OldNo7
Old will
have a team of extremes in 2025.
They
project to have the weakest strength of starters but almost the
best
projections for key backups. Considering such unique setup,
in-season trades
will be required to unlock potential.
Strength: Backup RBs+WRs. Old not only has the
best RB3-4 combo (Kamara
+ K Walker), but also the best WR3-4 combo (McLaurin + Godwin),
assuming C
Godwin ends up being healthy and especially now that McLaurin
signed.
Weakness: Individual
Defense. This squad
is expected to be piss poor.
Not only Old did not have any blue chip IDP
to save, but to make things worse Old drafted the remaining
roster only in the
17th, 19th, and 20th rounds,
which could
hardly be worse.
Best Pick:
Caleb
Williams. Old only
saved one QB and it’s
not a good one, Geno Smith, and missed on drafting the top QBs
in the
league. After
taking K Murray at #30
overall, Old did not hesitate to draft another QB on
back-to-back picks which
was logical due to what was shaping up to be a weakness. Caleb has potential
and has weapons, not to mention
that he fit nicely in Old’s team at this stage of the draft.
Worst Pick:
Ken Walker. Old
franchised CMC and saved Kamara, in
addition Old used the 3rd pick overall on another RB
Chase
Brown. They would
have had many other
holes to fill rather than draft another RB at this spot. If CMC’s injury risk
is the reason for being
forced to pick so many RBs early, then perhaps CMC should not be
worth a
franchise player to begin with, due to the consequences to the
rest of the
lineup of such a draft strategy.
Admirals
The
Admirals hosted the PQBFL draft in style but might have enjoyed
too much wine –
the projections put the team dead last heading into 2025. And it’s not because
of poor franchise
players – J Gibbs is more than fine, and while AJ Brown is not
stellar he
should be ok. It is
also not because Adm
did not have good draft position – Adm had the second most
injury points in
2024 (behind Old) so they were drafting 2nd in most
rounds. The problem
was more about a handful of
suboptimal picks in the early rounds.
Strength: DBs. Unfortunately that’s
not a very important
position. But for
what it’s worth, A
Winfield is probably the most desirable DB, and Byard is better
than most PQBFL
teams’ DB1 so Winfield+Byard is easily the top DB duo in the
league.
Weakness: RBs except Gibbs. After Gibbs the
cupboards are bare. None
of Adm’s RBs are starters with their own
NFL team so not only Adm does not have a viable RB2 to start but
none of the next
three RBs offer much hope: R White, N Chubb, T Bigsby, and
Guerendo. To add
insult to injury, the 49ers acquired B
Robinson after the PQBFL draft, further reducing Guerendo’s
value.
Best Pick:
Nick Bosa. There
were 4 DLs available in the draft who
were head and shoulders above the others.
It was a bit surprising that the first three were not
drafted until the
6th round, then Adm scooped up the last of the group
at a discount
in the 7th round.
Worst Pick:
Alex
Singleton. Adm took
Singleton in the
early 6th round while heavyweights such as R Smith
(Beaud), Baun
(Prof), and F Warner (Bas) we taken in the 5th round. Singleton is nowhere
near the caliber of the
others and he’s also older than all of them so he’s not a good
investment for
2026 either.
Ballers
The Ballers
had a rough 2024 season but the bigger problem was rostering too many old(er)
players whose value fell in
2025 for example A Rodgers, Z Ertz, J Goff.
Even Michael Thomas!
So 2025 is
not going to be easy although projections do not place Ball at
the bottom
neither for starters or key backups.
Strength: L-Jax. Set and forget. The Ballers should
start L-Jax every week no
matter what for the simple reason that he’s the clear QB1 in the
PQBFL for 2025
and was in 2024 as well. Hopefully
the
coach will not overthink this by rolling the dice with Goff,
Rodgers or Darnold
when the matchups are attractive.
Weakness: Rookies. First off Ball was the
only PQBFL team who
only drafted 2 rookies instead of 3+.
But if one of them was a clear starter it could be
excused. But they
have one rookie TE (Loveland) who
was not even the top rated rookie TE in the league and the other
is a backup RB
(Ollie Gordon) to a near-franchise player Achane (Dec) who was
the first pick
overall in the draft. That
does not
sound promising for Gordon.
Best Pick:
James Cook. There
was a huge drop off in RB quality after
Cook was taken 18th overall (Breece Hall was taken 20th
and D Swift 23rd) plus it was a position of need for
Ball who only
saved M Lloyd and did not franchise a RB either.
Worst Pick:
C Ridley. He might
have a small resurgence having a new
QB in 2025 but the recurring drops are on him, not his QB. Even if Ridley
moderately outperforms, he was
not that cheap in the 8th round and at 30 years old
he’s exactly the
kind of player that holds the Ballers back from building for the
long term so
he will probably be a low-end saved player in 2026 at best. Who was drafted after
Ridley = youngsters
like Z Flowers, R Rice, Waddle, Jameson Williams, Ricky
Pearsall. Even DK
Metcalf was drafted after Ridley;
unlike the others named above Metcalf is not young but he still
a few years
younger than Ridley and has a much better outlook for 2026 than
Ridley.
