Mike Evans, Underrated NFL Veterans Who Fantasy Managers Shouldn't Overlook

The 2025 NFL offseason has seen a wave of intriguing new talent enter the league through the draft, as well as a slew of established players changing hands via free agency and trades. Despite these shifts, plenty of familiar veterans are set to suit up for their usual squads.

These vets may not be drawing headlines or tantalizing fans with dreams of limitless potential in a new system, but they are the types of underrated values who fantasy football managers should never overlook.

Having consistent starters anchoring a lineup allows managers to take risks on boom-or-bust sleepers and rookies, providing some much-needed balance and steadiness in a game that can be frustratingly difficult to find stability in.

With that in mind, here are five veterans flying under the radar who you should give serious consideration to during your fantasy league’s upcoming draft.

Fantasy stats, rankings and average draft position (ADP) are based on FantasyPros PPR data with the exception of the Quality Starts metric, which is based on standard scoring.

QB Jared Goff, Detroit Lions

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Jared Goff’s tenure with the Detroit Lions has gone far better than expected.

After he was considered little more than a throw-in replacement for Matthew Stafford during the team's 2021 trade with the Los Angeles Rams, Goff has gone on to not only hold down Detroit’s starting job, but also consistently rate as one of the best quarterbacks in football.

While Goff did have a bit of a rough start in the Motor City, he blossomed in his second season and has gone on to post three consecutive top-10 fantasy finishes. He put up a career-high 333.5 fantasy in 2024 ranking as the QB6 on the season, slightly improving on the 303.1 points and QB7 finish he logged the prior year.

There’s no indication that the 30-year-old will regress in 2025, although fantasy managers seem to be expecting a backslide based on his middling ADP of 85 and QB10 status that places him behind far more inconsistent signal-callers such as Kyler Murray.

Goff rang up 11 quality or better starts in 2024, just one fewer than league MVP and No. 2 overall fantasy point-producer Josh Allen. He was especially reliable down the stretch, finishing with four consecutive top-eight performances from Weeks 14 to 17, helping many of his managers claim fantasy championships.

The biggest concern with Goff this upcoming season is the loss of brilliant offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, who took the NFC North rival Chicago Bears head coaching job. It’s not an issue the signal-caller is worried about, however, as Goff recently praised replacement John Morton and said there shouldn’t be a noticeable change to the Lions’ system.

With all his key weapons returning—including 2024’s RB1 Jahmyr Gibbs, WR3 Amon-Ra St. Brown and TE8 Sam LaPorta—in addition to a beefed up offensive line now featuring second-round pick Tate Ratledge and an intriguing new pass-catcher in third-round receiver Isaac TeSlaa—Goff is poised to thrive and could put up career-best numbers in 2025.

RB James Conner, Arizona Cardinals

James Conner may not be the most exciting running back, but he’s consistently punching up and has largely outproduced his average draft position throughout his time with the Arizona Cardinals.

During his four-year tenure in Arizona, Conner has never ranked outside the top 20 running backs. While he hasn’t quite gotten back to the RB5 level he achieved during an 18-score first season with the Cardinals, he’s coming off a respectable RB11 finish for a 2024 season he went into as the RB18 with an ADP of 52.

Conner was one of the safest running back or flex starts fantasy managers could make last year, with 11 of his 16 performances ringing up as quality or higher and only five rating as poor.

Despite being a paragon of consistency throughout his career, Conner is only coming off draft boards at No. 68 on average and is 2025’s RB21.

The presence of Trey Benson is certainly a concern, but the 2024 third-rounder was expected to dethrone the longtime veteran as early as last year and only notched 47 fantasy points on the season. Conner managed to fend off his understudy and score 253.8 points, finishing just outside the top 10 despite missing a game.

Conner still has two years remaining on his contract should continue to be a productive fantasy back who will consistently reward managers.

WR Mike Evans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

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Mike Evans has established himself as one of the greatest receivers of his generation and has been a fantasy football powerhouse throughout his career.

Evans, a consummate professional who finds a way to put up big numbers on a weekly basis regardless of who is lining up under center, continues to defy Father Time and has notched WR4 and WR7 finishes in his first two years with Baker Mayfield running the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense.

That consistency is why it is downright puzzling that a receiver who has finished outside the top eight at his position just once in the last seven seasons—and that lone miss was still a respectable No. 16 placement in 2022—is now being drafted as the WR19 with an ADP of 41.

