Fantasy football tends to be a forward-looking pastime, with good reason. Hindsight is 20/20, and knowing what already happened doesn’t win championships. Sometimes, though, looking back at past results can be a helpful exercise. With that in mind, this article will go back in time and make the perfect 2025 fantasy football draft against real ADP.
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We know every sleeper that hit, every unfortunate bust, and everything in between, so we should be able to create an absolutely godly squad … right? Let’s find out together with a trip back in time to hopefully outsmart ourselves and 2025’s fantasy football ADP.
This will be a 12-team, 16-round draft for a half-PPR format with standard roster settings (1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 FLEX, 1 DST, 1 K). And I’ll draft from the seventh slot, as close to an “average” draft position as we can get. Without further ado, let’s get started.
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The Perfect 2025 Fantasy Football Draft
Round 1: Christian McCaffrey (RB — SF) | ADP: 7.3
We start off the draft with an easy pick. CMC had an absolutely dominant season, finishing as easily the RB1 and FLEX1 in half-PPR formats. If we look at the fantasy-relevant weeks (1-17), he finished outside the top 20 weekly RBs just once. He finished inside the top five in over half of his games, a whopping eight times.
I could keep listing eye-popping stats about McCaffrey’s dominant season, but I’m sure you already know just how good he was. As far as takeaways, perhaps the lesson here is not to fade historically dominant fantasy players over injury concerns when they are currently healthy (as McCaffrey was coming into this season). In general, injuries are never as predictable as we sometimes like to think they are.
Round 2: Trey McBride (TE — ARI) | ADP: 27.7
This is actually our first tough decision of the draft. With the hypothetical 2.06, Jonathan Taylor is just barely still on the board with a 17.7 ADP. He was the second-highest scoring FLEX player in half-PPR formats this season, behind only McCaffrey. There’s a very real argument that he is the right pick here.
But this is our last chance to draft McBride, and I don’t think you can make a perfect 2025 fantasy football team without the Cardinals’ superstar tight end. McBride absolutely lapped the field at TE, scoring nearly 100 more half-PPR points than the next best player. In my eyes, that makes him a must-draft, so he is the pick here.
With that said, I don’t have any massive takeaways here — McBride was considered an elite fantasy TE coming into the year, and he put up an elite season. Obviously, he should’ve been drafted higher in hindsight, but this isn’t some huge miss by the community as a whole.
Round 3: Jaxon Smith-Njigba (WR — SEA) | ADP: 33.0
Unfortunately, we can’t get the WR1 to go with our RB1 and TE1, as Puka Nacua was a borderline first-rounder in ADP. However, Nacua wasn’t the only young NFC West receiver to post a historic season in 2025. JSN wasn’t far behind him, racking up over 300 half-PPR points in an absolutely dominant performance.
Seattle’s entire offense flowed through Smith-Njigba, as he led the league in both target share (33%) and air yards share (49%). That offense was also more effective overall than many anticipated, as both OC Klint Kubiak and QB Sam Darnold hit the ground running. Correctly predicting a breakout offense is one of the best ways to find huge fantasy football values, especially if you have a talented player with very little competition ready to take advantage.
Round 4: Davante Adams (WR — LAR) | ADP: 44.0
Despite being 32 years old before the season even kicked off, Adams provided a vintage season, finishing as the WR7 in half-PPR points. However, he did it in an unconventional way. With the aforementioned Nacua absolutely vacuuming up targets in the Rams’ offense, the veteran wideout wasn’t a volume hog. He ranked just 19th in targets, 29th in receptions, and 28th in receiving yards.
Instead, Adams made his fantasy money in touchdowns; his 14 receiving TDs easily led the league. He racked up a whopping 27 end zone targets during the regular season, nine more than the next player and 13 more than the player in third (both of whom are coming up in this article, by the way). Of those 27 end zone looks, 22 came when the Rams were inside the 10-yard line, as Adams was essentially the goal-line back for an elite offense despite being a wide receiver.
Unfortunately, the unique nature of Adams’ profile this year makes it hard to have any broader takeaways. Maybe we should’ve been higher on the idea of a still-elite Adams paired with two more excellent NFL veterans in Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford. But no one without inside knowledge of the Rams’ play-calling plans could have predicted this absurd goal-line usage — these unpredictable quirks of the season are what make fantasy football so fun.
Round 5: George Pickens (WR — DAL) | ADP: 58.7
We follow Adams up with another NFL WR2 who produced like a fantasy WR1. Pickens was elite in his first season in Dallas, finishing as the WR5 in both total points and points per game. In hindsight, this fifth-round ADP looks like an obvious mistake.
Pickens had always been talented, and the move to Dallas landed him both by far the best QB of his career and by far the best overall offensive environment of his career. Yes, he had to compete with CeeDee Lamb, but Dallas’ offense was high-volume enough to more than make up for any dip in Pickens’ target share. Fantasy managers should have leaned more into the potential variance of what was clearly a high-upside situation.
