Top 5 2025 Rookie Draft Strategy Tips

Welcome To Michael Sicoli’s Top 5 2025 Rookie Draft Strategy Tips & Advice!

While redraft managers have to wait until late summer to enjoy a fun-filled draft, dynasty managers know their draft is right around the corner.

Rookie drafts are the lifeblood of any good dynasty team, refilling contenders with youthful prospects while offering a rebuilding team the cornerstone it desperately needs. But a lot of factors go into these picks, from trade considerations to scoring/roster settings to team need, and mistakes can be made along the way.

Here are five tips to make sure you make the right calls in your rookie drafts this spring.

#1 – Avoid reaching for team needs.

This is a simple tip that is applied equally well to real life as it is to fantasy. But the difference with dynasty drafts comes with how easy it is to reshape your roster.

Unless you’re playing in a contract-based league, you will make a ton of trades without major repercussions to fill needs. Teams that need a running back in April should not reach for one that has seemingly good opportunity at the cost of a wide receiver with a better profile.

It’s more profitable and effective to spend a second or third-round pick down the line on a veteran running back that fills the need than accept a lesser prospect. Every year this example exists, from Trey Benson to Trey Sermon to Clyde Edwards-Helaire being taken at the expense of better players due to the lack of valued running backs in the draft class.

Draft the best player available, more often than not, with positional need serving as a slight tiebreaker. Your league-winning roster won’t be the same as it was in April.

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#2 – Show patience with IDP prospects.

This applies both in the draft and after it. Defensive prospects aren’t as plug-and-play for fantasy football as a running back, quarterback or wide receiver may be.

Defensive linemen often take at least couple years to take the leap expected of them. Linebackers are rarely drafted into starting roles, let alone one with play calling duties as we expect of our LB1s and high-end LB2s. Defensive backs can be highly subject to scheme and are often held on the sideline if they’re struggling early on.

This isn’t to say, “Don’t draft IDPs.” Instead managers should alter expectations and even send out a few trades to try and buy low when those slow starts ensue. But these defensive prospects should carry less value than similarly tiered offensive prospects that can produce immediately.

This 2025 class carries a lot of defensive standout prospects, which only fortifies the idea of waiting on your IDP prospects.

#3 – Draft capital matters… most of the time.

Every year fantasy managers identify their favorite prospects — Sean Tucker, Hakeem Butler, Sam Howell, Malik Willis — all for the NFL to turn their nose up at them. When this happens, fantasy managers need to adjust in turn.

Day 3 prospects have a significantly lower hit rate for obvious reasons, as their contracts and draft investment is easier to move on from while also starting further behind on the depth chart. Running backs often find their way to still provide value due to the injuries that occur ahead of them, but as seen with Trey Benson in 2025, that’s still not a guarantee.

If the NFL doesn’t like your prospect, adjust accordingly. Don’t take them off your draft board — Puka Nacua, Isiah Pacheco and Khalil Shakir are proof of this — but recognize the situation.

Did they go to an organization that seems likely to move on from the regime in 2026, making your prospect all the more vulnerable? Did they go somewhere to sit behind a locked-in starter? Is there a route to carving part-time work, whether that’s a third-down running back or an edge rusher behind a part-time veteran like Zadarius Smith?

Ask these questions before diving into a falling prospect. Rookie Draft Strategy

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#4 – Target 2026 picks before reaching on a player

The day of your rookie draft is as cheap as 2026 draft picks will be from that day forward. The second the clock flips past the 2025 rookies those draft selections become infinitely more valuable.

So with that in mind, consider making offers for those picks before your draft or even during. There will always be a perceived best player available that you don’t need or want, one that you might be able to trade in exchange for 2026 draft capital to add a capable veteran.

Adding those picks also gives you the versatility to make trades and roster moves that may best fit your franchise rather than stashing a long-shot prospect.

#5 – Do your homework! Rookie Draft Strategy

It goes without saying that knowing more about the prospects in a draft class helps. Not only do you gain some insight into your investment, but you garner a personal connection with your prospects. That’s just fun.

But fun aside, for analytical managers there are plenty of metrics to look for. Consider looking up prospect’s RAS score (athletic ability), an offensive player’s dominator rating and target share or one’s breakout range. All carry value on top of whatever you film you could find; Just try to avoid taking highlight clips as gospel.

You can find Michael Sicoli at: @michaelsicoli.Bsky.social & @michael__sicoli (X) for more great fantasy football & NFL player advice! IDP Buy/Sell/Holds