Nate's 2025 Flag Plants

08/28/2025

By @BallCoach_Nate on X

Here are my most TIMID flag plants for the 2025 best ball season!

I’ll preface this by saying I think these guys will outperform their ADP / Rank. I’m not a huge fan of content creators rankings and hot takes if it’s not backed by their reasoning.

Here is my WHO and WHY for each position:

Quarterback:

Trevor Lawrence

—Underdog Rank: QB 19 (ADP 130)

—DraftKings Rank: QB 20 (ADP 131)

Reason:  Liam Coen. Even more specifically, Sean McVay. 

We all heard the ole cliche that the NFL is a copy cat league. Sure enough, slowly but surely more teams are using MOTION to identify coverages pre-snap and leverage the numbers to their advantage. 

In 2023, only 3 teams used motion more than 70% of plays. In 2024, this number jumped to 12 teams!

The last 2 years, the Jaguars averaged the 7th least motion snaps in the NFL ~54%.  Coen will make the offense simpler for the uber-talented Lawrence and they have the talent at WR with BTJ and Hunter (and solid depth with Dyami / Washington) to be a top 10 passing offense.

Preseason is pretty vanilla and I’m not a huge fan of stats but Lawrence was 14 for 17 in the 2 games he played in.

Prediction: Top 12 QB finish on UD/DK.  Lawrence is my top owned QB (with Burrow) at 11% exposure.

Here is my favorite play of the preseason:

Running Back:

Najee Harris

—Underdog Rank: RB 52 (ADP 161)

—DraftKings Rank: RB 53 ADP 164)

I had a couple posts before but this is my biggest stand for any player in 2025.  I was hammering his 105 ADP in June and when the firework went off in his eyeball, I doubled down and took more of him. 

Here’s why - besides the consistency, all 4 years in his NFL career, he’s rushed for 1,000+ yards and played in all 17 games, starting every one, he’s in a much better situation than 2024.

I’m no OL guru but I can gather general sentiment and see the Steelers had a consensus bottom 5 OL in 2024.  Not their own fault, there were injuries and inconsistent QB play.

Now, Najee signs with the Chargers who’s OL revived JK Dobbins and Gus Edwards to fantasy relevance.  The Rashawn Slater injury hurts but Greg Roman and Harbaugh will want to run the ball (having a Top 10 QB with explosive WRs helps too).  This is NOT apples to apples but we saw 2 vets last year move from bad teams with poor OL play to playoff teams with great OLs (Barkley / Henry).

Yes, the Chargers drafted Omarion Hampton in the first round (22nd overall) but Najee was a first round pick too (24th overall in 2021).  They’re both 6’0”+ 220lb RBs with more of an aggressive run style than elusive.

That being said, Najee is still being slept on. He was 5th in Missed Tackles Forced last year, tied with Jahmyr Gibbs (1 more than Barkley).  He was 8th in 10+ Yard Rushes - that’s more than Bucky, Kyren, Breece, Chuba, and Kamara to name a few.  The talent isn’t disappearing.

Omarion Hampton is solid - my eyes in February had him compared to Tank Bigsby.  He’s fine, he’s a young Najee but…

The price for any Greg Roman / Jim Harbaugh RB is steep. Harbaugh and Roman have historically distributed the snap share between their RBs somewhat evenly to keep them fresh. 

This isn’t a McVay / Kyren 85% snap share.  This is a rotation.  There is a fantasy brain rot to say 1st Round RB = 100% carries but this is not reality (Look up Bijan / Allgeier snap share in 2023).

In the screenshot below, I looked at Greg Roman’s last 5 years as OC (he took 2023 off).  Harbaugh did the same thing at Michigan with Corum and Donovan Edwards. This is a philosophy.

Lastly, back to ADP!  Najee is being drafted as RB 52 and RB 53 on UD/DK.  In 2024, the RB 52 was Zack Moss with a whopping 70.4 Half PPR points. That’s 4.14 points per game!   On DK, RB 53 was Samaje Perine…

Prediction: Najee finishes as a top 30 RB and scores 130+ half PPR points!

