We’ve reached the most volatile time of the year for player movements. Doesn’t it feel great? Maybe not for some dynasty teams or your best ball portfolio, but in redraft, we can live with all these changes as players land on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list, decide to hold out or maybe take a trip to the Non-football injury list. Yes, training camps are getting underway and before long we’ll have real, actual NFL preseason games.
The fantasy football redraft season is truly upon us, and now is a good time to start preparing. What better way to prepare for your fantasy football draft than by completing FREE mocks with our fantasy football mock draft simulator?
This series will give you an overview of what you can expect to see no matter which first-round pick you draw. In what feels like a very strong first round in 2025, nailing your picks will be more important than ever.
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Fantasy Football Draft Strategy: Pick 1.08
Let’s dive into our approach for the fantasy football 1.08 pick for upcoming drafts. We look into the players likely to be available, those to target/avoid and a mock draft from the pick to help you prepare for your fantasy football draft.
Players to Consider at 1.08 Fantasy Football Draft Pick
Here are players likely to be available when you make your selection:
Players to Target at 1.08 Fantasy Football Draft Pick
Christian McCaffrey (RB – SF)
With every month, Christian McCaffrey seems to give drafters more confidence, and in return, they push his average draft position (ADP) further and further up draftboards. We’ve gone from seeing mid-second-round McCaffrey to now him leaping over Ashton Jeanty in ADP and biting at the heels of Jahmyr Gibbs.
It seems unlikely McCaffrey can top Gibbs, but seeing him ahead of Jeanty two months ago also would have been surprising. Risk tolerance plays a big part in whether you’ll be drafting McCaffrey in 2025, given he’s only played over 11 games once in the last four years. When he is on the field, though, he’s typically a league-winning type of back who brings elite volume and elite pass-catching skills.
According to reports, McCaffrey took part in everything at organized team activities (OTAs), including some drills most veterans sat out, indicating he’s over his Achilles issues he suffered through in 2024. If he is healthy, then it’s hard to fade an elite pass-catcher and game-breaking talent.
In 2023, when McCaffrey was last healthy, he ranked first in rushing yards (1,459), second in yards per carry (5.36), fourth in explosive run rate (7.4%) and first in missed tackles forced (63). With no Deebo Samuel and both Ricky Pearsall and Brandon Aiyuk landing on the PUP list, with the latter recovering from a multi-ligament knee injury, the stage is set for McCaffrey to prove he can be an elite running back once again.
Ashton Jeanty (RB – LV)
Whenever we draft rookie running backs this high, it’s worth remembering that since 1984, the only rookie to finish as the RB1 was Saquon Barkley in 2018, but it’s also worth considering that Ashton Jeanty belongs right in the same tier of prospect as Barkley when he entered the league.
Jeanty possesses rare qualities in his vision and pass-catching abilities, and with Geno Smith at quarterback, he’ll play with someone comfortable getting the ball to his best players. Jeanty averaged over six yards per carry in each of his last two seasons in college, and only caught fewer balls in his final season because he was routinely taking it to the house on his carries. The Raiders had no problem drafting Jeanty with the sixth overall pick, and it’s hard not to want to do so in fantasy drafts when he could be a lock for 300+ touches.
Malik Nabers (WR – NYG)
One of the true bright spots of 2024 fantasy football was Malik Nabers, who broke Puka Nacua‘s record for rookie receptions with 109. If it weren’t for Brock Bowers getting to 112, he might be talked up even further.
The argument against drafting Nabers last year was his poor quarterback situation, and while it isn’t exactly perfect this year, Nabers showed enough to assuage any doubts. Current reports suggest it’s a true battle between Russell Wilson and Jaxson Dart for the QB1 job, with Jameis Winston a distant third choice.
Any of those options could be better than last year’s quadrant of poor options. Among quarterbacks with 50+ dropbacks, Daniel Jones, Drew Lock, Tommy DeVito and Tim Boyle all ranked in the bottom 20% of yards per attempt (YPA), and only DeVito ranked above 40th in quarterback rating (33rd).
