The best draft pick: Brock Bowers

Bowers was often taken in the 10th or 11th round of fantasy football drafts this past summer. His talent level was never a question. He was one of the best college prospects at the position the previous three seasons at Georgia. But many people, including myself, wondered what Bowers’ upside would be with the Raiders’ poor QB room and second-year TE Michael Mayer coming off a promising rookie season. Not only that, but Bowers was competing with Davante Adams, an elite target-earner, and a strong No. 2 receiver in Jakobi Meyers.

But everything seemed to fall into place for Bowers early on. Mayer went on to miss two months of the season with a personal matter. Adams played just three games for the Raiders this year before injuring his hamstring and later being traded to the Jets. This gave Bowers more opportunities to produce, and that’s exactly what he did. Since Adams and Mayer went down in Week 3, Bowers has averaged 73 receiving yards on 9.8 targets per game. He leads all TEs in targets and fantasy points during this stretch.

Bowers currently has the record for most receptions by a rookie with 108 entering Week 18. He’s just nine catches short of setting the all-time TE reception record. The Raiders TE is the best fantasy pick from 2024 and will likely be a second-round selection in 2025 drafts.

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The waiver wire league-winner: Bucky Irving

Irving wasn’t drafted in most fantasy leagues this year. His average draft position to close out the summer was the 16th round. To start the season Irving was on the majority Yahoo waiver wires. But this didn’t last long because in Week 1 the Bucs rookie produced 76 yards on just 11 touches. He out-gained Rachaad White on fewer touches to start the year and this became a consistent trend throughout the season. Tampa had its bye in Week 11, and from this point on Irving became a waiver wire league-winner.

Over his final five completed games since his bye week, Irving has averaged 22.4 fantasy points on 21 touches per game. What makes this even more impressive is Irving has been dealing with a hip and back injury for the majority of these five games. He finishes the fantasy season ranking top 10 in yards per touch, broken tackle rate and explosive run rate (10+ yard runs) according to Player Profiler. He has 1,429 yards entering Week 18 despite only playing 44% of the Bucs snaps this season.

Irving should be a second-round pick next summer, but if he falls to Round 3, he’ll become one of my top targets in 2025 fantasy football drafts.

The worst draft pick: Marvin Harrison Jr.

Harrison Jr. was believed to be a can’t-miss prospect by many scouts this offseason. He had the family name, two years of elite college production at Ohio State and his film was great. The Cardinals selecting Harrison with the fourth overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft gave him the final pieces of the puzzle to become an early-round fantasy pick: ending up with a solid QB and little target competition. This drove his fantasy ADP up to the second round in most leagues. You want and expect consistent play with the occasional monster weeks from your early-round draft picks, but Harrison rarely delivered either of these in 2024.

He finished the fantasy season as the WR43 in points per game, ranking behind players like Khalil Shakir, Adam Thielen and Xavier Worthy. Harrison had just two weeks of top-12 WR production across 16 games and failed to top 10 fantasy points in 56% of his contests. He was far from a consistent fantasy option.

Harrison’s lack of success was mostly due to a combination of poor play and frustrating play-calling. He was often used as a vertical downfield receiver this season, which limits his full skill set as a great route runner and leads to more boom-or-bust performances. This led to 33% of his targets being uncatchable according to Player Profiler.

Harrison is just a rookie; he has plenty of time to improve, but he certainly didn’t help your fantasy teams if you drafted him this season.

The late-round gem: Chuba Hubbard

Hubbard was taken in the 11th or 12th round of most fantasy drafts this summer, left for dead by most of the fantasy community due to the Panthers drafting a second-round rookie in Jonathon Brooks. Brooks was coming off a strong junior season at Texas, but he was also recovering from a November 2023 ACL tear, which delayed the start of his NFL career.

Brooks was placed on the PUP list before the season started and this opened the door for Hubbard to start the first four games of the year. During this time, he averaged 95 total yards per game and finished as a top-10 weekly RB twice. Hubbard was playing at a high level, and at the same time, Brooks’ timeline to return was consistently pushed back. He wouldn’t play a game until Week 12, and shortly after this, he tore his ACL again in Week 14.

Brooks’ inability to see the field turned Hubbard into a late-round gem. He finished the fantasy season with seven top-10 finishes at the position and averaged more points per game than Breece Hall, Kenneth Walker III and Aaron Jones Sr. Hubbard earned a contract extension during the season due to his strong play. Expect him to go much earlier next season on what could be an improved offense.

The 2025 late-round QB target: Drake Maye

There seems to be one quarterback each season who goes in the later rounds and completely erupts in fantasy football. Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts are great examples of late-round, league-winning QBs from previous seasons. This year, we got another one in Jayden Daniels. Daniels ended the summer as a ninth-round fantasy pick. He was a rookie with an elite college profile who had the rare combination of a big arm and top-tier rushing ability. The 2023 Heisman winner carried his college success into the NFL as a rookie, finishing the fantasy season with 3,530 passing yards, 864 rushing yards and 31 total touchdowns; he was QB4 overall in fantasy as a rookie.

I’m not sure we see this type of production from a late-round QB entering 2025, but if anyone has a chance to do it, it’s Drake Maye. Maye was put in arguably the worst situation for a QB to succeed this year. His offensive line was poor, his surrounding talent was among the worst in the league and his play-calling was inconsistent. Despite this, Maye finished as a top-12 weekly option at the position in five of his 12 starts, and he finished outside of the top 20 just three times. Maye rushed for over 400 yards across 12 games, showing his mobile upside is among the league’s best at the position.

Entering 2025, the Patriots will have an early draft pick and the most cap space of any team with which to attack free agency. Expect Maye to go in Round 10 (or later) next year. In an improved situation, he looks like the best late-round QB to target in 2025.