2025 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Pick 10 Strategy

DETROIT, MICHIGAN – JANUARY 14: Amon-Ra St. Brown #14 of the Detroit Lions looks on during pregame warmups prior to an NFC Wild Card Playoff football game against the Los Angeles Rams at Ford Field on January 14, 2024 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Ryan Kang/Getty Images)

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If your fantasy football draft is coming up, you’re in luck because this is the perfect article for you. If not, I’ve done a fantasy football mock draft for the draft slots below.

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Now, even if you don’t know your draft slot yet, seeing a mock draft and understanding the strategy behind it will be highly beneficial. Today, we’ll be running through a 12-team, PPR, 1QB mock draft on ESPN.

2025 Fantasy Football Draft Strategy: Pick 10

My overall best strategy this year for most picks is taking a blanched approach. Based on where the ESPN rankings lie, you don’t want to fall behind at running back or wide receiver.

This is especially true because you’re selecting near the turn at pick 10. If you avoid one position for too long, you risk becoming a victim of a run on that position that you need.

2025 Fantasy Football Mock Draft

Round One: Amon-Ra St. Brown

Round Two: Nico Collins

Round Three: Jaxon Smith-Njigba

Round Four: Breece Hall

Strategy For Rounds 1-4

What separates pick 10 from being a good or bad pick is if Nico Collins falls to the 2.03. With a rank of 13, it’s not out of the question, but in this mock draft, he was selected behind Drake London and Josh Jacobs.

Typically, I’d love to alternate between running back and wide receiver, but in this spot, the best value is easily Amon-Ra St. Brown and Nico Collins, who are both first-round talents.

Typically, you would want to grab a running back in round three, but with Kyren Williams off the board, it only made sense to load on wide receiver. However, in round four, there’s no reason you should be selecting anything but a running back, Breece Hall, in specific.

Round Five: Tetairoa McMillan

Round Six: RJ Harvey

Round Seven: Kaleb Johnson

Round Eight: Stefon Diggs

Strategy For Rounds 5-8

Once you get into these later rounds, you’ll find that there’s a ton of value. If you’ve read any of my other mock draft articles, you would notice that these rounds are very similar each time.

This time, Tetairoa McMillan will be coming off my bench, but that’s because he’s clearly a much better value than anyone else on the board. RJ Harvey is another great value, so you should feel fine with him as your RB2.

However, by not going with a totally balanced team, you’ll need to utilize trades in your league. It’s a better idea than drafting talented players and trading them for positions of need later on instead of reaching for team need.

Round Nine: Josh Downs

Round 10: Cam Skattebo

Round 11: Jacory Croskey-Merritt

Round 12: Kyle Pitts

Strategy For Rounds 9-12

Rounds nine through 12 are where the wheels start to fall out on this draft slot. While not wanting to give up a ton of value, this slot boxes you out of the best quarterback and tight end targets.

With Justin Fields and Drake Maye out of the picture, things start to get spooky. Kyle Pitts ends up as my late-round tight end with the goal of stacking him with Michael Penix Jr later on.

The goal in these rounds is simple. Draft enough value so that you can flip some of these players for a quarterback or tight end upgrade after the first few weeks.

Round 13: Kyle Williams

Round 14: Michael Penix Jr

Round 15: Cairo Santos

Round 16: Kansas City Chiefs D/ST

Strategy For Rounds 13-16

In these rounds, the goal is just to grab the solid option for a late-round quarterback in Michael Penix Jr. It also works out well that Penix and Pitts are on the Atlanta Falcons, giving my fantasy team some correlation.

Overall, this was my least favorite fantasy football mock draft that I’ve done so far. While it’s not impossible to win your league from here, it’s going to require quite a bit of trading.