In most worlds, after the first three picks, Ja’Marr Chase and some combination of either Justin Jefferson, CeeDee Lamb, Saquon Barkley, and Bijan Robinson are all off the board.
That high-floor, high-ceiling safety net is still there to catch managers drafting in the first half. This allows managers to be more aggressive while chasing upside.
In this particular draft, I favored starting the draft with RB and seeing where the wind took me.
That’s the theme for drafting from 1.04 to 1.09 in drafts: flexibility. There’s no quick turnaround that managers can fall back on to leverage values and easily project which players fall to them.
Draft settings: 0.5 PPR, 12-team, 1 QB, 2 WR, 2 RB, 2 FLEX, 1 TE, 1 Kicker, 1 Defense
EARLY ROUNDS: HIGH T, ALL IN ON PPR UPSIDE AT THE RB POSITION
- Jahmyr Gibbs
- Christian McCaffrey
- Chase Brown
- Joe Burrow
- Courtland Sutton
The 1.04, with its pristine options at the RB and WR positions, offered a unique chance to see how effective an almost archaic strategy would play out.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t consider drafting Gibbs ahead of Bijan. But there is a conversation to be had. Gibbs has arguably as high a ceiling as CMC in 2025.
While admittedly a small sample size, Gibbs flashed gave fantasy managers a taste of what life could be like without David Montgomery vulturing opportunities.
Across three games, Gibbs paced for a ridiculous 517 0.5 PPR points on the back of 74 receptions while rushing for nearly 122 yards per game. Oh, and did I mention he was pacing for an absurd 34 total TDs?
The only other RB to put up numbers quite that outlandish? Bo Jackson on Tecmo Bowl. So why would I not ordinarily draft Gibbs with this in mind?
Well, notice on the graphic above that Montgomery is also in the top five in fantasy points per touch. The mastermind of that magic is now the head honcho for the Chicago Bears. How much will the offense be affected by the departure of Ben Johnson and the shake-up on the offensive line? The talent and production of Gibbs cannot be denied, but the TD equity remains very much in question.
Starting with Gibbs also presented me with an opportunity to chase ridiculous PPR upside at the RB position while securing the most dominant backfield in the league.
Once AJ Brown and Ladd McConkey were off the board, the RBs available were too juicy to pass up. Especially with the ridiculous ceiling CMC offers.
Adding in Chase Brown ahead of the start of the “WR dead zone” just made my backfield a PPR wagon.
Despite painting myself into a bit of a corner with the WR position by taking three RBs in the first three rounds, there was still plenty of upside and volume to exploit.
I found myself not overly excited to draft Zay Flowers as my WR1, and Rashee Rice was obviously not a viable option. So I took the quarterback expected to lead the league in pass attempts while having a TD rate no lower than 5.8% in three of the last four seasons. Joe Schiesty provided me with an alpha QB tied to a high-octane offense and an interesting stack with Brown.
Adding Sutton, who has scored 18 TDs across two seasons with Sean Payton, made too much sense in round five. Suddenly, after taking a risky start to the draft, I found myself feeling immensely confident after five rounds.
ROUNDS 6-10: PROJECTING BREAKOUTS WITH PPR UPSIDE
- Jameson Williams
- TreVeyon Henderson
- David Njoku
- Jayden Reed
- Zach Charbonnet
One of the most exciting and most dangerous players to draft in fantasy this year is Jamo.
Talk about lightning in a bottle, Williams has been inconsistently electric in the early part of his career. Just last year, Williams never saw more than eight targets after week two and didn’t catch more than five passes even once. Calculated upside.
Still, camp reports are raving about his growth and production at training camp.
“Get y’all popcorn ready for Jamo, man,” safety Brian Branch said.
“Growth. Growth and development. You know he’s going on year four and what you see is a much more polished player, man. A much more mature player,” said head coach Dan Campbell.
Campbell continued to praise Williams’ route development and noted how he’s leading the young guys now.
Offensive coordinator John Morton echoed Campbell’s sentiments.
“He’s gotten better every year, he’s matured. It’s tough for a young receiver to come in this league, because they don’t run a lot of different routes in college,” Morton said. “And now he’s progressed through, and I want to take that skillset, and now isolate him. I think he’s been phenomenal.”
With Sutton being Denver’s unquestioned alpha in 2025 and providing a safe floor, taking a shot on a potential week winner in the sixth round as my WR2 made too much sense.
Rounding out my second flex spot is the potential PPR machine from Ohio State.
Henderson has excelled as a pass protector this offseason, carving himself out a clear pathway to substantial snaps.
From 2016 to 2021, while serving as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator, Josh McDaniels‘ RBs were targeted an average of 135.7 times per season.
That trend dipped slightly as the HC of the Raiders, but his backfields still saw 105 RB targets in 2023. McDaniels has a long history of featuring his RBs as extensions of the passing game, and a versatile weapon like Henderson drips league-winning upside.
Meanwhile, having a potential alpha TE like Njoku being available in the 7th round is like printing money.
Across his final eight games in 2024, Njoku finished as a TE1 in six of those games, never scoring fewer than 10.6 0.5 PPR points. During that same stretch, Njoku was the very definition of a league winner.
That 12.8 ppg pace would have had Njoku finish as the TE2 overall, just behind George Kittle and ahead of Brock Bowers.
Landing the best WR in Green Bay in round nine and a high-upside cuff in round 10 is called good fantasy roster construction.
After week four, the offensive philosophy changed and was funneled through Josh Jacobs. Drafting a first-round WR in Matthew Golden suggests the Packers (30th in pass attempts) will likely air it out more.
LATE ROUNDS: CALCULATED DART THROWS
- Emeka Egbuka
- Marvin Mims
- Jerome Ford
- Rashod Bateman
- Ray Davis
The philosophy to end drafts is simple. Target players that can win leagues late in the season or take a big step forward and break out.
Egbuka, Mims, and Bateman all have clear paths to production ahead of them, with the latter two having already established big-play ability in their careers.
Meanwhile, Ford could be the steal of the draft if ambiguity surrounding the status of Quinshon Judkins continues to swirl over draft boards.
Davis, meanwhile, is a high-value handcuff to James Cook, who only played 47.6% of the offensive snaps last season and scored nearly 8 TDs over expectation. Should Cook miss time, or should Davis, who put up over 600 YFS on only 24.3% of the snaps, force more of a committee, this last round dart throw could provide a valuable bye-week flex spot filler.
