Big Blue View
A look at the players with the widest ranges of outcomes
The Fourth of July holiday weekend has come and gone, and I hope yours was fun. I spent part of mine putting together my first set of Fantasy Redraft Rankings and Tiers for 2025. Priorities! It’s fun taking that first pass each summer, and I’ll be sharing rankings for each of the major fantasy positions in the coming weeks.
Every year, there are players who give me fits. I struggle to settle on a reasonable draft ranking for certain guys because of the wide range of their possible season-long outcomes. If any of these players really hits, and ends up performing at or near his ceiling, he could be a great value who solidifies your team. On the opposite end, since lots of them are early- to mid- round players, gambling a valuable pick on one or more of them could kneecap your squad if things go south.
The reasons for the wide range of outcomes vary from player to player, and as training camp and the preseason unfold, the analysis should get easier. But for now, these are the players that have me scratching my head. If you have a player to add, feel free to mention him in the comments.
You can access all of my preseason fantasy football content here. Recent articles include the biggest fantasy question for each NFL team, random thoughts, and more.
Note 1 - There are players whose early-season availability is in question, which makes them hard to rank. For example, Christian Watson, Anthony Richardson, and Stefon Diggs. We’ll learn more about them as training camp and the preseason unfold. Thankfully, the number of players that fall into this category is very small this season. Richardson is particularly hard to rank because we don’t know if he’ll win the Colts’ starting job, or keep it. At the same time, his rushing upside is tantalizing.
Note 2 – Any fantasy stats or rankings shown are for Half Point PPR, are on a fantasy points per game (FPPG) basis, and don’t include the final week of the season. Expert Consensus Rankings (ECR) are current and are also Half Point PPR.
Quarterback
I already mentioned Richardson. Here are a few more QBs that I had trouble ranking:
Patrick Mahomes (ECR: QB6).
I wrote this about Mahomes in my AFC Questions column: “From a fantasy standpoint, something has changed. In his first five seasons as KC’s starter (2018-2022), Mahomes was the QB1 twice, never finished outside the Top-5 quaterbacks, and never averaged less than 21 FPPG per game. In each of the last two seasons, Mahomes was “only” a borderline Top-10 quarterback who averaged 18.3 and 18.4 FPPG.”
Mahomes appears to have entered a phase of his career where he’s still the best QB in the NFL, but no longer elite for fantasy purposes. His ECR represents the midpoint of his likely range of finishes (QB1 to QB12). The Andy Reid offense is still there, and...