Evans may be entering an age-32 campaign, but he’s shown few signs of slowing down. He’s coming off his second consecutive and sixth overall Pro Bowl campaign, one in which he pushed his streak of 1,000-yard seasons to open a career to a record-extending 11th year.

While injuries did cost Evans three games last year, he’s largely been healthy throughout his time in the NFL and shouldn’t be impacted by the effects of aging as much as some of his peers. He’s missed a meager six contests in total since the start of 2020 and has a game that doesn’t rely on pure speed and athleticism—instead using elite size, hands, route-running skills and a knack for winning what should be 50-50 balls—to get his numbers.

The loss of talented offensive coordinator Liam Coen could be giving fantasy managers pause, but replacement Josh Grizzard (considered a “wizard” by the organization) was promoted from his passing game coordinator role and should be able to keep a Tampa offense that ranked No. 3 in the league last year humming.

At this point, fantasy football players should simply trust Evans until he proves them wrong. Those who have been expecting a regression in recent years and avoided drafting the superstar receiver have and will continue to miss out on one of the best fantasy values on the board.

WR Terry McLaurin, Washington Commanders

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After spending the first half-decade of his career mired on poor teams that a mismanaged Washington Commanders organization fielded, Terry McLaurin finally broke out in 2024.

The star receiver displayed instant chemistry with No. 2 overall pick Jayden Daniels, posting a career-best season while serving as a lynchpin behind a surprise run to the conference championship in the new regime’s first season.

The 29-year-old McLaurin was one of the league’s most consistent forces over the past five seasons, catching at least 77 balls and going over the 1,000-yard mark in each of those campaigns.

Although McLaurin may have fully stepped into the spotlight last year by earning his second Pro Bowl nomination and a second-team All-Pro nod, he's not getting enough fantasy football respect.

On the heels of posting a ridiculous 82-catch, 1,096-yard, 13-touchdown line that resulted in 267.8 fantasy points and a WR7 finish, McLaurin is still only being drafted as the WR17 with an ADP of 29.

This is an extremely low spot for a player who managed to log a top-15 finish in 2022 while working with a revolving door of quarterbacks that included Taylor Heinicke, Carson Wentz and Sam Howell.

Now he has a chance to flourish with the reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year under center. The wideout had few poor starts in 2024—76 percent of his appearances resulted in quality or great starts, a mark that matched Ja’Marr Chase—and could even compete with Justin Jefferson (82 percent quality start rate in 2024) to lead that category this year.

McLaurin should benefit from Daniels' continued growth as well. Offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury told reporters that he expects the quarterback to “take a big jump” in 2025, a scary development for the rest of the league given he already finished as the QB5 as a rookie.

Even with the recently acquired Deebo Samuel now contending for looks, McLaurin is the clear-cut top option in Washington and his rapport with Daniels should only grow in Year 2.

TE Mark Andrews, Baltimore Ravens

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Mark Andrews has been and should remain one of the NFL’s most reliable tight ends.

Even though he entered the league in 2018 and is on the right side of 30, many fantasy managers seem to be writing the Baltimore Ravens star off as too old to continue producing at a high level.

Andrews is coming off yet another top-six campaign—his fifth of the last six seasons—during which he put up a hefty 188.8 fantasy points. He managed these strong marks despite scoring just 12.5 points over a slow four-game stretch to open the year.

While the development of Zay Flowers into a Pro Bowler did eat into Andrews' looks, the tight end maintained his status as Lamar Jackson’s preferred red-zone target and finished with 11 touchdowns to go with his 673 receiving yards and 69 receptions.

Although he had a highly respectable run to finish out the fantasy regular season and playoffs—Andrews never finished below TE7 from Weeks 13 to 18—his last impression of the year wasn’t a great one. The usually sure-handed tight end dropped a potential game-tying two-point conversion that effectively ended Baltimore’s season in the AFC divisional round, optics that may have soured some managers on drafting him.

Shrewd fantasy football players shouldn’t let this mishap shape their opinion of Andrews. They should instead look to capitalize on his current ADP of 107, a spot that ranks him as the TE8 behind far more risky talents such as Jonnu Smith.

Injuries and consistency have been a concern for Andrews in the past—he missed seven games in 2023 with a season-ending ankle injury—but he appeared in all 17 games last year and made 10 quality or great starts.

Expect Andrews to use his playoff failures as motivation and put together another top-five campaign in 2025. He’ll keep teammate Isaiah Likely (the TE16 last year) at bay for at least one more season and vastly outproduce his middle-round draft position.