Biggest Roster Holes Remaining After the 2025 NFL Draft

The NFL Draft throws a lot at you.

Processing all of the new information can feel exhausting, but it is a lot of fun to see teams put their final major stamp on team building for the offseason. The players currently on rosters, including the rookies, are locked in officially.

We have a couple of months before season-long leagues start to pick up attention again, but that’s not to say that we can’t begin to parse through the new landscape(s) of the various rosters around the league now. Plus, if you’re in any dynasty rookie drafts, it’s “go time” presently.

With that in mind, let’s look at four key team situations that present glaring holes in the aftermath of the 2025 NFL Draft:

(All stats per FTN’s NFL StatsHub unless otherwise noted)

Biggest Fantasy Holes Left After the Draft

Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback

This historic franchise is staring down a potential 2025 season with a quarterback room only composed of a previously failed retread in Mason Rudolph, Skylar Thompson on a reserve/futures contract and sixth-round rookie Will Howard out of Ohio State.

All the best to the reigning FBS national champion, but Howard isn’t exactly a “ready-to-play” option. If the Steelers can’t officially get Aaron Rodgers (or perhaps Kirk Cousins?) on the hook, then the offense as a whole faces considerably steep challenges.

It’s worth mentioning that the franchise repeatedly passed over multiple opportunities to take a quarterback earlier in the draft. Pittsburgh snagged Oregon defensive lineman Derrick Harmon with the 21st overall pick in favor of former Ole Miss signal-caller Jaxson Dart. They also opted against ex-Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe in Round 3 and instead invested the 83rd selection in acquiring Iowa running back Kaleb Johnson.

That’s not to say finding a stable mate for Jaylen Warren wasn’t a significant roster need, or that Milroe is all that prepared to start immediately himself. Additionally, if head coach Mike Tomlin has some sort of long-term Cam Heyward replacement plan in mind for Harmon, then more power to him.

These aren’t “bad picks” per se, but merely examples of alternative actions they could’ve taken.

Still, this all highlights the lack of urgency from general manager Omar Khan and company to care for the malnourished state of the quarterback position. Waiting around on a notoriously aloof four-time league MVP to hit you back isn’t exactly a “plan,” and they’re running out of time.

The Steelers’ most enormous roster hole is as sizeable as when the offseason began. Good luck mustering any optimism for George Pickens or DK Metcalf this year.

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Dallas Cowboys Wide Receiver

We could sit here and focus on the Cowboys’ backfield, though at least they inked some veterans (Javonte Williams and Miles Sanders) to contracts and drafted a pair of young backs (Jaydon Blue from Texas and Clemson’s Phil Mafah) on Day 3 of the NFL Draft.

We can’t say they didn’t try, even if the matter around “How much?” can be debated.

But when you look at their current receiving corps, it’s CeeDee Lamb and…?

Dallas did essentially nothing for quarterback Dak Prescott’s aerial arsenal this offseason. That is, unless you want to count signing Parris Campbell (remember him?) to a one-year contract in mid-March. An optimist can view this lack of addition as an opportunity for Jalen Tolbert and/or the rehabilitation project known as Jonathan Mingo to take a step forward.

Perhaps so, especially as the former posted five games with at least 10 PPR points last season. But that’s still a lot of projecting, right?

So let’s not forget about tight end Jake Ferguson. He’s crucially not a wide receiver, hence why he doesn’t count as part of this specific problem. However, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say Ferguson could be the “solution” to all this.

2024 was rough for him between facing minor injury and playing half his healthy games with backup Cooper Rush under center due to Prescott’s mid-November hamstring surgery. But remember that in each of the prior two seasons, he put up consecutive top-12 tight end seasons in PPR points per game while registering at least a 15% target share.

Barring a major surge from any of the wideouts mentioned, Ferguson is likeliest to benefit from the talent dearth on the Cowboys’ offensive side. Maybe this is more of a “blessing in disguise” situation for a young tight end looking to bounce back?

Cleveland Browns Wide Receiver

Trust me, we don’t have enough time to open the can of worms that is the Cleveland quarterback room, so let’s stay with the wide receiver position as focus shifts to the Browns.

This newly spruced-up Kevin Stefanski offense features a core with an exciting rookie running back in Quinshon Judkins, star tight end David Njoku and one of last year’s breakouts in Jerry Jeudy at wide receiver.

The primary concern is that there isn’t much behind the latter on that part of the roster. Before you yell at the screen, we’ll talk about Cedric Tillman in a bit, but it’s objectively a touch barren aside from Jeudy.

The team’s only other notable investments into pass-catchers this offseason are rookie tight end Harold Fannin Jr. (67th overall pick) and free agent signee DeAndre Carter, primarily a special teams returner. Yes, they recently agreed on a deal with the much-maligned Diontae Johnson, too, but assuming anything with him now would be presumptuous as the Browns are his fourth team in 13 months dating back to last March. We can discuss Johnson later if he glides through training camp without conflict.

Regarding receiver depth, it’s just 2024 fifth-round pick Jamari Thrash and the ever-waning promise of whatever David Bell could have been. So yeah, it’s a bit rough out there on that part of the roster.

It’s up to Tillman to step up. The 6-foot-3 put up a mini four-game breakout with Jameis Winston under center in 2024 before succumbing to concussion issues late in the year. He averaged 22.9 PPR points per game (ninth-best among wideouts) in that frame between Weeks 9 and 12, all while tallying a 19.9% target share with a 92.5% route participation rate.

It’s possible Tillman simply reasserts himself in that same high-usage X role and adds his dimensions to the Cleveland passing game full-time. That distinct possibility is going for them, and maybe Fannin is the catalyst for installing more 12 personnel to mitigate the lack of receiver depth.

Who knows, though none of that changes the reality of the problem beyond Jeudy and Tillman.

Kansas City Chiefs Running Back

Finally, for those who missed my previous entry on post-hype sleepers for 2025, Chiefs speedster Isiah Pacheco was one of the players mentioned as a potential target.

All he had to do was survive the NFL Draft, and indeed, head coach Andy Reid stuck to his history of not drafting running backs early.

The only other player added to the mix in Kansas City since that article came out comes to us in the form of seventh-round pick Brashard Smith from SMU.

The former wide receiver’s intriguing profile impressed me at the Reese’s Senior Bowl in Mobile. This is a player who hauled in 39 catches out of the backfield as a senior and carries some loose similarities to ex-Chief Jerick McKinnon in that both players are relatively smaller in stature but offer some hands, speed, and elusiveness that could play well in a complementary part-time role.

There might be something there, but we’re talking about a depth chart with an aging Kareem Hunt and the oft-injured Elijah Mitchell otherwise.

All factors considered, the Chiefs’ backfield still looks relatively thin for a second consecutive year — great opportunity for those there, but not much to speak of beyond Pacheco.