The Weekly Bender: Early Draft Favorites

Sat May 24 9:54am ET
By HOWARD BENDER
Fantasy Writer

Nix seems like a great value

It’s never too early to start drafting your fantasy football teams. No, seriously. It’s ever too early.

Just give a look around the fantasy sports community and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Hardly anyone plays season-long fantasy basketball or fantasy hockey and if I’m being morbidly honest, the game of fantasy baseball is dying out as well. It hurts me to say it and I will continue to play, but the general public has moved more towards DFS and betting in those sports and it’s getting increasingly more difficult to find a legitimate league with legitimate owners.

But football paints a much different picture. Sure, the DFS and betting work has increased, but fantasy football will seemingly never die out. It is insanely popular with adults and there is always a strong contingency of the younger generation looking to create leagues with their friends. You have dynasty leagues that run 365 days a year, the rise of best-ball and, of course, the growing community of high-stakes players who invest thousands of dollars chasing six-figure prizes like The Fantasy Championship offers. Heck, we even have a $10,000 tournament prize for the Beat Bender Best Ball Leagues this year!

Now I get it. The calendar still says May and we’re not even getting full news cycles that discuss what is happening at spring OTA’s or what we can expect from certain position battles around the league. But that doesn’t mean our research doesn’t need to start today. Between free agency, all the coaching movement, the rookies from the NFL Draft and the 2025 NFL schedule release there is plenty to analyze and discuss. You just have to dig a little deeper than checking the player news.

To get things started, I’m going to give out a few of my favorite targets for the 2025 fantasy football season. Some of the reasoning is speculative, but for the most part, these early flag plants come from all of the research I’ve done leading up to today. Coaching movement, free agency and how a team drafted this year all play a factor in some way. For those who have competed against me in these early Beat Bender drafts or have watched the Fantasy Championship Draft livestreams I’ve done with Jeff Paur, you know how much I like drafting these players. If you haven’t, get ready to start taking notes.

Bo Nix, QB Denver Broncos

Drafting quarterbacks has become quite different over the last few seasons as more and more people are drafting the position early in order to obtain one of the top rushing quarterbacks. It’s a sound strategy if your guy is going to add 4-50 rushing yards per game and a rushing touchdown on top of any passing numbers, but you don’t have to use a top pick on Josh Allen or Jalen Hurts to gain said advantage.

Nix rushed for 430 yards and four touchdowns during his rookie campaign and his 3,775 passing yards and 29 passing touchdowns were actually better than the passing totals both Allen and Hurts produced. Now in Year 2 of Sean Payton and Joe Lombardi’s system, we expect Nix to take a step forward this season as the team increases the weaponry at his disposal. And in looking at current fantasy football ADP, I think I’d rather have a third or fourth-round Breece Hall with Nix over Allen and say, Travis Etienne.

Kenneth Walker III, RB Seattle Seahawks

This one is all about coaching schemes. Seattle head coach Mike Macdonald fired offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb because he felt the offense was too pass-heavy and not conservative enough for him. He replaced him with Klint Kubiak who, like his father Gary, has a run-first mentality and is ready to deliver exactly what Macdonald is hoping to see. Kubiak brought in long-time offensive line guru Rick Dennison who, with the elder Kubiak, developed one of the most effective run-blocking schemes and helped churn out 1,000-yard rushers almost every season from the late-90’s to present day.

In addition to bringing in Dennison, Kubiak re-signed fullback Brady Russell and then requested the team draft Robbie Ouzts, a massive tight end out of Alabama who was just converted to fullback. All signs point to Kubiak running the football early and often which puts Walker near the top of my draft lists. His explosiveness is going to be huge whether it’s inside or outside-zone running and if you’re concerned over his injuries in recent seasons, just handcuff him to Zach Charbonnet. Remember, it’s about the system, not necessarily the player.

Garrett Wilson, WR New York Jets

Are you telling me that people are so down on the Jets and so down on Justin Fields that Wilson deserves to fall down to the late fourth round? That seems incredibly egregious to me and I am grabbing Wilson every chance I get at this value. I understand that Fields has been a disappointment for us over the first three years of his career, but I do feel like there’s promise ahead and that should spill into more work for Wilson.

Fields is now onto his fourth offensive coordinator in four years but in this case, the coordinator (and head coach) actually wanted Fields and is designing the scheme around his strengths. Offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand has already discussed the need to work on Fields’ accuracy and he plans on doing it with a lot of short, high-percentage passing. He wants to get the ball into Wilson’s hands and turn him into a YAC monster. And considering the competition for targets is almost non-existent, Wilson is going to see a boatload of work.

Evan Engram, TE Denver Broncos

Many of you have already heard me discuss Engram and the “joker role” developed by Sean Payton and Joe Lombardi, but if you haven’t, it’s quite simple. Here’s what I wrote in the last Weekly Bender:

“Payton and Lombardi have been looking for a player to serve as their “joker,” a non-receiver who can line up as such, run clean routes and has good hands. Engram showed us that he can play that part after dominating with targets and receptions in Jacksonville. The correlation between what Payton and Lombardi are doing now versus how they built their team in New Orleans is evident. Harvey plays the Alvin Kamara role, Sutton is the Michael Thomas role and that leaves Engram to be the next Jimmy Graham? Yes, please!”

With people grabbing Brock Bowers and Trey McBride in the second and then watching Sam LaPorta and George Kittle go in the fourth and fifth, it’s nice to get a bargain in the sixth or seventh in Engram. Just think if what could be should he start to see a target share similar to what Graham did back in the day.

Just a few examples of some of my early favorites. If you want to see more, just jump into one of the Beat Bender Best Ball Tournament leagues, scout my picks and try your hand at beating me for $10,000.

Bender out!

The Weekly Bender: Early Draft Favorites

The Paur Report