As NFL free agency draws closer, the landscape of the NFL will grow clearer and clearer with each passing day. Right now, the only knowledge we have is teams’ projected cap space, and a layman’s understanding of what each team might “need” to improve their roster for the 2025 NFL season.
With that in mind, I’ll take a crack at guessing the free agency landing spots for five of the more polarizing fantasy-relevant players available. So let’s start with the most important position in football, kic – I mean quarterback.
Sam Darnold is easily the cream of an otherwise pretty poor crop of available quarterbacks in NFL free agency. He’s coming off a career year as the fill-in starter for the Minnesota Vikings. He now looks to get paid a pretty penny on the open market as red-shirt rookie J.J. McCarthy takes over for the Vikings.
Darnold, meanwhile, is still only 27 years old, and won’t turn 28 until June. It is unclear just how good Darnold will actually be moving forward, but it is crystal clear that there are plenty of QB-needy teams that will take their chance on him, especially as they’re faced with a very weak QB rookie class on paper.
So where does he land? My prediction is the New York Football Giants. It seems pretty likely that Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll are on their last seasons in East Rutherford, unless they get back to good, winning football. To me, Sam Darnold represents the only real chance at the QB position for the Giants to have a shot at winning a lot of games in 2025.
The Giants would still need to work on getting Darnold more weapons and protection, but putting Sam with Malik Nabers would be, at worst, a fun pairing for fantasy football, and a pretty fun connection in real life as well.
The Giants are currently projected to have $45 million in cap space before any moves or cuts are made, meaning they have plenty of funds to be able to throw a substantial bag of money at Sam if any kind of bidding war occurs. And he’s assuredly a huge upgrade at the position from Daniel Jones, with a slightly more stable environment this time around than his first stint in New York as a Jet.
The running back position is pretty thin in free agency in 2025, a far cry from the talent overflow that was available last season. Najee Harris looks to be the most enticing of the available backs out there, which isn’t saying much.
For fantasy, Harris’ value is going to be almost entirely predicated on his projected workload and backfield mates. The Steelers seem unlikely to bring him back, especially considering he will almost certainly be the most expensive running back in this year’s batch of free agents.
A popular landing spot for Najee is the Chargers to be a younger, better version of what they wanted Gus Edwards to be in 2024. While I can definitely see that as a possibility, my dark horse team would be the Las Vegas Raiders. The Raiders have the second most cap space in the NFL as of right now, with more than $93 million for them to work with.
Then you factor in the arrival of Pete Carroll as head coach. Carroll wants nothing more than to establish the run and focus his offense around a workhorse running back who can eat up carries and keep the sticks moving. Unless the Raiders swoop in for Sam Darnold, they look to be on the outside looking in when it comes to having access to a solid QB to run the 2025 offense. Knowing that, I think the Raiders may look to sign Najee to serve as their primary RB for the next few years, as Carroll attempts to reshape the team’s culture and identity as a franchise.
J.K. Dobbins had his first mostly healthy NFL season in a while last year for the Chargers, though he definitely slowed down and lost a step in the later stages of the season. Dobbins got a much larger workload than many people expected, due in part to how poorly Gus Edwards and the rest of the running back room played behind what otherwise was a solid offensive line.
J.K. now stands to get a solid pay day from someone, as he is still in the prime of his career and has no major injury concerns looming heading into 2025. Will it be the Chargers bringing him back? It feels pretty likely, knowing how loyal Jim Harbaugh is to his players as a head coach. My official prediction is that Dobbins returns to the Chargers, and most likely shares the backfield with a rookie or other veteran to let Dobbins get more rest and try and regain some of his explosiveness.
If the Chargers move on, the Vikings have almost $60 million available to them, and only an aging Aaron Jones to even potentially roster as a playable RB. He is most likely also going to be a free agent though, and I could see the Vikings opting for a younger player with a similar skill set to Jones to provide similar, and maybe even better, production in 2025.
Now what happens to the other Steeler free agent running back? Jaylen Warren’s situation is different in principle, seeing as he is a restricted free agent, meaning the Steelers can match any team’s offer. The Steelers as a franchise also seem to like Warren more than they liked Najee Harris.
I feel pretty confident that the Steelers will bring Warren back. The real question, is who else will be in that backfield with him? With no other information to go on, ridiculously early best ball drafters seem fairly sure that Warren will be the primary back. He is currently going as the RB 27 off the board, right behind Tony Pollard, and ahead of both J.K. Dobbins and Najee Harris.
My take is quite different than that. For one, we’re talking about Arthur Smith here. The man is allergic to giving his most talented players the ball with consistency. I also think the Steelers are in a similar position to the Raiders as mentioned earlier, where their best option at QB is probably re-signing Justin Fields. With that being the case, the Steelers are still best equipped to be a run-first offense, and Jaylen Warren has never shown the ability to handle that kind of workload, nor do I think he should.
Warren works best as a change-of-pace back, and there are plenty of early down grinders available in free agency and the NFL draft for Pittsburgh to take and replace most, if not all, of Najee’s production from previous years. I personally don’t see much of a case to be made though that he will be super fantasy relevant outside of injury luck in his favor.
The only wide receiver in this prediction is Stefon Diggs, who is 31 years old and coming off a torn ACL that occurred in Week 8 of last season. However, he is also arguably the best wide receiver free agent available that actually has a realistic chance of changing teams.
Tee Higgins is franchise tagged once more, and the Buccaneers have made it very clear that they want Chris Godwin to be a Buc for life if they can help it. That leaves Diggs as the belle of the ball (at least until Davante Adams gets inevitably cut by the Jets). The Texans could still very much use Diggs, but they are pretty cap-strapped at the moment, though they will certainly make moves to free up at least some space.
That being said, a good team that unexpectedly has a solid amount of cap space in 2025 that could use a player like Diggs is the Detroit Lions. They are in a unique position (besides the Commanders) of being a very good playoff team, that also has cap flexibility to spend on good players to shore up their run for a Lombardi trophy.
The Lions give Diggs the combo of a chance at a ring, while also giving him a solid amount of targets as well. The Commanders can offer more money and more projected volume, but the Lions offer a better scheme fit and less pressure on Diggs coming off the injury, while still allowing him to be paid a fair amount of cash as he approaches the twilight of his career.
