Would I love to start every fantasy football team I have with Bijan Robinson or Jahmyr Gibbs? How about scooping up Josh Allen after he’s fallen well below ADP for reasons unknown?
Of course I would, but so would everyone else. You don’t win leagues based on executing the obvious, but rather leveraging the unexpected. Who are the players set to return profits that you can shoehorn a draft strategy around, no matter where you’re picking?
That’s what I’m here to help with.
For the purposes of this exercise, we are talking about one-QB, 12-team, PPR leagues. A similar train of thought applies to most other formats regarding these players, but the round mentions are for this popular format. Please feel free to reach out @KyleSoppePFN if you have ultra-specific questions that you’d like input on!
Soppe’s Favorite Fantasy Football Targets
Round 4: D’Andre Swift, RB, Chicago Bears
Many are calling it the summer of Swift, but few are applying it to our fantasy world. Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t we move mountains to acquire versatile backs wit ha featured role, a creative offensive mind at the controls, and environmental upside?
Swift set career highs last season in both rushing yards and rushing scores as a primary piece of an offense that Ben Johnson is sculpting around what makes Caleb Williams comfortable. And you know what allows a young quarterback to settle in? A stable run game.
Rate of Attempts Coming Via Play-Action
- 2024: 16.9%
- 2025: 33.3%
Swift saw his YPC jump from 3.8 in his first season with the Bears to 4.9 and I don’t think that coinciding with Johnson’s arrival was a coincidence. Luther Burden and Colston Loveland are getting the pixie dust bump … I don’t have a problem with that, but I don’t see why Swift isn’t experiencing a similar bump.
Round 7: Tucker Kraft, TE, Green Bay Packers
This is exactly why tiering players is important.
In terms of industry consensus, Kraft is being drafted as the TE5. I have him ranked as TE4 and can very much understand how the field settles where it has.
But the seventh round?
We all agree that Trey McBride and Brock Bowers are Tier 1 options at the position and demand high-end draft capital. The second tier, across the board, includes Colston Loveland and Tyler Warren. For me, that’s where Kraft belongs, whereas the drafting public is slotting him into the third tier with names like Kyle Pitts and Sam LaPorta.
That may sound like a small distinction, but we are talking 20-25 picks in terms of the overall rankings, and that’s huge.
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Kraft was third at the position in PPG (min. eight games played) last season, and with positive reports coming out of Green Bay in terms of health, I’m struggling to find reasons why he can’t repeat.
From Weeks 4-8, this unique weapon accounted for 25.7% of Packer pass catcher points, signal that he has the potential to function as the WR1 in this offense. Even if you’re skeptical in assuming that, the departures of Dontayvion Wicks and Romeo Doubs certainly give him the potential to sustain/extend that role for an entire season.
Take the Kraft roster build for a test drive courtesy of our FREE Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator. Fire up a draft with your specific settings with the intent to land Green Bay’s YAC God (four full yards ahead in YAC per reception last season, ahead of any other tight end who averaged at least five targets per game)in this range and see what your final product ends up looking like.
My guess is that you’re going to like it.
Round 9: Jakobi Meyers, WR, Jacksonville Jaguars
“You’ll never go broke making a profit”. I’ve heard some very successful people say that, and I think that’s the exact mindset you apply in the clicking of Meyers in this range.
He’s not going to give you retirement money, but he is going to keep your head above water and in the second half of your draft, that’s the goal. You want players who can steady the ship while you bank on your elite assets doing elite asset sort of things.
Meyers’ Profile, 2022-25
- 10+ points in in 59% of his games
- 12+ points in in 49.2% of his games
- 15+ points in in 37.7% of his games
Over That Same Stretch
- George Pickens: 10+ points in in 56.9% of his games
- Jaylen Waddle: 12+ points in in 48.4% of his games
- DK Metcalf: 15+ points in in 34.9% of his games
The Jags won eight straight games to close the last regular season with Meyers in the mix. He reached double-figure point totals, despite being thrown into a new system, in each of the first five games during that run and landed in the 8.5-15 point neighborhood for six of those eight.
Because that’s what he does.
Always.
Meyers is fine wine for me. You can count on him, and he pairs nicely with a Malik Nabers steak or a Jameson Williams charcuterie board. He’s not the main course, but he can complement just about any build you go with and excels at buoying a roster that may have some week-to-week wild cards.