BeaudoinBrothers
The
BeaudoinBrothers have an aging team without a clear cut
franchise player so
they had to settle for old man Derrick Henry like in 2020-2022. To compensate for this
the Bros attempted a
youth movement during this year’s draft.
Strength: Individual
Defense. The Bros
have potential to end up with the
trifecta of best DL (Crosby), best LB (Roquan Smith), and best
DB (Travis
Hunter). Crosby and
Smith are almost
always in the top 5 at their position and never far from the
top.
Weakness: WRs. The Bros waited until
the 8th
round to take their second WR (Jay Flowers); by then all PQBFL
teams except one
team had 4-5 WRs. Nico
Collins is a fine
starter but after him there are many question marks, not only
Flowers finished
as low as WR27 in 2024, but Waddle was even worse at WR33. Pearsall is unproven
and Aiyuk is
injured. So it does
not look good.
Best Pick:
Travis Hunter. Because
he’s playing both sides of the ball,
Hunter has potential to be not only best DB but might even
outscore the best
LBs.
Worst Pick:
Brock
Bowers. In their
rush to make their team
younger, the Bros burnt the second pick overall on Bowers
instead of extracting
more juice out of Kelce who could have been an ok starter, and
then the Bros failed
to trade Kelce. McBride
is not worth a
lot less than Bowers but was taken 16 picks later by Bas. So not compelling
value for Bowers unless he
crushes all TEs including McBride.
WaxOnWaxOff
There have
not been many PQBFL repeat titles since 2008: 15 of the last 16
champions did
not win the year before. The
lone repeat
during that time frame was the BeaudoinBrothers in 2019-2020. Odds are that Wax will
follow the recent
pattern and not win in 2025, in part because their franchise
player Saquon was
massively overused in 2024 and in the past such RBs did poorly
the subsequent
year. Also Ju
Jefferson has a rookie QB
which is not optimal.
Strength: RBs. Even though Saquon is
on high alert for
injury risk, Wax has a deep bench with backups such as Pacheco,
T Tracy, and J
Warren, behind starter Bucky Irving. All
three backup RBs have some competition for carries on their NFL
team but are
nonetheless clear starters.
Weakness: ROO. Perhaps Egbuka will
have a big year, after
all he’s getting lots of glowing reports in the offseason. But having to content
with M Evans and C
Godwin (once he returns from injury) it’s not so easy for Egbuka
to outscore
them both. J Dart
is not starting in NY
yet so that’s a roll of dice.
Rookie
Kaleb Johnson is doing poorly in camp, hence the positive
comments about J
Warren above. Perhaps
Wax drafted Kaleb
mostly because Wax had already saved Warren, and not because
they think Kaleb
will be a good rookie. A
low value
rookie LB completes Wax’s roster (J Campbell) but the Eagles
rarely give much
of a chance to rookie LBs based on history.
Best Pick:
LaNorris
Sellers. Not only
he has value for 2026
due to high NFL draft potential, but he should be a high scoring
QB in 2025 as
well. Wax grabbed
him at a discount in
the 10th round when the first three college players
who are quite
comparable were all taken in the 7th round.
Worst Pick:
DK Metcalf. Wax
should consider themselves lucky Metcalf
got enough votes to be cut.
As a 9th
round pick, he was not worthy of being cut, not even close. But drafting him made
little sense regardless
of being cut or not. Metcalf
has an over
the hill (new) QB and himself he’s on a new team as well, in
fact a team which
wants to play defense and run the ball.
FlyingElvis
FE
originally planned on franchising Josh Allen but made the ballsy
move to switch
to rookie Jeanty instead. If
Allen was
not worth franchise then he was not far off because he was taken
4th
overall by Adm. Jeanty
could turn out to
be a multi-year franchise for FE or could be an utter disaster
as has happened
quite often in the recent past when teams franchised a surprise
box rookie, for
example most recently M Harrison Jr last year by Prof who ended
the year ROO10
therefore not even worth a starter spot.
T Lawrence is another one who bombed out spectacularly in
2021 as ROO9,
and even worse than Harrison, because the following year
Lawrence was not even
worth a cut player or a saved player – he was simply let go. So FE has a wide range
of potential outcomes
here.
Strength: TEs. M Andrews + Goedert is
a very solid duo, it
was not long ago that Andrews was a top TE and I Likely is
currently banged
up. Goedert is
unlikely to be top 5 but he’s
one of the best backup TEs one can have, close to TE10 in the
league. Even D
Waller might contribute now that he
came out of retirement.
Weakness: WRs. Drake London is the
WR1 with the second
lowest projections of all PQBFL teams (only Dec is below with Ty
Hill as
WR1). D Adams is a
question mark due to
age, new team, and playing behind Puka Nacua.
Diggs could be a serviceable backup but is coming off
injury, and then
WR4-5 are pitiful: M Brown has not done anything in years and
has lots of
competition for balls in KC; last but not least, Marvin Mims has
decent odds of
finishing bottom 5 WR in the PQBFL.
