This article originally appeared on FTNFantasy and was written by Alex Blickle.
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The 2024 Buccaneers dominated best ball. Baker Mayfield finished as the QB4. Rachaad White was the RB24 in PPR scoring, fading only when Bucky Irving emerged as a league-winner, finishing as RB14. Mike Evans was the WR7 and would have been the second-best receiver on the team if Chris Godwin’s league-winning season wasn’t derailed by injury. But because it was, Cade Otton and Jalen McMillan joined the fray with a handful of big weeks each. Targeting the Bucs heavily in drafts paid off in a big way, and just about every year, there’s a team that outperforms expectations to the point where it almost doesn’t matter who you drafted as long as you drafted someone from the team. So which offense is being undervalued across the board? Or put another way, who are this year’s Bucs?
To identify the 2025 version, we should first discuss what made Tampa so undervalued last year. Value comes from many places in fantasy football. Inherently, “value” implies an inefficiency from the market. So where does inefficiency come from?
The first is the most obvious — production. If the industry is under-projecting the amount an offense will produce, there’s value in that offense. But let’s actually split overall production into two categories: volume and efficiency. Tampa had both — they ran a ton of plays and always had to keep their foot on the gas because their defense stunk, and they were wildly efficient on a per-play basis. And lastly, positional uncertainty creates opportunities for value, as well. If we had known ahead of time that Bucky Irving would finish the year as the lead back, he would have gone rounds and rounds earlier than he did. Just look at the way Omarion Hampton has surged up draft boards in the last few weeks — his best-case scenario hasn’t changed at all, but the uncertainty around his role has decreased as we learn more and more about the severity of Najee Harris’ eye injury.
So, when trying to identify this year’s Bucs, we want a team with positional uncertainty that we can take advantage of, with a path to high volume and efficient offense.
Honorable Mentions
Several offenses immediately came to mind when I began this exercise, but most of them fail to check all three boxes. Let’s go one by one…
New England Patriots
An improved offensive line and dramatically improved skill-position players have Drake Maye in position to take a major step forward in 2025. Because of his legs, he was already solid for fantasy purposes but has a chance to be great this year. Additionally, we have positional uncertainty at multiple positions. Rhamondre Stevenson is still projected to be the starter, but TreVeyon Henderson has skyrocketed in ADP throughout the preseason. I wish he was still going in the 60s to 70s, because I don’t believe Stevenson is any good. Even if you feel like Henderson is no longer benefiting from the uncertainty of his role (because his price is now too high), there’s positional uncertainty at WR, too. Kayshon Boutte is projected to start on the outside, opposite Stefon Diggs, but Kyle Williams looks like a stud to me, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he finishes the season the way McMillan did last year (or even better).
But this should be a good Patriots defense, potentially even a great one. Even if they are more efficient than people think they’ll be, the volume will likely be too low for multiple Patriots to smash their ADPs. I still think we want to draft Patriots, but we likely have to draft the right ones instead of being able to draft them all.
Chicago Bears
The Bears were probably the closest of the Honorable Mentions to being my selection. The positional uncertainty at WR and TE is driving down the cost of all five of the relevant options (DJ Moore, Rome Odunze, Luther Burden III, Cole Kmet, Colston Loveland), and D’Andre Swift is still a terrible runner. Roschon Johnson may be first in line for opportunities behind Swift, but it’s Kyle Monangai I can’t stop drafting.
And of course, Ben Johnson is looking to fix Caleb Williams by giving him quick and easy reads that reinvigorate his confidence. Nothing fixes a broken quarterback quite like having talented skill-position players schemed wide open on a regular basis!
You might think I’m going to say the Bears have the same issue as New England — a good defense — but it’s actually the schedule that has me wary. They’re in the toughest division in football and also play Philly and San Francisco down the stretch of the fantasy football season.
Las Vegas Raiders
I believe the Raiders defense could be surprisingly good this season, but their ceiling took a big hit with the departure of Christian Wilkins. It’s not just that they lost a great player, but their pass rush needs to be great to cover for a less-than-stellar secondary. The less dominant their pass rush, the more teams can take advantage of their weakness on the back end. So, without Wilkins, they could end up with the type of defense that forces them to score a lot of points.
And offensively, I love the Raiders. A better-than-people-thought offensive line got better, quarterback got a major upgrade, and have you heard of this Ashton Jeanty fella? I think Jakobi Meyers is one of the best WR values in drafts and Tre Tucker is my favorite late-round pick by far. But there’s not really any positional uncertainty here. In fact, Las Vegas would have to outperform expectations to justify 1st and 2nd round costs for Jeanty and Brock Bowers. Think about it — the Raiders have two guys going earlier than any of the Bucs were going last year. I have a decent amount of both, but the likelihood that every offensive player outperforms their expectations seems too low to be this year’s Bucs.
This Year’s Bucs — The Jacksonville Jaguars
Liam Coen’s move from offensive coordinator of the 2024 Bucs to head coach of the 2025 Jaguars is mostly a coincidence here. I do think he can boost the team’s effectiveness, but they’d check every box regardless.
Also, you will not see me make statements like “Tank Bigsby is Coen’s new version of Bucky Irving” or anything like that:
So what makes this Jags team this year’s Bucs?
It starts on the defensive end, where they allowed the most explosive receiving yards by a mile last year. Some of that was stylistic, with an overuse of man coverage. A new coaching regime could change that, but it was also personnel-driven. Travis Hunter will help, but one man, especially one who probably won’t be playing full-time on that side of the ball, can’t fix everything. So, not only does this defense allow the offense to score, but its propensity to allow explosive plays gets the offense the ball back quickly. We love that.
Second, the positional uncertainty at running back is to die for. Not only are Travis Etienne Jr. and Tank Bigsby keeping each other’s ADPs in check, but they’re both being kept further in check by Bhayshul Tuten. I think Etienne and Bigsby will both have big years. Etienne was fourth in receiving DYAR in 2023, and Coen was a master at getting White and Irving involved in the passing game to utilize their YAC abilities. I’ll be hammering the over on his receiving props early this season. Meanwhile, Bigsby was fifth in win yards per attempt last year (yards after contact or a forced missed tackle). I think these guys can both be top-25 fantasy RBs, just like White and Irving were last year, but they’re currently both being taken between RBs 30 and 40.
Add in the fact that Brian Thomas Jr. is one of my favorite picks at the 1-2 turn, and I’m loading up on the offense even before factoring in how Travis Hunter can help Trevor Lawrence finally look like the guy we hoped he’d be out of college. I’m not saying Lawrence can be this year’s Baker (remember, QB4 last year!), but he’s being drafted as the QB20 and finished as the QB13 just two years ago.
And yes, it also helps that Etienne and Bigsby are one of my favorite RB pairings, which many of you already know is my favorite contrarian best ball strategy. This offense has it all and doesn’t have to be great to shatter their ADPs across the board.
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