As we enter the latter portion of August and fantasy draft season really heats up, there’s no longer time to waffle on fantasy prospects.
I spent all season thinking about how the 2025 season could shake out, and now that we’re here, I’m ready to commit to a few of my favorite players. If you want to win your fantasy football league, consider the following players.
Joe Burrow, QB, Cincinnati Bengals
Everyone here plays fantasy football and thus understands that you typically want to target the QBs who offer rushing production. It’s a safe and easy way to simultaneously get a higher floor and ceiling, making them easy selections in fantasy. For very specific circumstantial reasons, I believe Joe Burrow is so set up to have such an insane season that it doesn’t even matter how few rushing yards he finishes with.
Managers must agree to an extent, because Burrows’ ADP is competitive with Jalen Hurts, who’s essentially guaranteed an unusually high number of rushing touchdowns. If I’m looking for a reasonable starting quarterback and all the sexy rushing options are off the floor, I’m targeting players who I think can give me a baseline of 4,000+ passing yards and 27+ passing touchdowns.
That’s what Patrick Mahomes finished with last year, and he ended as QB12. It was a disappointment at his cost, but it was still a fine finish. In his three healthy seasons, Burrow has had a minimum of 4,400 yards and 34 passing touchdowns, and a low finish of QB8.
It may seem like a long time ago, but the Bengals had a defense capable of supporting a Super Bowl-caliber offense. Burrow still put up excellent stats in his second season, but Cincinnati’s current defense is a shell of its former self. The Bengals brought back Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Mike Gesicki, and they also saw Chase Brown blossom into a No. 1 back last year. This is an offense-centric team that will have to pass early and often to win games.
The offensive line could improve, but a second-year breakout from Amarius Mims could go a long way. Had they brought in a true downhill rusher, I’d be more threatened by the rushing attack siphoning production, but instead, they’re set to feature Brown once again. Last season, Burrow led the league in passing attempts within the red zone and the five-yard line. That led to a league-leading 20 passing touchdowns near the goal line, five more than second place.
Everything about how the Bengals operate is set up to be a fantasy manager’s paradise. Tallies of 40+ touchdowns and 5,000+ yards do not seem out of the range of possibilities for Burrow and the Bengals. That would set him up to compete with Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson for QB1, even with their rushing production. Pair him with Higgins or Brown, and let the points rain in.
Drake London, WR, Atlanta Falcons
I’ll be watching the Falcons even if I don’t get Bijan Robinson or Drake London, because barring a disaster season from Michael Penix Jr., this will be one of the most fun offenses in the league. London finally had his breakout season last year with 100 catches for 1,271 yards and nine touchdowns, and that feels like just the beginning of what he can do.
Drake London is Primed to Contend for WR1 Overall.
Averaged 2.0+ fantasy points per catch on 100 catches…
Other WRs to do this
– Amon-Ra St. Brown
– Justin Jefferson
– Ja’Marr ChaseTruly elite company.
39% target share with Penix at QB last year… pic.twitter.com/Ut5sKl2imb
— Joe Orrico (@JoeOrricoFF) August 13, 2025
London was plagued with bad quarterback play to start his career, whether it was Marcus Mariota or Desmond Ridder. Despite that, he still saw a baseline of ~900 yards in each of his first two seasons. Kirk Cousins wasn’t particularly effective last year either, but he did feed London quality targets. Once Penix came in at the end of the year, London saw another uptick in work.
Offensive coordinator Zac Robinson’s offense comes from the Sean McVay tree, a perfect scheme built to utilize his top receiver and running back. Without much competition, London will be used outside or in the slot based on his matchup. With a porous defense and a division filled with bad secondaries, the Falcons are set up to spam him with opportunities.
The only variable here is Penix, who’ll be in his first full season as a starter. I was so-so on him as an NFL prospect, and questions around him have kept London’s ADP at a reasonable place, but even at a higher cost, I wouldn’t be afraid to invest. Penix has a live arm that can open up the field, yet creates negative plays at a low rate. Even if he struggles and plays closer to the middling tier of QBs, it’ll be an improvement over what London has worked with.
If Penix can surprise and play more like a borderline top-10 quarterback, suddenly, the sky will be the limit for London. His 158 targets were already among the league’s best, so any increase in usage would set him up for an elite workload. His floor might be slightly lower than some want to risk, but no more than others in his range, like Puka Nacua or Malik Nabers.
