Fantasy football projections are a tedious task, but when done properly, they are an excellent tool to fact check us on our opinions. Thankfully, we have ESPN's Mike Clay and Sharp Football's Rich Hribar who have done the work for the community. Both are fantastic, and we'll have YouTube shows with each of them this summer.

The projections you'll see here are the average of the two, and while they agree on most players, there are some interesting disagreements that you'll have to investigate by reading their work. More importantly, these are median projections, and best ball tournaments are necessarily built for median projections. There are contingent-based players who don't project well pre-season but are one injury or depth chart change away from being great values. They know that. We know that.

But I do think the niche best ball community has gone a bit too far with throwing away player projections, probably because almost nobody sits there and grinds through them. It's easier to vibes-based rankings, and it's easier to say "we just don't know." There's truth in these projections, even when thinking about the realistic odds of an upside scenario playing out. There's a reason why a site like Legendary Upside is simming seasons with player projections right now, and then releasing their research into why 3-QB builds and early-to-mid RBs are undervalued by the community. It's because the player projections say so. Ignoring them entirely is not the route I take, so let's see what our two experts spit out after going through things in May and June.

2025 Fantasy Football Projections vs. ADP

Let's start by zooming out at the positions at large, specifically trying to identify the drop off in projected points.

1. The first notable dropoff is from the RB position, where the backs drafted before 84th overall are noticably better in projections than backs drafted in the 96th to 120th overall range. This makes sense. There are starters soaking up 50-80% of the running back touches in most offenses, then a big dropoff to their backups who routinely see 20-40% of the work. This gap is specifically big in half PPR because team RB2s typically are adding reception value, not touchdowns, and the scoring settings lean towards TDs over receptions.

2. The next dropoff is from the WR position, where receivers drafted in the top 20 overall picks project much better than the receivers in the 24th to 48th overall range. Once again, this makes sense. There are only so many WR1s who have the do-everything skill set paired with reasonable QB play. Both are required to be an elite WR1 in fantasy football, and there is a big tier of receivers who have only one of those two characteristics. The green (RB) and purple (WR) lines are widest in favor of the RBs in the 20th to 72nd overall range, so tread carefully here. This would follow the same trend that we've seen in each of the first 5 best ball mania seasons: Only 3 WRs through Round 6 is reasonable.

3. On the contrary, the lack of a dropoff at the TE position is equally notable. Of course, the "elite TEs" project better than the TE1/2 candidates, but it's not nearly as big of a dropoff as we see at the other positions. But it goes beyond just that. Not even accounting for positional scarcity and value, the available TEs after 100th overall project for more half PPR points than the RBs and WRs ... straight up! That's unbelievable, as not only do the late-round TEs project to fill our TE spot, but they have reasonable odds of filling the flex spot as the RBs and WRs selected in this range. If you're looking at 2v2s solely based on projections, it's the later TE option a lot more times than not.

4. The QB position is very flat behind the actually elite QB1s, who turns out, do actually separate in projections. There is a 36-point difference between the top-4 QBs and QB5 Joe Burrow. That same 36-point drop from Burrow is equivalent to QB18 Jared Goff. That means one (or both) of the following is true: The elite QB1s are undervalued or the guaranteed starting QBs in the later rounds are undervalued. I think it's both, but either way, the low-end QB1s right now are the worst bang-for-buck at the position. That's Joe Burrow, Baker Mayfield, Bo Nix, etc. For this reason, I'm a believer in 3-QB builds where I mostly skip out on that tier. Jalen Hurts with Matthew Stafford and Daniel Jones is a nice room at cost for example.

5. The last couple of picks are also interesting here. There are 25 players with an ADP later than 199th overall who project for at least 75 half PPR points. The positional allocation of them: 12 WRs, 7 TEs, 5 QBs, and just 1 RB. This doesn't mean we can't take the occasional Round 18 RB swing, but it's not looking great if we zoom out because many of the available players are the team's third RB. These are essentially contingent RB's contingent RBs, and we often don't need to scroll this far down in the "anything can happen" bucket.

6. Christian McCaffrey is the RB1 overall in projected half PPR points here, yet goes 10th overall. He's slowly creeping up higher in ADP, as he should while he's healthy in June.

7. De'Von Achane projects better than Derrick Henry and Ashton Jeanty here.

8. The two most undervalued ADPs at RB per projections: Alvin Kamara and James Conner. Are we going to let those two be money printers for the 4th straight year? Really?