Round 6: Chris Olave (WR — NO) | ADP: 76.0
Once again, we have a young, talented wideout who exploded as his situation changed for the better. Kellen Moore revitalized the Saints’ offense with an aggressive, fast-paced approach. Olave — who has always looked elite in predictive metrics like yards per route run — took advantage en route to a WR6 overall finish.
Of course, there were reasons that Olave’s ADP was this low. But only some of them were good ones. Tyler Shough ended up being competent enough, but the 26-year-old second-round rookie was by no means a guarantee — bad QB play is a fair reason to fade any receiver. But, although it’s a distant memory now, some of Olave’s low ADP was also driven by fear over his concussion history. Like with McCaffrey, fantasy managers were overconfident in their ability to predict future injuries for a then-healthy player, and he became one of the draft’s biggest values as a result.
Round 7: Travis Etienne Jr. (RB — JAC) | ADP: 92.3
You may be wondering why, in this “perfect” draft, I went five straight rounds without making a pick at what is probably fantasy football’s most important position. The issue is that the fantasy community was actually remarkably successful in predicting the elite fantasy running backs in 2025. By the time we were up in Round 3, the top nine RBs in 2025 half-PPR points were off the board, as they all had ADPs inside the top 28 overall picks.
With that in mind, we might as well wait until here, as Etienne finished the year as the RB10 in total points. He racked up 13 total touchdowns and nearly 1,400 scrimmage yards as the bell cow in Liam Coen’s offense.
There are all sorts of lessons in this one. We once again have the idea of hitting on a breakout offense, as Coen’s presence made multiple Jaguars huge hits at their preseason ADPs (just not Brian Thomas Jr. or Travis Hunter).
This is also a win for one excellent fantasy draft strategy, which is taking shots on ambiguous backfields. Coming into the year, nobody was sure how the Jaguars’ backfield would be divided between Etienne, Tank Bigsby, and Bhayshul Tuten. But they were all cheap, and one of them was very likely to be a huge hit. In this universe, that guy was Etienne, but taking shots on all three (especially if you drafted lots of teams) was likely a good process.
Finally, there’s a lesson in the fact that nine of the top 10 half-PPR running backs went in essentially the first two rounds of drafts by ADP. That’s a bit of an outlier result, but it’s indicative of a wider trend: More than any other position, RB scoring is driven by volume. And it’s usually fairly predictable who will be the guys that see that truly elite volume. If you want an elite fantasy RB, you’ll probably have to pay up.
Round 8: Javonte Williams (RB — DAL) | ADP: 112.7
What’s this? Another win for an unexciting veteran back in an ambiguous backfield on an elite offense? To his credit, Javonte wasn’t just a situation merchant. He actually also rebounded from an efficiency standpoint this season, making him a very interesting free agent at just 25 years old. He combined that efficiency with an elite workload in an otherwise talent-starved Dallas backfield to finish just behind Etienne as the RB11 in total half-PPR points.
As I already hinted, the real lesson here is once again to take shots at ambiguous backfields. Williams won the job and made the most of it, but I don’t think drafters who selected either rookie Jaydon Blue or former Eagle Miles Sanders in hopes they could be the guy for an excellent Dallas offense were barking up the wrong tree.
Round 9: Drake Maye (QB — NE) | ADP: 119.7
We unfortunately aren’t able to get the QB1 in this draft, as Josh Allen had a second-round ADP. But we get a pretty solid consolation prize, as Maye finished as the QB2 with just 15 fewer points than Allen (to be fair, that’s including Allen’s single-snap Week 18 zero). It’s looking like he’ll lose out on the MVP to Matthew Stafford, but Maye’s second season was still undeniably excellent.
Takeaway-wise, the obvious thing to note is that Maye is a dual-threat QB. But he didn’t actually do that much damage with his legs, averaging just 26.5 rushing yards per game and totalling only four TDs on the ground. That’s not nothing, but it’s not enough to single-handedly make Maye an elite fantasy QB.
Instead, this excellent fantasy season was mostly down to Maye himself being a straight-up baller through the air. Unfortunately, predicting which young NFL QBs are going to take the next step to MVP-level production is a tricky game. Maye’s rookie year did have tons of flashes of elite potential … but we could have said the same about C.J. Stroud after his debut season, and we all know how that turned out. Betting on up-and-coming mobile QBs is a good general strategy, but they won’t all turn out this good.
Round 10: Kyle Pitts Sr. (TE — ATL) | ADP: 135.3
This team hardly needs a second TE with how dominant McBride was, but we’ve officially filled our entire starting lineup (minus kicker and defense). And Pitts was the TE2 overall, so it makes perfect sense to have him be the TE2 on this roster.
