- Davante Adams and the Los Angeles Rams get the party started: Adams joins Puka Nacua in Los Angeles to work as Matthew Stafford’s dynamic duo of high-end target-earners in 2025.
- Najee Harris and Javonte Williams find prime landing spots: Both players land on ideal rosters for a strong path to touches, increasing their fantasy values right now.
- 2025 NFL Draft season is here: Try PFF's best-in-class Mock Draft Simulator and learn about 2025's top prospects while trading and drafting for your favorite NFL team.
Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes
The NFL's legal tampering period opened Monday, which allowed for an explosion of news as players agreed to terms with new teams throughout the league. The wide receivers stole the show this week, with the running backs taking a back seat, which wasn’t the case last year. Either way, there were plenty of fantasy-relevant moves to dive into.
Listed below are all the key moves from this past week and the first wave of free agency with initial thoughts on how these changes will affect fantasy values in 2025.
Davante Adams lands with the Los Angeles Rams
Fantasy Value: Mid-range to low-end WR2
Adams was arguably the biggest fantasy-relevant free agent following his release from the New York Jets, and there’s reason to believe that level of fantasy relevance will continue with the Rams. Adams split his time with the Las Vegas Raiders and the aforementioned Jets this past season and still finished as the PPR WR14 thanks to his high-end target-earning ability, despite being in his 30s and Year 11 of his NFL career.
Adams has been a perennial WR1 candidate for several years now, and while he may be on the fringes of that territory in 2025, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him succeed in a high-quality passing offense where there needs to be another top receiving option next to Puka Nacua. (Cooper Kupp is on a path to be traded or released.)
Adams ranked 10th among all wide receivers (minimum 100 routes) in target rate (25.9%) this past season, showcasing his ability to command targets at an elite rate, which fuels the majority of his fantasy value at this point in his career. The likely departing Kupp earned a 27.2% target rate in 2024, so there should be no concern about Nacua’s fantasy value not being able to survive another elite target earner in the offense, as quarterback Matthew Stafford has shown an ability to support two fantasy-relevant wide receivers for multiple seasons now.
Davante Adams: Career PFF Grades
D.K. Metcalf gets traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers
Fantasy Value: Low-end WR2/High-end WR3
Metcalf moved from Seattle to Pittsburgh this week — and earned a new contract extension — but more importantly, the question will be whether he and George Pickens can co-exist as the team’s top two wide receivers. Both players will vie for targets in a run-heavy offense.
Metcalf moves from Seattle, a top-five team in pass rate this past season (65.9%), to Pittsburgh, which ranked in the bottom five in that regard (55.3%). The Steelers' offense hasn’t supported two top-24 PPR wide receivers since 2020 (JuJu Smith-Schuster and Diontae Johnson), when Ben Roethlisberger was under center and the last time the team ranked in the top five in pass rate in a season (66.0%). Over the past three seasons, Pittsburgh has been below the league average — often well below — in pass rate, and that’s unlikely to change much in 2025 with Arthur Smith still installed as offensive coordinator.
Metcalf’s potential for a bounce-back in 2025 isn’t out of the realm of possibilities, and if he can reestablish himself as the alpha wide receiver over Pickens in this offense, he could be a weekly fantasy starter. The issue with the Steelers' offense, on top of not knowing who will play quarterback in 2025, is that it’s unlikely both Metcalf and Pickens are weekly fantasy options this season.
Read more: 2025 NFL Free Agency Tracker — Signings, trades and cuts for all 32 NFL teams
Chris Godwin remains in Tampa Bay
Fantasy Value: Mid-range to low-end WR2
Godwin was on pace for a top-12 fantasy wide receiver season in 2024 with the Buccaneers before suffering a dislocated ankle, which ended his campaign. Godwin was the PPR WR2 over the first seven weeks of the year, thriving in the offense as he moved back to more of a slot-heavy deployment, which wasn’t the case in 2023. While WR1-type numbers aren’t necessarily expected for Godwin in 2025, especially coming off an injury, this deal speaks to Tampa Bay’s confidence in him to bounce back and return to being a weekly impactful receiving option for them and Baker Mayfield.
Both Godwin and Mike Evans will command the lion’s share of targets every week, and thanks to Mayfield and Tampa Bay’s willingness to throw the ball, there should be enough targets to go around, which would allow each to continue as a weekly starting fantasy option in 2025, as we’ve seen before.
