As the NFL and fantasy football continue to evolve, so should your draft strategy. In years past, fantasy pundits were clamoring for you to wait on the quarterback position, and while it still sits as one of the deeper skill positions, there is definitely an advantage to drafting one of the top gunslingers early. 

Maybe gunslinger is the wrong word, because the majority of the top tier of fantasy quarterbacks is there because of rushing upside. The added points you can gain by using a quarterback who can add 40 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown (10 fantasy points) are a major difference-maker. Of course, true gunslingers can easily make their way into the top tier, depending on the volume of passing they do, but with the evolution of both the position and the fantasy game, it’s legs first and arm second.

Here is how I see the top-five quarterbacks for the 2025 fantasy football season.

 

 

Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills

The reigning NFL MVP gets the nod here as my top quarterback heading into the 2025 fantasy football season, but it’s really not by a wide margin. Statistically, he fell short of Lamar Jackson’s totals, but we also saw him working to get more comfortable in Joe Brady’s offense. He had almost 100 fewer pass attempts than usual, and he had fewer 300-yard efforts than he had in the four previous seasons. But rushing yards and rushing touchdowns remained comparable, so if the Bills can get their passing game back to what it was, then Allen should see a resurgence in his passing numbers. He still doesn’t have a consensus No. 1 receiver in this system, but with the addition of catch-and-run specialists like Elijah Moore and Joshua Palmer, we can expect an all-around boost to push Allen to the statistical top, once again.

 

 

 

Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens

Jackson will finish the 2025 season at or near the top in the rankings once again. He’s just way too talented not to, and, if I’m being honest, he should have actually won the MVP again last year. But with a career-high in both passing yards (4,172) and passing touchdowns (41), the question of whether he can repeat those totals again comes into play. Not to mention, the 915 rushing yards were the most he’s posted since the 2020 season. The only added weapon the Ravens brought in was DeAndre Hopkins, and his best years are long behind him. Opposing defensive coordinators are going to be working on ways to contain him while not letting Derrick Henry run them over, so I just don’t see the numbers repeating. They’ll still be great, but not what they were in 2024.

 

 

 

Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders

The reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year had himself a season for the ages, and he immediately belongs in the conversation for the top spot. His passing work probably needs a little more growth, but with over 3,500 passing yards and a 25:9 TD:INT last season, it’s tough to nitpick. Even his near-900 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns seem repeatable, so it’s going to come down to whether or not his passing numbers increase. The Commanders are likely to keep his passing as conservative as last year – 7.4 YPA ranked him 14th among quarterbacks with at least 10 starts – and replacing field-stretcher Dyami Brown with Deebo Samuel indicates that, but even if he stays relatively close to the same level of production, he’s going to finish the season among the top-three overall.

 

 

 

Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles

Super Bowl hangover? Probably not. His run to the championship was spectacular, but the Eagles leaned heavily on Saquon Barkley, which certainly lightened the stress and workload for Hurts. He threw for the lowest number of passing yards (2,903) since his rookie season, but the continued use of the tush-push kept his rushing touchdown total up to where we are used to seeing it. What should be most interesting to watch this season is how Vic Fangio works the defense. We say it all the time – “running the football is a luxury of a winning team,” – and the fact that Barkley was so effective was one of the primary reasons Hurts threw 115 fewer times in 2024 than his previous three-year average. The Eagles made substantial changes to their defensive personnel, and should they not prove as reliable as the unit was last season, Hurts is likely to throw more. 

 

 

 

Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals

After throwing a career-high 652 times for nearly 5,000 yards and 43 touchdowns, it came as no surprise that Burrow earned Comeback Player of the Year honors in 2024. Not that you score extra fantasy points for the achievement, but you got yourself a significant number of fantasy points for the overall performance. The Bengals also opted to keep their money invested in the passing game as both Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins received new deals. With Burrow’s weapons intact, the team, obviously, couldn’t go in on defensive help as hard here in the offseason. They grabbed some help in the draft and are hoping rookie Shemar Stewart can help both against the pass and the run, but their biggest issue was their secondary, and that didn’t really get any sort of a makeover. While teams may not run that heavily on them, the games could continue to turn into a shootout, which definitely helps keep Burrow’s value up.