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John's QB fantasy football rankings for best ball drafts for 2025. His top 10 best ball fantasy football rankings for quarterbacks along with sleeper picks.
Best ball is a fantasy football format in which you draft a full roster of players, and each week, only the players with the most points scored are included in your team's scores. You don't have to worry about who you start and who you bench, as your lineup will automatically be optimized.
Of course, this leads to a completely different draft strategy becoming the optimal way for you to draft your team. Rather than worrying about how consistent your players are and being afraid of the odd low-point performance cratering your week, you're instead worried solely about upside.
And the quarterback position is the highest-scoring of all in the NFL on average. The way scoring rules work, they're consistently able to put up huge fantasy point totals in comparison to their running back, tight end, and wide receiver counterparts. So, let's dive into quarterback best ball rankings and analyze each spot ahead of the 2025 NFL season.
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10. Justin Fields, New York Jets
There's not a planet in which you could persuade me to let my team's hopes and dreams ride on the shoulders of Justin Fields. He's just too poor a passer, and is on a poverty franchise, the New York Jets. I'm not willing to risk it. You can't deny his rushing upside, though.
More on Justin Fields…
TD run vs. GB (designed carry).
Have to make the unblocked defender miss here (slot blitz). And then we see how quickly he can accelerate/get to top-speed. #Bears pic.twitter.com/vgXaaD6V2v
— Matt Bowen (@MattBowen41) December 6, 2022
The Jets' new offensive coordinator, Tanner Engstrand, is another enigma that's hard to unwrap. It's not easy to figure out what his offense will look like in 2025. There's a lot of upside, but a ton of risk with this pick. The chance that the offense will be awful is too high for my comfort.
9. Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers
You should just throw out 2024 in your evaluations of Purdy. That season saw some of the team's key offensive players, Christian McCaffrey and Brandon Aiyuk, sidelined with injuries that caused them to miss most of the year. In addition, the offensive line played poorly, partly due to, you guessed it, more injuries.
Every Brock Purdy pass attempt of 15+ air yards when not facing pressure: pic.twitter.com/8NIn2boB0Z
— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) October 2, 2024
Purdy operates in an elite offensive system with elite weapons. He'll have second-year WR Ricky Pearsall to help out as well. He should be fine and should pay off at this ADP easily if the team has better injury luck in 2025.
8. Bo Nix, Denver Broncos
Nix's rushing upside and effectiveness as a passer make him a solid player to choose as the ninth quarterback in best ball drafts. He has one of the best pass-blocking offensive lines in the NFL, and a solid WR1 in Courtland Sutton. The addition of tight end Evan Engram, primarily a pass-catching TE, helps as well.
RJ Harvey to the MOOON 🚀 🚀 pic.twitter.com/V1Sc1hiMQI
— Fantasy Footballers (@TheFFBallers) April 30, 2025
The addition of running back RJ Harvey, whom I have repeatedly called an elite RB prospect, in the 2025 NFL Draft only serves to bolster Nix's game. He had no support from the run in 2024. That will change.
7. Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs
Tight end Travis Kelce's massive regression, from the clear best tight end in the league in 2022 to Pro Football Focus' worst-graded receiver (WR or TE) in 2024, has directly followed Mahomes' regression as a passer. We don't see him putting up elite numbers anymore.
Patrick Mahomes was awful in the Super Bowl
Most of the Eagles' pressure was his own fault, he didn't notice open receivers, and his accuracy was terrible. pic.twitter.com/TREGaGvpjq— Joe (@JoeA_NFL) February 10, 2025
An elite, elite TE makes a quarterback look much, much better. We saw the same thing happen with Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski -- the stats were noticeably different. Another year of Xavier Worthy's development and a healthy Rashee Rice could help Mahomes rebound a bit, though. We'll see, but he's a fine QB7 here.
6. Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
A few things are working against Mayfield here. Notably, one of the best offensive coordinators in the league, Liam Coen, who was the Bucs OC in 2024, left to be the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2025. In addition, his WR1, Mike Evans, will turn 32 years old ahead of the 2025 season, and his WR2, Chris Godwin, is recovering from a nasty broken ankle.
Chris Godwin just broke his ankle down 10 with 40 seconds left .. why are the starters even in the game pic.twitter.com/BgpsJ0YpoE
— John (@iam_johnw) October 22, 2024
I'm not sure Mayfield is the best player to draft as the sixth quarterback taken. His wide receiver corps likely won't be as good in 2025, and with his former OC gone, we could see a worse iteration of this team's passing offense coming up.
5. Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles
Hurts is an interesting case. The majority of his value is tied to the tush push, and while it doesn't look like that play will get banned before the 2025 NFL season, his 14 rushing touchdowns last season, most of which were on tush push plays, accounted for 26 percent of his fantasy production in 2024.
Looks like NFL Owners will be meeting to vote again on wether or not the league should ban the Tush Push.
