoid too many busts, which could leave your team vulnerable.
  10. Late-Round QB Value: Many viable QB options often emerge from late-round picks. Target QBs who can offer dual-threat capabilities (passing and rushing) as they have a higher ceiling for scoring. Hitting on the right QBs is even more essential in half-PPR formats.

Fantasy Football Late-Round Draft Strategy: Final Thoughts

You should always strive to get the most value out of each of your selections.

To bring in a betting allegory — I am a BettingPros expert, after all — you can have all the closing line value (CLV) in the world. And that should make you a profitable bettor over time. The same goes for drafting value in fantasy football. However, I’ve got a bookshelf full of closing line value (CLV) trophies that never amounted to anything. It doesn’t necessarily mean you were right about a certain player, team, or situation, etc.

Conversely, I’ve made plenty of bets where I missed the value window, but ultimately, I was right, so it didn’t matter. We all want to get the best players at the best draft prices. Nobody wants to overpay. But if you truly believe based on your research, intel, and perhaps gut that a certain player or team can be a major difference-maker, the price shouldn’t matter. Because when it’s all said and done, the value doesn’t win for you. The player does.

And when we talk about price (other than in salary cap formats), your currency is opportunity cost. Fading players have to be accompanied by the player you would draft instead. Because that’s what you are paying. Every pick you make is a pick against the other players selected in that round.

This equation changes a bit in some of these summer-long best ball tournaments, where player ADPs change like the stock market. You can have exposure to certain players at once cost (ideally cheaper) and not at the more expensive tag.

This concept dovetails nicely into another thought experiment (thinking caps on today). You think Player A is going to smash.

But my response is if you want him, you must draft him in round one. No acceptations. Still, feeling bullish?

Do you like this player? Or do you just like the price of said player? Make sure you know the difference between the two types of players you are targeting. What often happens is that you think you like a player, but you’re actually just drawn to the price. But once the price changes, you don’t change your stance.

I think we can fall into this trap at times with ADP offseason risers (more specific to the early rounds). You keep drafting the same guys even if their price is not as appealing. Hence, it’s so critical to recognize if it’s the price or player outlook that moves the needle for you.

In the later rounds, it really should be more about the players. They are all cheap, so there’s not as much risk if it doesn’t pan out. It’s more about just being right. And what happens is, guys don’t rise enough. They go from undrafted to Round 18 to Round 15. It feels bad to pay a Round 15 price tag for a guy who was free before. But if he hits, he is going to beat his ADP at all three prices.

Don’t be so stringent on ADP in the later rounds. It’s just a very long, massive tier of similar dart throws. Have confidence in your darts, and manipulate the ADP to get as many shots as possible on your late-round guys.

And don’t be afraid to just take a single or double with a veteran/player in an established role if your roster needs it. Every roster needs different players.

I lied. One more last takeaway.

I don’t know everything, but I can guarantee you will never draft a perfect fantasy football best ball team (despite what my perfect draft article claims). Tournament-winning best ball teams that won millions of dollars have “bad picks” on them. I bring this up because you can strategically draft “misses” to better your team in the aggregate.

To bring up a real-life comparison, I’ll cite my final 2024 NFL Mock Draft for The Huddle Report. I placed very well in it because I attacked it with a different approach. I purposely let certain stud players fall, like Quinyon Mitchell and Dallas Turner, to teams they had been linked to throughout the process. I was essentially taking a loss in my estimation, so I could bolster my picks at the start, where I was more confident. I left my pursuit of perfection at the door, trying to get all 32 picks exactly right in exchange for a higher hit rate on my other picks.

And it got me thinking about how I could similarly approach fantasy football drafts. After all, I will draft players who bust or don’t do anything (like it or not). And so, I bring forward the idea of hedging with your fantasy teams.

A lot of this is just running back handcuffing or wide receiver/tight end teammate stacking. I’ve been pretty against handcuffing running backs, especially in normal redrafts, but I’ve been more open to the idea when I’ve thought about it more. If I have to sacrifice a double-digit round pick to guarantee I’ll get RB1 production from my first- or second-round pick, I’m for it.

I’m not going to lie. It feels pretty good to draft Kenneth Walker in round four and then Zach Charbonnet in the double-digit rounds to have a stranglehold on Seattle’s No. 1 RB. Same with Bucky Irving in round two, followed by Rachaad White. You don’t sacrifice much for the insurance policy.

And the same can be said for wide receiver/tight end stacking. Because once one player goes down, you know the opportunity will be there for another pass-catcher in the offense to step up. I mentioned this when referencing the veteran/rookie wide receiver draft strategy. The key here is to identify which WR/TEs will actually produce if they are presented with an opportunity. RB production is driven by volume, so even subpar RBs can produce. WR/TE have to be talented to an extent, or it’s a bad bet.

If the wide receiver/tight end starter stays healthy all year long and the rookie never sees the field? Well, I got a starter that produced all year long. I think the less you try to be 100% perfect with every single draft pick you make in pursuit of absurd levels of upside, the better off you will be.

Some might cite this as playing scared, but I think it’s playing smart. The best ability is availability. And you’ll never go broke making a profit. If the opportunity arises in a draft to hedge (cost being appropriate), you should take it.

 

Top Double-Digit Round Targets (Fine to Reach)

Round 11 Targets

Round 12 Targets

Round 13 Targets

Round 14 Targets

Round 15 Targets

Round 16 Targets

Final Round Targets (Outside of the top 200)

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