Sam Darnold is the Seattle Seahawks‘ new QB1
Fantasy Value: Low-end QB2
After Seattle shipped Geno Smith off to Las Vegas a few days ago, they replaced him with another successful first-round reclamation project in Darnold, who got a healthy three-year contract from the team. Darnold had a career year in Minnesota this past season, delivering a top-10 PFF passing grade (80.3) during the regular season and finishing as the seventh-most valuable quarterback in PFF WAR. It helped that he was throwing to Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson for almost the entire season, so as his receiving corps downgrades to basically just Jaxon Smith-Njigba in 2025, as of now, there should at least be questions about whether Darnold can replicate his career year.
Based on Darnold’s performances at the end of the 2024 season, combined with a previous larger sample size of below-average quarterback play, there’s reason to be concerned about Darnold maintaining his fantasy value in 2025. He should still be viewed as a QB2 type after a lot of positive metrics to come out of 2024, although a new offense and just one legitimate receiving threat on the team compared to three with the Vikings will likely keep him from improving his fantasy value anymore this year.
Justin Fields gets another shot to start with the New York Jets
Fantasy Value: Low-end QB1
With the Jets moving on from Aaron Rodgers and not necessarily being in a position to draft a quarterback in 2025, Fields lands on one of the better rosters for a shot at getting back to being a starting fantasy quarterback. Fields hasn’t lived up to his first-round potential so far in his career, though he certainly has for fantasy purposes, delivering high-end fantasy production, specifically as a runner, and pushing to be considered as a top-10 fantasy quarterback. Through six weeks in 2024, Fields was the overall QB6 for fantasy, racking up 231 rushing yards (fourth), five rushing touchdowns (first) and more than 1,100 passing yards.
Fields’ rushing ability is the catalyst for his high-end fantasy value, and as long as he’s in a starting role, he’ll have the opportunity to produce starter-level fantasy production. He will also reunite with his college teammate and WR1 Garrett Wilson, which should be a positive for both players in 2025, though because of Fields’ willingness to run and below-average passing, it likely doesn’t boost Wilson’s value as much as it does Fields'.
Javonte Williams is currently the Dallas Cowboys‘ RB1
Fantasy Value: Low-end RB2
There weren’t many better landing spots for a starting running back than the backfield-needy Cowboys this offseason. Williams offered one of the better college profiles for a running back prospect in recent years, and he hit the ground running in Year 1, posting a 76.0 PFF rushing grade (22nd) and the second-most forced missed tackles as a runner (63) on the year. Unfortunately, Williams’ knee injury early in Year 2 hasn’t allowed him to get back to that level since.
A new offense and a strong path to touches should allow Williams to prove whether he can return to form as he enters this season at just 25 years old. If the Cowboys lean on Williams as they did with Rico Dowdle last season, there’s plenty of fantasy value to target here after Dowdle finished the season as the PPR RB23. Williams’ value last season was almost exclusively as a receiver, especially in the latter half of the year, finishing as the PPR RB31. Getting a potential every-down role in Dallas should make him a locked-in RB2 based on volume at the very least in 2025.
Javonte Williams: Career PFF Grades
Najee Harris gets another shot as the lead back, this time for the Los Angeles Chargers
Fantasy Value: High-end to mid-range RB2
Harris has slowly improved his PFF rushing grade in each of his four NFL seasons, allowing him to deliver at least 1,000 rushing yards every year, despite sharing some of his workload with Jaylen Warren in recent years. One of the most valuable aspects of bringing in Harris is that he’s been remarkably healthy in his career, having never missed a game so far. After Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins both missed time for the team last year, which hurt their run-heavy approach, the Chargers likely view Harris as a more valuable piece for their offense.
Harris doesn’t currently have the competition for touches in Los Angeles that he did in Pittsburgh with Warren, so there’s a path for him to be an every-down back. That wouldn't be too dissimilar from his rookie year, when he finished as the PPR RB3. While that is by far the most optimistic outcome in terms of fantasy finishes, getting that type of workload on a top offense, and a top-10 run-heavy offense, would allow him to push for a top-12 PPR finish, assuming the Chargers don’t add more to that backfield. For now, Harris becomes an obvious RB2 target in drafts with weekly RB1 upside.
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