Happy Friday!

Welcome all to the FIRST First Seed Fantasy newsletter of the 2025 draft season.

I return to writing this newsletter as the draft season begins to warm up. Rankings and draft rooms are brewing, drafts are being scheduled and new leagues are being considered.

If you’re new here, hello! If you were with my last year, I missed you. I will be sending this newsletter weekly to pair with my Abusing Draft Rankings tool as a way to highlight draft values, share my personal rankings and discuss some roster news throughout the summer.

Now let’s prepare to win these drafts!

In this week’s newsletter:

• 🏷️ First Look Draft Values

• 📉 ADP Trends: 2025 vs 2024

• 🥇 First Draft Rankings

• 🔜 Next Week’s Preview

🏷️ First Look Draft Values

Every week I’ll highlight draft values found in draft rooms, primarily using my Abusing Draft Rankings tool to help find these players.

Obviously right now it’s too early to take advantage of these values, unless you’re drafting this weekend! It’s still a massive benefit to keep an eye on both ADP trends (listed in the next section) and consistent discrepancies between ADP and expert ranks.

WR Garrett Wilson - ESPN

Draft room rank: WR13 | Expert rank: WR21

A two-round difference in the first four rounds is an absolute steal. FantasyPros ECR has Wilson going in the late second round, while ESPN has him ranked in the middle of the 4th - two rounds!! We’ll monitor this as the season approaches, but Wilson is presently a strong value.

WR Chris Olave – ESPN

Draft room rank: WR26 | Expert rank: WR36

Another two-round discount on a player who has shown that he can be a stud. Olave may finally have settled into his true value here in the early-middle rounds but I always love to take advantage of a draft room that has him ranked later.

WR Jauan Jennings - Sleeper

Draft room rank: WR40 | Expert rank: WR52

Jennings is in line for a bigger role in San Francisco with the departure of Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk returning from a knee injury. In Sleeper draft rooms you can get a three round discount on Jennings and I’m buying.

WR Travis Hunter - Yahoo

Draft room rank: WR31 | Expert rank: WR48

This is a wide difference in ranking on Yahoo, and understandably so - we don’t know how much play time Hunter will see at WR this year… but he’s currently ranked to go at the start of the 6th round by experts, appears at the start of the 11th in Yahoo drafts. For a late round pick, it looks like you can get a mid-round value in Hunter and that’s some value I’ll buy in on.

New for 2025: Landmine Score - It’s a 0-10 scale that rates how risky a player is in your draft room - based on how much earlier they’re ranked on your platform versus expert consensus.

Most players land somewhere in the 5-6 range. A score of 10 means they’re being pushed way up the board and you’re probably walking into a trap. A 0? That’s a straight-up steal.

📉 ADP Trends: 2025 vs 2024

Each week moving forward this section will highlight weekly shifts in ADP to get a good sense of player movement as drafts and hype begin to exist throughout the summer. To start the summer off I’ll instead highlight the differences between ADP this season vs last:

📈 WRs are the new early-round obsession

• 19 WRs are going in Rounds 1–3 this year (up from 17 last year)

• WRs also dominate the mid rounds: 28 WRs in Rounds 4–8 (up from 22)

• Bottom line: Elite WRs are being prioritized, especially in Round 1

📉 RBs aren’t falling off a cliff — but they’re sliding

• Slight dip in presence across early/mid rounds

• Still critical, but now it’s more about timing and value than “anchor RB” in drafts this season

💸 QBs are being drafted earlier (again)

• ADP for QBs has shifted earlier this year, moving from an average of pick 126 to 108

• Slight rise in middle-round QB picks, highlighted by Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen and Jayden Daniels

💥 TEs are boom-or-bust only

• The middle class is gone - from 9 mid-round tight ends last year to just 4 in 2025

• You’re either taking Bowers, McBride or Kittle early… or punting the position into the later rounds

🥇 Top-Ten QBs

The first draft of my 2025 draft rankings are LIVE! Here’s a look at my top QBs. Feel free to view all player ranks at the link below.

📬 If this was forwarded to you…

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🔜 Next Week: Abusing ADP Like a Pro

Next week we’ll take a closer look at the Abusing Draft Rankings tool (linked above). We’ll break down how to actually use the tool to spot player values on each major fantasy hosting platform - and walk through additional players you can target (or avoid) right now.

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