The industry has told us year in and year out that it has no respect for this profile. That’s fine by me: not every player has to be a league winner, but every draft pick I make this summer is going to have a role that I view as important in my ability to build a successful lineup and, at this price point, Meyers certainly satisfies that.
I like Bo Nix in this ADP tier as well, but he’s being drafted as QB16, and if you’re in a 10-12 team league, there’s a good chance you can win a starring contest with your league in a spot like this. If we assume that you are in a standard league and the rest of your league already has filled the QB position, you can push the envelope even further, understanding that while ADP is a guide, roster construction impacts the onesie positions more than the others.
Round 11: Rashid Shaheed, WR, Seattle Seahawks
Shaheed’s impact with the Seahawks was felt much more by the team than by fantasy managers.
The splash plays on special teams were nice, but he had just two games, including the playoff run, with 3+ receptions, and that is just never going to get it done.
Fantasy managers seem to be taking a “they won the Super Bowl last year, don’t fix what’s not broken” approach to the explosive athlete entering his age-28 season, but I’m not so sure that’s right.
Sam Darnold Deep Pass Rankings, 2025
- 1st in yards per pass
- 3rd in TD rate
- 3rd in CMP%
- 7th in passer rating
Does that read to you like a profile that can’t maximize what it is that Shaeed does?
Last season was the year of Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and when it wasn’t, Walker put this offense on his back. This is a cheap way of betting against those things happening with the regularity that they did a season ago, and, at this cost, you only need to be right a few times.
It’s unlikely that Shaheed works his way into your starting lineup on a weekly basis. His skill set and the slow play of this team is going to suppress his mean expectations, but if you’re in the business of chasing upside when you have holes to fill in your lineup, this is a player you want exposure to. When you’re picking in the double-digit rounds, you’ve effectively taken all of the risk out of this profile while keeping the reward intact.
If you’ve been following along, you’re aware that I’m about as big a Isaiah Likely fan as you’re going to find, and this is also his range. I wrote about where I stand on him inside the TE Rankings piece, and I’ll be peppering you with Likely propaganda for the next six weeks, so I thought I’d give you a break and a new name for this piece.
Round 13: Tank Bigsby, RB, Philadelphia Eagles
There is no such thing as a bad pick at this point in the proceedings, so instead of flirting with players like Tyjae Spears or Isiah Pacheco, RBs who will have a defined role on a weekly basis, give me the player that will carry zero temptation to play unless he is called upon in a major way.
Don’t get me wrong, the Spears’ and Pacheco’s of the world have a purpose and they are likely to finish this season with better counting numbers than Bigsby, but I want access to this Philadelphia offensive structure more as I fill out the back-end of my roster.
If Jahmyr Gibbs goes down, Detroit likely leans on Jared Goff and if something happens where Spears is the lead man in Tennessee … well, it’s still the Titans.
In Philadelphia, we get access to not only a team that features the run at a high level, but also a bellcow who has some serious wear on his tires.
Saquon Barkley is great and could very much do this season what Kenneth Walker did last year in terms of carrying his team to a title late, but in order to do so, he needs to be on the field, and that could require some regular season rest should even a minor injury pop up.
MORE: Top 5 Fantasy Running Backs for 2026: Bijan Robinson Is the 1.01, and It Isn’t Close
We are talking about a 29-year-old who has averaged 20.3 touches per game over the past four seasons (third most) and has appeared in 37 games since the start of 2024, when you include the playoffs.
We can’t predict injuries, but we can observe the bodies that have been in the most car crash-like events recently and act accordingly.
Should Bigsby get the nod in any given week, I’m confident that we will view him as a locked-in fantasy starter with top-15 upside at the position. He’s averaged 4.5 yards per carry across his career (281 carry sample), and he’s been essentially league average at converting carries inside of the five-yard line (roughly 39%).
“League average” may not sound all that appealing, but remember that 79.4% of his carries to date came with the Jags, not exactly an offensive hotbed until after he left. I’m willing to bet on those efficiency metrics rising if he’s given volume in this system, something that is only one Barkley rolled ankle away from happening.
For his career, Bigsby is averaging 14.8 PPR points when clearing a dozen touches in a ball game. With AJ Brown now in New England, the run game in Philly is going to be as critical as ever, and while there is a drop off from Barkley to Bigsby, my belief that this team would stay stubborn to the script make their RB2 a worthwhile stash late in drafts, regardless if you already roster their RB1 or not.