9. If we look at the early- and mid-round RBs, the worst picks in projected points happen to be the rookies. That's Ashton Jeanty among the Round 1 players, then Omarian Hampton, RJ Harvey, TreVeyon Henderson, and Kaleb Johnson afterwards. There's a couple things at play here. Most importantly, best ball drafters are looking for back-weighted production in these best ball tournaments. That's smart and reasonable. That said, best ball drafters also love a sexy looking team with theoretical upside, which partly explains the elevated price tags for rookies. It's not a surprise the season-long projections don't love the price tags, but I don't think that means they are all terrible picks either. The projections particularly find the Hampton and Henderson love a bit extreme... I agree.

10. Speaking of rookie RBs... Bhayshul Tuten is certainly not popping in the projections. This is viewed as a 2-back competition for the starting job, but Tank Bigsby does exist, and this could be a 3-back mess. Tuten's draft capital and size generally work against him, especially when the other two are incumbents.

11. Austin Ekeler sticking out like a sore thumb was something I wasn't expecting, but that does continue the trend of hype the rookies and bury the olds. Maybe that was an obvious strategy 5 years ago, but we have to actually calculate things now that age is fully baked in. I believe that strategy may even be overcooked on Underdog, specifically.

12. Ja'Marr Chase. Lol.

13. The most underrated early-round WR per these projections is Davante Adams. His single-game ceiling over the last two years remains elite, as was his 2024 finish on the Jets despite not getting into town until Halloween decorations were going up around neighborhoods.

14. It's obvious best ball drafters are paying up for team-based correlation. The evidence? Look at the mid-range WRs in the 50th to 120th overall range. Accounting for ADPs, the WRs with uncertainty or low-end statue types at QB project for more points than the WRs with certainty or dual-threat types at QB. Jerry Jeudy, Calvin Ridley, Chris Olave, Jakobi Meyers, Cooper Kupp, Michael Pittman, and Rashid Shaheed are all examples of WRs above their trend line.

15. The rookie WR with the lowest "rookie ADP tax" is Jayden Higgins, who was nearly a Round 1 selection on a team with C.J. Stroud. That's the making of a great target for late-season upside.

16. Turns out, the projections like the WRs who had 8.8 (Cedric Tillman), 8.2 (Wan'Dale Robinson), and 6.2 (Adam Thielen) targets per game more than 3rd-round rookie WRs.

17. The top-projected WRs in the final two rounds of drafts were returning veterans who played in 3-WR sets last year. That's Darius Slayton (2-WR set starter, actually), Andrei Iosivas, Ray-Ray McCloud, Calvin Austin, and TuTu Atwell. If you allow a moment of honesty, I'm at 59% Slayton right now. That's not financial advice.

18. It's close, but both Mike Clay and Rich Hribar have Trey McBride above Brock Bowers in projected points. Their ADPs are flipped on Underdog.

19. It's not a surprise to me that T.J. Hockenson doesn't line up in the projections world. The Vikings have two stud WRs and essentially a rookie QB who may be given a more balanced game plan than what we saw with Sam Darnold last year. The projections have David Njoku for more points despite going 4 full rounds later.

20. Kyle Pitts is going ahead of his projected points again.

21. If you want to win the projected usable weeks award in the final rounds, the best picks are Chig Okonwko, Juwan Johnson, and Theo Johnson. I'm not mad at that at all.

22. Somebody please explain this Jalen Hurts ADP. He projects extremely well, just won the Super Bowl, and has two pass catchers to stack with by the time his ADP rolls around. Is it the Tush Push alarmists? What is going on? Seriously.

23. Joe Burrow is a tricky ADP. On the surface, his projection is too similar to the fringe QB1 tier to be going as early as it does, but Burrow also has shown similar single-game ceiling as the elites and there are Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Chase Brown drafters competing for his stacked services. The only rule I'd for sure recomment would be to not draft him without one of the receivers on the team.

24. There's an 18-point season-long projection difference between Baker Mayfield (93rd overall) and Matthew Stafford (161st overall). This lines up with the projected team points chart I posted earlier.

25. Jared Goff is a fade coming off an outlier TD rate, especially after losing elite OC Ben Johnson and multiple starters on the interior OL. They will have a rookie center who played guard in college. I'm nervous at cost.

26. The projections for Daniel Jones (7 games), Jaxon Dart (9 games), Tyler Shough (11 games) would be a lot better if they were projected for a full season. These players also add the most correlation of the remaining players when done correctly. I'm consistently adding Colt, Giant, and Saint receivers in the mid- and late rounds with these QBs available.