Wilson ranked 16th in quarterback rating and 18th in YPA, while the Giants believed in Dart enough to spend a first-round pick on him.
Nabers continues to have minimal competition around him, with Wan’Dale Robinson the most noteworthy. Nabers should be set for another top-10 positional finish, having finished as the fantasy WR6 in 2024. Over the coming weeks, we’ll start to have a much stronger idea of which quarterback will be passing the ball to Nabers, but either way, he remains a great choice.
Nico Collins (WR – HOU)
Since the start of the 2023 season, Nico Collins leads all wide receivers in yards per route run versus man coverage, and his journey from zero to hero has been truly impressive. There are still reasons to doubt his ability to crack the top of the wide receiver chart, but he’s an interesting upside swing at this point in the draft.
Collins is the clear alpha in an offense featuring two new rookie receivers, the often-injured Christian Kirk and Tank Dell, who potentially could miss the entire season. According to FantasyPoints.com, Collins is the only wide receiver to have ranked inside of the top 10 in yards per route run versus zone and man coverage in back-to-back years.
In Weeks 1-5 last season, Collins was the WR2 overall, averaging 21.6 points per game before missing time with a hamstring injury. The injury history might be enough to put some people off, but one thing we’ve learned in fantasy football is that you’re injury prone until you’re not, and that presents an opportunity. If Joe Mixon starts camp still dealing with injuries, Collins is more likely to rise in a significant way than Nick Chubb.
Players to Avoid at 1.08 Fantasy Football Draft Pick
Amon-Ra St. Brown (WR – DET)
One of the more divisive picks of the first round is Amon-Ra St. Brown, who some people view as potentially in trouble due to the emergence of Jameson Williams, as well as a healthy offseason for Sam LaPorta.
However, St. Brown has seen 140+ targets in each of the last three seasons, as well as seeing his touchdowns increase each year in the league to a career-high 12 in 2024. The next few weeks will be massive for St. Brown’s ADP, with reports suggesting he’ll be healthy in time for the season, after having offseason knee surgery to clean up an issue that had bothered him for a while.
In full PPR formats, St. Brown will be an easier click than in half-PPR leagues. Ultimately, how much should you worry about a receiver who has finished as the WR3 in total points for the last two seasons? That’s a fair question to ask, but until we see that he’s healthy, St. Brown will fall further down in the draft board round one.
Brock Bowers (TE – LV)
As we’ve already covered, Brock Bowers caught a record-breaking 112 receptions in 2024, a simply astounding accomplishment for a rookie tight end, but we still can’t get too carried away. Currently, Bowers tends to go a few picks later, around 1.12 or 2.01 typically, and tight end production can be so volatile that dragging him up to the 1.08 pick seems problematic unless your league has a large tight end-premium scoring setting.
A year ago, confidence in Sam LaPorta was sky-high, and we all know how that worked out. No position is as susceptible to the ups and downs of fantasy football quite like tight end, and while locking in Bowers might feel like a way to avoid that, it could be an incredibly costly mistake should he fail to gel in this new offense.
Derrick Henry (RB – BAL)
If you’re contemplating Derrick Henry here, it likely means there has been a mean run on running backs to start your draft. Henry is coming off 1,953 all-purpose yards and 16 touchdowns in 2024, but he is 31 and has the lowest target share of any back in the top two rounds (4.4%).
Henry is an excellent talent, but not a better choice than some of the wide receivers ahead of him in average draft position (ADP). Henry potentially could make it back to you in the middle of the second round, which is a far more palatable price.
Fantasy Football Mock Draft From the 1.08 Pick
We used our FREE fantasy football mock draft simulator to show you an example of a draft from the 1.08 position. You can sync your league for free and mock draft against your fantasy football league settings to prepare more specifically for your draft.
Here’s how our fantasy football mock draft from the 1.08 position turned out.
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