The rule change would need 24/32 votes to pass, and the Tush Push ban was tabled last month with 16 NFL teams in favor of banning it.
Do we think it gets banned this… pic.twitter.com/kDMIkAXb4f
— Jay 🦅💚 (JST) (@EaglesBurna) May 5, 2025
He squats 600 pounds and has an elite offensive line and elite OL coach, so his value here is safe as long as that play doesn't get banned. The moment it does, though, we could see him reasonably fall a few spots on this list.
4. Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals
Burrow's 2024 finish as the QB3 was closer to what we expect for him. After an injury-riddled 2023, he remained healthy and started all 17 games last season. Burrow is arguably the best QB in terms of fantasy passing upside in the league, and with his duo of elite wide receivers, Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, that might not be changing anytime soon.
Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson combined for 17 passing TDs in their two matchups in 2024 😮
What do they have in store for 2025?
📺: NFL Schedule Release — 5/14 8pm ET on NFLN/ESPN2
📱: Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/mKr2o3NfvR— NFL (@NFL) May 5, 2025
His production was also driven by the Bengals having one of the league's worst defenses. They drafted a lot of help for that position last season, but they'll likely still be forced into plenty of shootouts this season. Burrow's upside is still huge, and he could throw another 40 touchdowns this season. He's worth picking here.
3. Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders
Daniels, a soon-to-be second-year pro, is perhaps the league's third-best rushing quarterback, though a few other guys give him a run for his money. Daniels' spectacular rookie season is something that could be built on, as the team acquired WR Deebo Samuel Sr. from the San Francisco 49ers via trade this offseason.
The biggest issue the offense had last season was a lack of a legitimate WR2 to give Daniels an extra target and to draw attention away from WR Terry McLaurin. TE Zach Ertz was not sufficient for that de facto role. And the Commanders also signed an elite left tackle, Laremy Tunsil, to protect Daniels' blind side. The OL was the second-biggest issue with the offense last year.
SUPERSTAR: #COMMANDERS ROOKIE QB JAYDEN DANIELS TOP-5 PLAYS OF THE YEAR.
1) Jayden’s magical play
2) Hail Maryland
3) One of the most perfectly placed balls you will see
4) Insane throw while on the run
5) Clutch PlayHELL OF A 1ST YEAR.
pic.twitter.com/3ABOmEQOjZ— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) May 8, 2025
Daniels is now in an even better situation than he was last season. I'm not a huge fan of Washington's overall lack of WR depth, though. It didn't fully address the issue, and should have drafted a WR at some point earlier than it did in the 2025 NFL Draft. Still, long-term, Daniels' talent is tantalizing.
Perhaps it thinks WR Jaylin Lane, selected in the fourth round of this year's draft, can be an acceptable WR3. There's a pretty big range of outcomes for this team's pass-catching group as a whole, and that's important for Daniels' production. Drafting him carries more risk than drafting Jackson or Allen (obviously).
2. Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens
Though injuries have impacted Jackson more in his career than they have with Allen, he and his Buffalo Bills counterpart have earned their spots as the top-2 QBs in fantasy football heading into 2025. Jackson also has elite rushing ability for a QB and has been hyper-productive as a passer.
Lamar Jackson's 2025:
#1 in EPA/att...
...throwing outside the numbers
...throwing when outside the pocket
...early downs without play action
...throwing when kept clean
...vs all zone coverage
...vs 2-high
...in the 4th quarter
...when passing within 2.5 seconds
...inside the… pic.twitter.com/lxZexr2D5t— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) May 4, 2025
It's not the most reported-on aspect of quarterbacking, but it's highly relevant, and it's that defenses that have to respect the elite rushing game of the opposing quarterback are forced to play closer to the line of scrimmage. This opens up big holes in the defense for the opposing team's receivers to get separation on.
As a result, we often see on film a great number of plays where Ravens receivers are running wide, wide open, and Jackson is easily completing passes for big plays. The addition of running back Derrick Henry stresses defenses even more.
They're forced to play closer to the line of scrimmage (the linebackers are) to try to slow down the best QB/RB rushing combo in the league. That hasn't worked out super well for them. Henry is there to stay, so Jackson as a top-2 QB makes perfect sense.
1. Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills
It shouldn't be a surprise that Allen occupies at least one of the top two spots here. He's a dual-threat monster for fantasy football, as his ridiculous arm strength allows him to make all manner of throws, and his 6-foot-5, 237-pound frame and great athleticism allow him to be a force in the run game.
Throwback to Josh Allen’s 4 touchdown 466 total yards game vs the Steelers #BillsMafia pic.twitter.com/ooj0qkgeEg
— SleeperBills (@SleeperBills) May 5, 2025
Inside the past five seasons, Allen has finished as the QB1 three times and the QB2 twice in four-point passing touchdown formats, so his spot at the top isn't much of a surprise. He should probably finish as the best or second-best quarterback in fantasy football this season as well, and he's likely a lock for a top-5 position, barring an unexpected injury.
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