In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter, presented by Guillotine Leagues:

It’s never too early to prepare for the 2025 fantasy football season and best ball drafts are around the corner. One of the best ways to begin is to examine utilization scores from last year.

The utilization scores can give us an idea of whether a player underachieved or overachieved and help provide values in drafts.

One example is Bills running back James Cook. He finished 10th in PPR formats in points per game, but was 24th in utilization at running back.

Go ask someone how many carries Cook had on the season and most will guess in the vicinity of 250. He had 207 and was boosted by 18 total touchdowns. Cook averaged 14.9 touches per game.

Cook’s utilization decreased in almost every category except his attempts inside the 5-yard line, which went from 15% to 49%. Cook wasn’t used in the passing game enough and lost touches to Ray Davis and Ty Johnson.

Cook had 4 career rushing touchdowns in his first 33 games, and had 16 in 16 games this season. The utilization indicates Cook will be overvalued next season.

  • Freedman’s NFL Mock Draft: Arizona sun to Vegas Strip
  • RB Awards: Mama, there goes that man!
  • Watercooler: Suddenly we’re hungry.

AROUND THE WATERCOOLER

The latest analysis and insights from our merry band of football nerds:

👀 Thor and Drumheller chop up the latest mock … the Raiders draft WHO?! (VIDEO)

🪃 Liam Coen does an about face and is now the head man in Jacksonville.

🏈 Think there’s no football next week? Try again, because Senior Bowl Week is coming. (VIDEO)

🪓 Still time to fire up a three-team Guilloteenie draft. Get chopping.

⚡️ Najee Harris to the … Chargers? There are other free agent options for him.

🍋 Jayden Daniels or Lamar Jackson? That’s the level the rookie has risen to.

🍔 Is that Jake Trowbridge or Matthew McConaughey? Either way, we’re hungry.

The Show Goes On ...

Championship Sunday Guilloteenie Contests are LIVE.

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2025 NFL Mock Draft: The Raiders Take Tetairoa McMillan

Ronis here: Freedman has been grinding the NFL Mock Drafts, looking at team needs and countless scenarios. Looking at his latest iteration, I want to focus on the Raiders at No. 6. Everyone expects them to take a QB, but what if Tom Brady makes a splash for a veteran either via trade or free agency? After that the goal should be someone to complement all-world TE Brock Bowers. The first WR off the board will go from one desert locale to another, though with a little more bright lights. Check out what Freedman has to say.

By Matthew Freedman

The NFL Conference Championships are here, and we just had the College Football Playoff Championship, so now feels like a great time to update my 2025 NFL Mock Draft.

The 2025 NFL Draft order is set for the top 28 picks. For the remaining four, I'm using a combination of consensus odds to win the Super Bowl and my own personal postseason projections.

Every week, you can access my team projections in our Fantasy Life Game Models (accessible with a FantasyLife+ subscription).

Here's one player from my post-CFB Championship mock, with notes included.

WR Tetairoa McMillan: If the Raiders are unable to get one of the top QBs in the class, then I (tentatively) expect them to go with the best available pass catcher (as they did last year with TE Brock Bowers). That said, I was tempted to mock them with … 
(click below to find out)
ALL 32 FIRST-ROUND PICKS

Let me pull back the curtain for a moment. To prep for these newsletters, I read every story we do at Fantasy Life and decide which ones I deem worthy of your precious time. I don’t take the task lightly. And let me tell you something:

Chris Allen’s RB awards are next level.

I saw the headline and thought, “sure, another awards piece … who was ‘The Best Sleeper,’ Chris? … and then quickly realized, from the first few sentences, it was not that kind of awards piece.

Any Game of Thrones fans out there? Because we now have “The Theon Greyjoy Award” as official Fantasy Life canon. And if you know anything about GOT, you know that the headline “The Theon Greyjoy Award” can mean a lot of things. A LOT. His character arc is more like a cosine curve—I’m 100% sure the editors here took a pause, a deep breath, maybe poured a glass of alcohol, and then read on suspiciously …

… just to find that it’s a reference to the Ironborn’s “What is dead may never die” promise, and not … some of that other stuff.

Anyway, Chris handed that one to Josh Jacobs. You can read about it here. And stick around for the winner of the “Dr. Ian Malcom Award”—which is also now officially part of Fantasy Life canon.

AND THEN … WATCH OUR 2024 FANTASY AWARDS SHOW HERE