Fantasy football season is upon us, and while I don’t label myself an expert in the field, this has become an annual tradition to lay out some of my favorite picks for where they’re going in drafts. And they’ve worked out pretty damn well for me over the years!
As this year’s official NFL top 100 countdown is nearing a close – even though the network pushed back its release by nearly a month – I’m once again presenting my personal version as an alternative. Any content in this format has a certain level of subjectivity, but I believe in my process of putting the list together more so than how the top 20 lists for all the players polled are merged together.
Just as a reminder of what the criteria is supposed to be – a ranking of the best 100 players heading into 2025, regardless of position. Obviously, it’s challenging to not weigh the value of quarterbacks or adequately compare names with very different jobs/roles. However, the aim here to me always is to find the right balance between what someone provides for their specific team and also project how they would fare on a theoretical average franchise, without a defined scheme.
My one quick disclaimer here is that I didn’t include any players coming off long-term injuries, are dealing with pending suspensions or other factors that’ll affect their performance this upcoming season in significant fashion. That’s why the following names weren’t eligible – Christian McCaffrey, Tyreek Hill, Andrew Thomas, Sam Cosmi, Aidan Hutchinson, Alim McNeill, Christian Wilkins and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah.
This is what I ended up with:
With how intent the NFL is on keeping an even playing field, we see a couple of teams turn things around every year. I ranked the eight teams who just finished last inside their division by how most likely to improve to number one!
The following conversation goes against what the NFL’s shield is trying to sell the public at the start of every single season – the idea of all 32 teams having a chance to hoist the Lombardi Trophy at the end of it. As much as I love how they strive for parity, conceiving anything but achieving the ultimate goal as a failure would always leave all but one fan base dissatisfied. Generally, I sway away from asking questions like the one in the title, but due to several factors, I thought laying out which factors we should pay attention to and what constitutes a “successful campaign” was particularly interesting this year.
I’m fully aware that this by no means is an innovative concept, but looking back at this past season, I thought the gap between “the rich and the poor” was as large as ever once we got to around Thanksgiving. So I do believe it’s important to offer a frame of context for how we should probably view what these franchises are about to put onto the field once we kick things off. For some teams, simply measuring it by where the journey ends for them in 2025 is fair, yet for others, showing growth in certain areas may be even more crucial for their future outlook.
We’ll go through them all by division here!
After a lackluster rookie season as the number one overall pick, Bryce Young seemed to completely disintegrate in the first two starts of 2024. Yet, when he returned to the lineup after getting benched, he looked like a completely different player and brought some hope back for Carolina. Let’s dive into how he resurrected his young career!
We’re back for the second half of yet another two-part series, only this time in written form, as we switch sides of the ball and talk about some of my favorite second- and third-year defenders, who I expect to take the next step. Just like we did in the offensive edition last week, we’ll discuss seven players today.
Once again, to identify what would qualify a “breakout” or rather players excluded in this discussion, I’m largely relying on statistical measurements that they haven’t reached yet – no front-seven defenders who recorded double-digit sacks or tackles for loss, players who intercepted 4+ passes, earned a Pro Bowl/All-Pro nominations or are just generally considered one of the better performers at their respective positions. I also generally stay away from players who have barely seen action in the pros yet. That makes names like Cardinals defensive lineman Darius Robinson and Eagles cornerback Kelee Ringo, for example.
Daiyan Henley emerged as one of the best linebackers in all of football after making the list a year ago, but I’m still waiting on names like B.J. Ojulari and JuJu Brents to stay healthy and show if they can justify me putting them up there in the most recent version of this. Let’s get into these next few names for 2025:
These last two months have been loaded with video content, discussing basically every single offseason move made by all 32 teams and, most recently, going through one burning question for each of them. So now it’s time for one of my favorite projects in written form every year – breakout candidates. Split up into offense and then defense next week, we’re looking at seven players on each side of the ball, coming off their rookie or second season, who I project to make a leap in 2026.
Since it’s tough to set the guidelines for what would qualify a “breakout” for the purposes of this exercise, I’m relying mostly on statistical metrics that the players in question haven’t reached yet – no 1000-yard rushers or receivers, players that have scored double-digit touchdowns, earned a Pro Bowl/All-Pro nominations or are just generally considered one of the better performers at their respective positions already. I also generally stay away from players who have barely seen action in the pros yet. That makes names like Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy and Steelers offensive tackle Troy Fautanu ineligible, for example.
Chase Brown, Khalil Shakir and Cam Jurgens all delivered on the lofty expectations I set for them last July, while Anthony Richardson is someone I’m still rooting for to reach his sky-high potential. Here’s this year’s list:
In the second half of this little mini series, we’re discussing what I believe are the biggest questions for all 16 AFC teams projecting forward to the 2025 NFL season!
Following my extensive divisional draft & roster review series, we’re once again running through all 32 NFL teams, only now we’re examining what I believe are the most pivotal questions projecting forward to the 2025 season!
We officially put a close to our coverage of the talent acquisition period of the calendar, as we’ve extensively discussed everything heading into and coming out of the NFL Draft, before weaving it into the rest of the roster construction in our month-long video series, where I broke down every single move and its meaning one division at a time.
Now, it’s time to draw conclusions one more time through a league-wide lens and identify the position groups that were most improved through free agency, trades and the draft. This is based on what each roster looked in week 18, not taking injuries into account, whether they affected who was actually able to be on the field at that time or those who may linger into the season.
And one more disclaimer – I always look at this exercise in more of a holistic sense. One singular player may give an entire unit a very different feel, but I try to point out those groups that at least made multiple meaningful acquisitions.
Here’s what I came up with:
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