London is a proven talent, a former top-10 draft pick, just 24 years old entering his fourth season, and potentially about to benefit from the best quarterback play he has yet to have. This will likely be the cheapest you can get him, because the stars are aligning for an elite year.
TreVeyon Henderson, RB, New England Patriots
TreVeyon Henderson firmly represents the end of the mid-round RB tier, which you can confidently target. Once you get past him and RJ Harvey, you’re scraping for floor production with guys like David Montgomery, D’Andre Swift, Aaron Jones, and Tony Pollard. All those guys have some merit, but there’s a stark contrast in upside once you get to that point. Henderson has a similar floor (in my opinion) and a vastly higher ceiling.
Henderson’s draft stock hasn’t blown up, likely because of the stink of the Patriots’ offense, and Josh McDaniels is the play-caller. Some are worried that it will take too much time to gel, if it does at all. I don’t entirely disagree, but I think the floor of the Patriots has improved dramatically from the additions of Mike Vrabel, Will Campbell, and Stefon Diggs. None of those guys are necessarily elite in their roles, but the competence at three important positions will put this offense in a far better place than it was a year ago.
This Patriots team desperately needed three things last year: better pass protection, more explosive plays, and an outlet for Drake Maye. The three things that Henderson displayed at a high level as a prospect were his excellent blocking, explosive running, and reliable hands. For some reason, I didn’t have this as a pairing often throughout the draft process, yet the second I saw that the Patriots were on the clock back in April, I knew this was a perfect match.
Last season, the Patriots’ 30th-ranked scoring offense saw its RBs, Rhamondre Stevenson and Antonio Gibson, combine for 1,300 rushing yards and eight touchdowns. Even if Stevenson retains a solid role, that’s decent production for a really bad offense that Henderson inherits. But even if the scoring isn’t quite there, there’s another trick up his sleeve: McDaniels loves to spam his RBs with targets. Between 2018 and 2019, James White had 218 targets, 159 receptions, 1,396 receiving yards, and 12 receiving touchdowns. Even in a down 2020 with Cam Newton at QB, White and Rex Burkhead combined for 95 targets, 74 receptions, and 568 yards.
In a worst-case scenario, Henderson catches a bunch of passes and rips off a few solid runs for a modest fantasy performance, which is not terrible for your RB3/Flex. In the best-case scenario, Henderson rarely comes off the field, especially on third down and in the red zone, catches a ton of passes, hits a few big plays, and becomes the lifeblood of this offense. Somewhere in the middle seems most likely, but in a stacked rookie RB class, I find myself getting as many shares of Henderson as possible.
Tetairoa McMillan, WR, Carolina Panthers
Pardon me for buying into camp hype, but Tetairoa McMillan was an excellent college prospect with top-10 draft capital you can get at the end of the fifth round. This time last year, you couldn’t sniff Malik Nabers or Marvin Harrison Jr. unless you spent a second-round pick. For his current value, sign me up.
McMillan’s current price is around that of D’Andre Swift, Travis Kelce, and T.J. Hockenson. This is a reminder that WR is almost always a deeper position, so capitalizing on high volume, high-upside guys like Tet while others are scrambling for RB or TE is another way to find excellent value. Others in this range, like Travis Hunter or Jameson Williams, are hard calls to make, but I lean toward McMillan for the guaranteed targets and his role. However, you are betting on the offense to continue its momentum from last year.
The Panthers finished 23rd in scoring in 2024, but there was a big difference between the first and second half of the season. Carolina started 1-7, but the Panthers finished 4-5. The offense took off even without a go-to target once Bryce Young was inserted back into the lineup. No receiver finished with more than 85 targets, 50 receptions, or 650 yards. Adam Thielen and Xavier Legette challenged those non-dominant numbers, but they were far from what this offense needed.
Speaking of Thielen, the 35-year-old proves this offense is desperate to feature someone. In his two years in Carolina, including last season under head coach and play-caller Dave Canales, Thielen has put together per-17-game averages of 125 targets, 1,025 yards, and 5-6 touchdowns. McMillan won’t have the same role, but if he can be a little more efficient and the offense improves as a whole, then those baseline numbers are encouraging if it’s his floor.
In addition, the Panthers reside in a very pass-happy division and still have a defense projected to be in the bottom 10. We have to project Young forward a little to ensure this can all happen, but his end-of-season play in 2024 was promising enough for me to have confidence. Young doesn’t have to turn into a top-10 passer to feed McMillan; he only needs to play solid, competent football and crown him as his preferred target.
