Fantasy Football Lessons - What I Got Right in 2025

February 11, 2026

Every fantasy football season brings plenty of hits and plenty of misses. Rob looks at his top picks and hits from a fantasy football expert accuracy perspective.

With the Super Bowl and the entire 2025 NFL season now in our rearview mirror, there is no better time to look back and see what I got right and what I got wrong. Last year, I wrote the weekly "Cut List" and "Weekly Waiver Wire" article for RotoBaller. I also wrote several offseason articles and wrote around 60 articles from March 2025 through January 2026 for this past season.

With that much content, there is no shortage of incorrect and bad takes, but the flip side is just as true. This will be a two-part series, so there will be no bypassing or ignoring the misses either. Unfortunately, however, when it comes to fantasy football and sports betting, there will be plenty of misses.

Through this, the goal isn't just to point out the rights and wrongs, but to determine whether there's anything we can learn and take with us into the 2026 season. Let's get to the hits.

Drake Maye

This one is a gimme, and it's one that so many fantasy football analysts got correct. Maye showed plenty of potential in 2024, especially with his legs, which made him an easy bet for 2025. He was cheap in fantasy football drafts. That was one of the biggest reasons behind his appeal, but it wasn't that simple.

Maye possessed the secret weapon for all fantasy football quarterbacks - he could run. He showed that skill set as a rookie. When you combine that with his essentially free price tag, he became an easy bet. Most years, however, you're able to find a cheap, running quarterback in fantasy football drafts. Maye was different.

Maye was different because he was a former first-round pick with an elite collegiate profile. He wasn't just anybody, and when the Patriots signed Mike Vrabel as head coach, everything changed. Easiest late round pick of the season.

Avoid D.J. Moore and D.K. Metcalf

I wrote an article about three receivers to avoid, including Moore and Metcalf. The third was Zay Flowers. While Flowers ended up having a strong season, Moore and Metcalf were massive disappointments, especially at their ADPs. For most of the year, even the call to avoid Flowers was looking great until he finished like a freight train.

Absolutely cooked on this one! Zay Flowers, DK Metcalf, and DJ Moore… all three WRs I advocated to avoid and at this point in the season, 100% hit rate on this.

All three of these guys have failed, significantly, to live up to their preseason ADP. https://t.co/mvgZeWEpcS

— Rob (@RobLorge) December 6, 2025

While Flowers' final standing looks strong relative to his ADP, given how much he struggled early in the season, his late-season surge may have been too little, too late for most fantasy managers. We'll ignore him, however, and focus on Moore and Metcalf.

Moore was coming off his worst season since his rookie season, and after an offseason in which Chicago added Luther Burden III and Colston Loveland. He was an easy target to avoid. Simple.

Metcalf was traded to Pittsburgh. His skill set as a downfield maven didn't align with Aaron Rodgers' penchant for consistently dumping the ball down, which didn't jive with Metcalf's fantasy prospects. As if that wasn't bad enough, there was Arthur Smith, who should have been the nail in the coffin for all prospective drafters.

Dak Prescott and George Pickens

Back in May 2025, I compared the Cowboys' 2025 offense to the Bengals' 2024 offense. I said that Pickens would be this year's Tee Higgins and that Prescott was discount Joe Burrow. There were so many similarities between the two teams. Two terrible defenses, two offenses whose running game seemed questionable at best, and they both had two great-to-elite receivers.

Dallas Offense is the cheap version of the Cincinnati Bengals offense.

Dak Prescott = Joe Burrow
Jaydon Blue = Chase Brown
CeeDee Lamb = Ja’Marr Chase
George Pickens = Tee Higgins

Both super pass heavy. Both very consolidated. Both will score a ton of points.

— Rob (@RobLorge) May 7, 2025

While this entire prediction didn't hit (I had the wrong running back as Dallas's version of Chase Brown), I did absolutely nail the Pickens and Prescott predictions. Pickens was maybe "the" best mid-round pick fantasy managers could have made this season, and he is my "My Guy" selection for the 2025 season.

Not Fading Davante Adams and Derrick Henry

When it comes to fantasy football, fading anyone non-quarterback over the age of 30 is the cool thing to do. Once anyone starts pushing 31, 32, 33 years of age... forgot about it. Take them out to the pasture. Now, I'm not here to argue against that general rule. It's a good rule, but every rule comes with exceptions.

Henry and Adams fit my new mold of players I won't be avoiding solely because of their age. There are several criteria one must meet to be exception-worthy. First, they must be elite players. Adams and Henry certainly qualify. We all know that, past a certain point, age negatively affects us in sports and athletic performance, but when you're as good as Adams and Henry have been, you have more room to be affected and still be very good.

The second is that they must be healthy and not have a lengthy injury history. Adams' injury history is remarkably clean, and Henry, outside of a broken foot several years ago, has been an iron man, as well. The third and final criterion is that they must be in a supportive ecosystem. Los Angeles and Baltimore certainly qualified.

Several years ago, I avoided any non-quarterback over 30 years of age. Now, however, I'm more open to targeting such players, assuming they hit my exception-criteria. Last year, it paid dividends with Henry and Adams.

Identified Brenton Strange, Harold Fannin Jr., and Juwan Johnson as Deep Sleepers

When it comes to deep sleepers, there's always a little bit of throw something at the wall and see what sticks. That's not to say you're just guessing and shooting from the hip, but there's a reason they qualified as deep sleepers in the first place.

When it comes to these three players, there are two primary takeaways. The first relates to Brenton Strange, and the takeaway is not to overlook a quarterback's target tendency. Trevor Lawrence has a long history of targeting the middle of the field, but closer to the line of scrimmage. It's why Christian Kirk and Evan Engram did so well.

It's why Brian Thomas Jr. struggled with Lawrence and why he excelled with Mac Jones. It's why Jakobi Meyers did so well with Lawrence. Shorter targets in the middle of the field are where tight ends live.

The second takeaway is to target tight ends with ambiguous groups of pass-catchers. The receiver room in New Orleans was Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed, but Shaheed had never been a target-earner. The receiver room in Cleveland was Jerry Jeudy, and no one else.

These are great situations to target tight ends, moreso than the random secondary receivers, because the floor for tight ends to be meaningful compared to receivers is much lower. It's not that Johnson lit the world on fire, but with how pedestrian the tight end position is, Johnson became a quality starter.

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