Best Pick:
Matthew
Golden. Kaleb
Johnson was the 6th
rookie taken at 34th overall and then there was no
other rookie
drafted until Golden at 51st overall. He was great value
because all other Packers
WRs have issues so there is a chance Golden might turn out to be
WR1 on a top
quartile offense.
Worst Pick:
Javonte
Williams. What a
waste of a 6th
round pick. Williams
could not do
anything in Denver as the clear starter, now he has competition
in DAL so why
would the results be any different? Also
it’s not like FE needed a RB at that point, FE already
franchised Jacobs and
saved Etienne, Dobbins, and Ekeler, all of which should be
better than
Williams, which means FE drafted their RB5 in the 6th
round when
there were other holes to fill.
And
Williams is unlikely to be good trade bait; he’s more like
rotten fish.
ProfessorMJ
Prof
struggled on a number of fronts in 2024 but had two prime
franchise players to
keep in 2025: CD Lamb and M Nabers. That
combined with a solid draft, Prof projects to have above average
starters and
above average key backups.
Strength: WRs. Not only the starters
are elite but backups
Addison and Jameson Williams are young and have potential. Deebo has had ups and
downs but could
surprise on the upside in a more dynamic offense now that he
left SF for WAS.
Weakness: Rookies. Well perhaps it won’t
be a weakness, Tyler
Shough could end up the starter in NO if Rattler fails. Likewise, S Sanders
could start at some
point. But until
then, Prof would have
been well suited to draft a solid but not flashy rookie with
consistent scoring
until one of their rookie QBs plays, for example someone on
defense, or a TE, or
even a kicker. Instead,
Prof drafted two
guys who will not see the field much unless there are injuries:
Tory Horton is a
WR in SEA and Tahj Brooks a RB for the Bengals.
Nobody will be surprised if they average as low as 2-3
pts per game.
Best Pick:
M Garrett. It’s
amazing that Garrett was the 9th
defensive player taken – 6 LBs and 2 DLs went before him.
Worst Pick:
Breece Hall. Sure
the RBs were being taken like hot cakes
and the cupboard was running empty at that point in the draft,
but Hall looks
stuck in a RB by committee with the lowly Jets so he could have
been available
later; 20th overall was expensive for such a player. Prof could also have
accepted to be weak at
RB and simply drafted a much more solid player at another
position.
GloriousBastards
Strength: QBs. J Daniels could
develop into the best QB in
the league, and behind him are two young QBs which could be
worthy saved
players for years to come: Nix and Purdy.
Weakness: Team Defense. Drafting only one team
defense was a mistake
because it's not possible to play matchups on a weekly basis. At least if the one
defense that Bas drafted
was a top one then perhaps it would be easier to forgive, but
they are
not. The Packers
are not top 9 in the
PQBFL. Edit. Now that the Packers
acquired M Parsons via
trade, perhaps they will be top 9.
Bas
got lucky here.
Best Pick:
T McBride. What
great value in the 3rd round
for the second best TE on the board when all others are old
(Kittle, Kelce,
Andrews) or have injury / QB issues (Hockenson, LaPorta).
Worst Pick:
Jordan
Mason. Yes, there
is talk that Mason
could challenge Aaron Jones for serious workload. But Mason will be RB
1B at best, while A
Jones is RB 1A. Also
A Jones happens to
be on Bas’ saved roster so this is purely a bet that Jones will
get hurt
because if both are healthy this is not an optimal situation
compounded by the
fact that Bas only has 4 RBs so when both Jones+Mason are on
bye, Bas only has
the bare minimum of two RBs remaining which leaves no room for
error.
Decepticons
Dec are
projecting to be a fairly average team in 2025 : average saved
team on offense,
average saved team on defense, and Dec seemed to have an average
draft. Both
strength of starters and key backups
project to be… average.
Strength: Starting RBs. J Taylor and Achane
are one of the best
starting RB duos in the PQBFL, if not the best.
Weakness: Depth. At first glance based
on key backups Dec
seems average, however there are too many potential holes where
Dec exposed
themselves to injury risk due to drafting 6 rookies, 4 college
players, and 5
LBs. Having 2 QBs
is not enough, it
seems Dec did not learn from last year’s experience when both
Tua Tago and J
Love got injured at the same time early in the season and it
sunk Dec from the
get go. Dec also
only drafted 1 kicker
so one goose egg is guaranteed on bye week unless Dec trades. And rostering only 2
DBs, DLs, TEs does not
feel very secure either.
Best Pick:
Mahomes. Four of
the first 10 picks of the draft were
QBs in addition to L-Jax being saved.
Mahomes was safe value and much more of a budget pick at
19th
overall which did not sting as much as the teams which burnt a
top 10 pick for
a QB, unlike Dec.
Worst Pick:
Omarion
Hampton. With the
11th
overall pick this was way too early especially since the
Chargers also signed
Najee Harris so the path is not clear for Hampton. The Chargers having
lost their top O Lineman
and highest paid in the entire NFL (Slater) will not help
either. This pick
can only make sense for 2026 and
beyond but even a guy like Bucky Irving (the best rookie RB from
2024) was not
even worth franchise player in 2025. So
we’ll see.
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