Wide Receiver:

Dyami Brown

—Underdog Rank: WR 79 (ADP 191)

—DraftKings Rank: WR 96 ADP 218)

I want to start off by saying I almost picked Deebo Samuel. Deebo is my 2nd most owned WR, only behind Dyami. Very excited to see how Kliff uses him this year. I think with his injury history, being drafted as WR 33 is fair but I bet he finishes top 24 (if he doesn’t get hurt for 3+ games).

Now to Mr. Dyami.

I know, shocking since I have Trevor Lawrence as my top owned QB.  The price is too good to be true though!

He hasn’t proven much in his first 4 years in the league but I believe.

Last year he caught 30 of 38 targets (6th best catch rate in the NFL).  We talk about how much Jayden helped McLaurin but now let’s see Dyami with a competent OC and QB PLUS more opportunities. 

The bet is also pivoting from Travis Hunter. If Hunter doesn’t play 80% of the offensive snaps or gets injured, it’s even more opportunity for Dyami. 

Dyami can play in the slot or outside. He had 7.6 YAC/REC last year, 8th best in the NFL.  He came into the league as a deep ball specialist but he’s improved his route running a bit and can work underneath while BTJ takes the top off the defense too.

Kliff used Dyami on fades, digs, hitches, and screens primarily - as well as some jet sweeps - but I’ll be excited to see how Liam uses the guy.

With defenses paying attention to BTJ this year, I think believe Dyami will be the beneficiary. The 1 year - $10M contract is a big bet on himself to continue his career in the league.

Especially in best ball, when we want the spike weeks - there is a path to consistent fantasy scoring with the upside to hit big plays if this offense is rolling.

To hit his WR 79 in ADP on Underdog, he needs to beat Mack Hollins 83.3 FP/season = 4.9 FP/game.

To hit his WR 96 in ADP on DraftKings, he needs to bear Brandin Cooke 69.6 FP/season = 4.1 FP/game.

Prediction: Dyami has a career year, finishes as a top 50 WR, scores 115+ fantasy points this year.  He also goes for 5/100/2 in week 17

Tight End:

Terrance Ferguson

—Underdog Rank: TR 36 (ADP 215)

—DraftKings Rank: TE 38 (ADP 228)

T-Ferg, Fergie, Lil Bro - has been flying under the fantasy radar and has been my favorite last round (R18 / R20) player to take a flyer on. 

Yes, he’s a rookie. He’s a rookie going to Sean McVay’s offense.  Historically, TEs never feasted in McVay’s offense but was that because they didn’t feature them or because they never had an athletic stud like Ferguson?

McVay was gushing over the #46 overall pick, “He has some similar body mannerisms as Travis Kelce. I remember my first year coaching TEs, evaluating and Travis Kelce coming out of Cincinatti. He has a great feel for the soft spots. We’re very excited about him.”

Ferguson, brother to Jake, has the bloodline.  He played 42% of his snaps last year in the slot, 42% in line (attached to the OL).  He is not Brock Bowers in terms of athlete or blocking (but who is?) but he’s a much better overall prospect than Kyle Pitts.

Ferguson scored a 9.32 RAS score - which ranks him 92/1338 TE prospects. He’s a little light in the ass blocking Ends but showed he can hold his own in preseason. Should be enough to get him on the field more than anticipated and a lot by the end of the year.  It’s Tyler Higbee’s 10th season and I believe T-Ferg is getting 70% of the snaps by fantasy playoffs, considering McVay’s been a primarily heavy 11P team.

Prediction: The bar is low to beat his ADP / TE Rank. Terrance would need to clear 56.7 half PPR points to beat TE 36 last season. That’s only 3.5 PPG.

I believe he will have a floor higher than that and provide some spike weeks and RZ targets too.

TE 24 - 40 Catches / 350 yards / 4 TDs = 79 Half PPR