With that said, as far as TE2 overall seasons go, Pitts’ 2025 wasn’t anything special. Quite the opposite, in fact, as he was the lowest-scoring TE2 since at least 2013. Still, it was an undeniably good season from the former fourth-overall pick.
The lesson here might be to be more patient with young tight ends than with other positions. Pitts entered this season at just 24 years old. Previous elite fantasy tight ends George Kittle, Darren Waller, and Travis Kelce (an admittedly cherry-picked group) had just 184 career receiving yards combined before turning 24.
Round 11: Rico Dowdle (RB — CAR) | ADP: 169.7
This is kind of a weird one. Rico Dowdle started the season slowly, as the clear backup behind Chuba Hubbard in the Panthers’ backfield. And he ended it slowly, too, with an uninspiring 7.7 half-PPR points per game from Week 12 onward. But in the middle, he was very productive, including a few absolutely massive games. Those huge outings helped carry him to an RB17 overall finish, the best of any late-round RB.
However, the weird nature of Dowdle’s production makes it hard to draw any meaningful takeaway from this pick. His situation was bad, and — outside of a few absurd games — he wasn’t a difference-making talent, either. Dowdle deserves this spot in the perfect draft, but I wouldn’t go trying to draft the “next Rico Dowdle” in 2026.
Round 12: Matthew Stafford (QB — LAR) | ADP: 175.3
We need a backup QB, and who better than the likely 2025 NFL MVP? In fact, Stafford is incredibly close to being this team’s QB1, as he finished as the QB3 overall with just 0.6 fewer points than Maye for the whole season.
Stafford led the league in passing yards, but his fantasy production was heavily boosted by the same goal-line TDs as Adams — he had just 150 more passing yards than Jared Goff, who finished as the QB8 with less than 18 fantasy points per game. Stafford’s league-leading 46 TDs on a 7.7% TD rate were key to his fantasy production.
With that in mind, the lesson here is that fantasy production for non-mobile QBs is heavily dependent on TDs, which are in turn usually variable from season to season. This is why it’s usually a bad idea to draft expensive pocket passers coming off seasons with high TD rates. But it is a good idea to take a shot on one or two cheaper pocket passers, especially those with proven talent and/or elite weapons — you might just stumble across the QB3 overall outside the top 175 picks.
Round 13: Seattle Seahawks DST | ADP: 226.3
In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve been reaching multiple rounds on players since Dowdle back in Round 11. This is a reach of nearly 100 picks, but the Seahawks technically have the next-highest ADP of the players I want to finish this perfect draft with, so they get the nod in Round 13. Seattle’s defense finished as the most productive fantasy unit in the league, as Mike Macdonald’s scheme paired with some breakout performances to produce an absolutely dominant unit.
The lesson here is not to draft a defense early. Seattle’s ADP was just DST14, meaning they went undrafted in most leagues. This is just one example in the long, long history of this position being entirely unpredictable at draft time — you’re better off just streaming the position. You might just stumble into an elite unit, like this one.
Round 14: Kenneth Gainwell (RB — PIT) | ADP: 254.0
He’ll probably never actually make the lineup for this behemoth of a squad, but I have to give a shoutout to Kenneth Gainwell’s finishing as a top-20 RB from an ADP outside the top 250. The former Eagle actually did most of his fantasy damage through the air, racking up targets as Aaron Rodgers‘ preferred underneath target.
Even with hindsight, I can’t say that this was a predictable outcome, so I’ve got no takeaway here. But Gainwell — what a great name for an NFL RB, by the way — lands on the perfect 2025 fantasy football team in Round 14.
Round 15: Michael Wilson (WR — ARI) | ADP: 268.0
Michael Wilson is one of the stories of the 2025 fantasy football season. The third-year WR was an afterthought heading into the year, just a route-eater beside Marvin Harrison Jr. in the Cardinals’ uninspiring offense. But, with help from some injuries to Harrison and Jacoby Brissett taking over as Arizona’s QB, Wilson absolutely dominated down the stretch. From Week 11 onward, he was the WR2 in half-PPR points, beating out even JSN to trail only Puka.
With that massive finish on his side, Wilson finished as the WR13 in points for the season. If we filter to only games missed by MHJ, he averaged a truly bonkers 20.7 half-PPR points per game. This production is so surprising that it’s impossible to know what to make of Wilson heading into next season; there’s certainly no way we could have predicted this heading into the year. But with time-travel on our side, we finish things off with one last perfect pick.
Round 16: Jason Myers (K — SEA) | ADP: N/A
That is, one last perfect pick before our kicker. Like his team’s defense, Myers came from nowhere to lead his position in fantasy scoring, being the only kicker to break 200 points on the year. And, like at defense, the lesson here is not to spend up on kickers at draft day. Myers’ ADP was so low that it literally doesn’t register.
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Ted Chmyz is a fantasy football contributor for FantasyPros.com. Find him on Twitter and Bluesky @Tchmyz for more fantasy content or to ask questions.
