Fantasy Football 2025 Strategy and Ideal Landing Spots for Hidden Gems in Mock Drafts

The 2025 NFL preseason slate is finished.

If you haven't finalized your fantasy football draft plans yet, what are you waiting for?

This is your two minute warning, folks. Before you know it, you'll be on the clock and building a roster that will either grant your championship dreams or leave you wondering where it all went wrong.

We're hoping for the former, and we're also trying to help you accomplish that. After laying out some mock draft strategies, we'll spotlight the right draft range to target two of our favorite sleepers.

Mock Draft Strategy

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Mimic your league settings.

While mock drafts allow you to experiment, you should be conducting them within the same parameters that will be in place for your actual draft. Remember, you're studying for the final test, so make sure you're staying in the right subject.

That means simple things like league size and scoring format, but try to account for any league-specific scoring quirks and even the league platform as well, if you can. Pre-draft rankings will differ from one site to the next, and that can impact how players come off the board.

Find your preferred method of building a roster.

Mock drafts are one of several tools that should ultimately help you build a draft plan. Granted, you might have to deviate from that strategy due to things like randomized draft orders or surprise position runs, but you still want to have a good idea of what you're trying to accomplish going into a talent grab.

So, this is your time to lock down that draft method. It's up to you whether you'll try any zero RB or hero RB strategies, or set the market on tight ends or quarterbacks or exclusively take running backs and receivers with your first handful of picks. What you want to do, though, is run enough of these mocks that you feel totally comfortable with whatever route you decide to take.

Target Ricky Pearsall by the Sixth Round

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Pearsall looks like the odds-on favorite to open the year as the San Francisco 49ers' WR1. Brandon Aiyuk is still working his way back from an ACL injury, Jauan Jennings has a lingering calf injury (and a contract stalemate) and Demarcus Robinson has a three-game suspension awaiting him.

A ton of passes could soon be coming Pearsall's way, in other words. He's an obvious sleeper and a potential league-winner if he makes the most of this opportunity.

That's what he did down the stretch last season, by the way. Targets came few and far between early, but they ramped up over his last two outings, and he suddenly transformed into a fantasy star: 14 catches on 18 targets for 210 yards and two touchdowns.

His upside is enormous, and while you don't want to chase it too early, but you also don't want to assume he'll last until the eighth or ninth round. We'd be comfortable snatching him up in the sixth round and honestly wouldn't blame you if you saw enough in his profile to make him your fifth pick.

Draft TreVeyon Henderson By the Fourth Round

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Henderson's rise feels less like a hot air balloon and more like a rocket being launched into space.

Ever since the New England Patriots spent this year's 38th pick on him, his fantasy value stock has seen perpetual growth. And for good reason.

His explosiveness jumps off the screen. He scored in his first two preseason games and sat with the other starters during the third. He has almost assuredly worked his way into a timeshare partnership with veteran Rhamondre Stevenson, who seems unlikely to block Henderson's path if the rookie is clearly the most dynamic player in this offense.

At this point, if you want Henderson on your fantasy roster, then you'll have to start considering him by the third round and take him by the early portion of the fourth. If you're drafting near the end of the fourth, then he better be your third pick or you're not getting him.