What else is in today’s newsletter?

1. 2025 Mock Fantasy Draft: The TEs could come off the board early

2. WR Awards: Chris Allen triple crowns Ja’Marr Chase

3. Watercooler: What are the Cowboys doing?

Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Are Early-Round TEs Back In 2025?

• By Ian Hartitz and Chris Allen

Only 60 minutes of football separate us from the 2025 offseason. And yet, us fantasy football degenerates couldn't wait for the clock to strike midnight on Super Bowl 59 to start drafting.

Presenting: A way-too-early 2025 Fantasy Football 12-team mock draft!

You can check out the full draft board here. Special thanks to the fine folks who participated in the mock: Damian Dabrowski, Lawrence Jackson, Davis Mattek, Adam Wise, Pete Damilatis, Kyle Dvorchak, Zachary Krueger, Denny Carter, Patrick Daugherty, and Rivers McCown.

Here’s just one part of Ian and Chris’ draft overview.

Fantasy Football Mock Draft Trends Compared To Last Season

Ian: The EARLY round TE is BACK

Raiders TE Brock Bowers went 12th overall, and Cardinals TE Trey McBride wasn't too far behind at 16th overall. Sure, Travis Kelce was a first-round option a few years ago, but last year's consensus TE1 Sam LaPorta was a third-round pick in more drafts than not. The allure for Bowers and McBride is clear—they are young ballers in passing games willing to feature them as legit No. 1 options. Still, that is a hefty price to pay for a pair of pass-catchers not exactly dealing with the best QB situations in the world (particularly Bowers).

Chris: RB ADP

I think this is where industry mock drafts part ways with the rest of the community. After seeing Saquon Barkley hit 2,000 yards, Derrick Henry run roughshod over the AFC North, and a host of other RBs have strong performances, I expected to see RBs go off the board early and often. 11 through the first 24 isn’t a surprise. Half of them going toward the end of the second round was a shock. Once the lobbies open for ’25 drafts, I’m anticipating the ADPs of those RBs sliding up closer to the 1-2 turn as the rush to secure rushers takes hold of gamers.

The latest fantasy nuggets, silliness, and NFL gossip from our merry band of football nerds:

🐐 Is Patrick Mahomes in the GOAT conversation? Great discussion topic.

🪓 Spend up on the Super Bowl Guilloteenie waiver wire. You can’t take it with you.

😆 This can’t be real?! What an introduction.

👀 Cam Ward or Shedeur Sanders? What do the Titans need to kick-start the rebuild?

🤔 Why did the Cowboys rush to hire Schotty? Everyone is confused.

⌛️ Who will be the first overall pick in the NFL Draft? Here are the current odds.

🪓 The 10 most chopped players from the Championship Round. RIP Josh Allen.

🎭️ The latest on the Steelers QB drama. This is going to take forever to sort, isn’t it?

📆 Curious about the College Football All-Star games? Here’s the schedule.

2024 Fantasy Football WR Awards: The best, breakouts, and more

• By Chris Allen

What a year it was for the wide receiver position, and it wasn’t always the greatest. Yet Chris Allen is here with his awards for the position’s most notable performers. In case you missed his RB awards, you can find them here. We’ll start at the top, with a Bengals wideout who joined a storied list in making history.

The Bhagavad Gita Award

Nominees: Ja’Marr Chase

Winner: Ja’Marr Chase

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Normally, I’d identify a list of nominees and decide on a winner. There was only one answer here.

There were 18 instances of a WR eclipsing 150 receiving yards in a single game. Ja’Marr Chase claimed three of them. Seventy-four receivers were multi-TD scorers during one of their weekly contests. Chase is the most common name on that list, too, at five. I mean, as the latest Triple Crown winner, there shouldn’t be much doubt as to which WR boosted the most teams into (and through) the playoffs. But the best part is: He didn’t do it on volume alone.

• Target Share: 28.0%, 7th (amongst all qualifying WRs – min. 250 routes)

• Targets per Route Run: 24.0%, 17.0%

• Air Yard Share: 33.0%, 20th 

To be fair, Chase was up to 10.2 targets per game with Tee Higgins out. And, yes, with or without Higgins, Chase set a career-high rate in snaps played from the slot (33.6%). However, in both scenarios (Higgins in or out of the lineup), Chase posted top-5 marks in yards per route run on the perimeter. On the season, he was fourth in YAC per reception. “Built different,” I think, is the term the kids use to describe such a player. 

For my mental health, Cincinnati’s defense won’t require as many heroic outings from Joe Burrow and Chase next year. Accordingly, his 23.7 PPR PPG might dip. However, if I were picking at the 1.01, clicking on the Bengals’ WR1 wouldn’t be a bad idea.

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