Remaining Free Agents Who Could Still Provide Fantasy Football Value in 2025

There are two distinct times of player acquisition in the NFL offseason. The first is free agency (and trades, but the free agency period is when players move). The second is the draft. The draft is three days, plus maybe a few hours for snapping up undrafted players.

The bulk of free agency is a few days in March, but ultimately, free agency goes on for months. The biggest names fly off the board, but every year there are a few guys who linger on the unemployed docket for a while before ultimately finding their jobs after the draft.

For the most part, guys who stay out there this long aren’t likely to be fantasy football relevant that year, but that’s only “for the most part,” it’s not an immutable law of nature. In last year’s version of this article, we named Ryan Tannehill, Jerick McKinnon, Rashaad Penny, Michael Thomas, Corey Davis and Logan Thomas as available guys who could theoretically offer value, and they did almost exactly nothing. On the other hand, we also listed Ezekiel Elliott, Cam Akers and Tyler Boyd. None of those was a fantasy star in 2024, but they each at least commanded our attention for a bit.

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The best recent example of this: Cam Newton in 2020. He didn’t sign with the Patriots until July 8 that year, and he started for New England for 15 games, finishing as the fantasy QB16, including eight top-12 weekly finishes. If you can get that from a guy who is unemployed on Independence Day, you take that and run.

So below, let’s look at some of the top remaining free agents out there who could offer fantasy football in 2025 if the situation works out just right.

Remaining Free Agents with Potential 2025 Fantasy Value

Aaron Rodgers, QB

(Age as of Week 1: 41)

The obvious name here. Rodgers remains out there, leaving at least the Steelers in limbo as he waits to decide on his playing future. The fact that the Steelers didn’t address quarterback in the draft until Will Howard in the sixth round says to me that they feel (or know) Rodgers is coming there eventually — it’s hard to imagine them going into the season with a QB room of Mason Rudolph, Skylar Thompson and Howard — but until it’s done it’s not done.

Rodgers was the fantasy QB15 last year with the Jets, including the QB12 from Week 13 on, closing hot. Yes, it’s almost impossible to trust a guy who turns 42 during the season, but Rodgers has still had 25 passing touchdowns in every season of his career he’s played at least 10 games. If he does in fact wind up in Pittsburgh, he’ll show up on rosters in 2025.

J.K. Dobbins, RB

(Age as of Week 1: 26)

Dobbins had his best season in 2024 with the Chargers, setting career highs in carries (195), rushing yards (905), targets (38), receptions (32), receiving yards (153) and PPR points (191.8), plus tying his career high in rushing TDs (9). And he’s still only 26. On the flip side, he’s a running back whose body has betrayed him repeatedly over his career, including a torn ACL in 2020, a torn Achilles in 2023 and an MCL sprain last year that cost him an IR stint. Despite a good year in 2024 with a team that clearly liked him, the Chargers made basically no effort to re-sign Dobbins this offseason, signing Najee Harris and drafting Omarion Hampton.

Dobbins hasn’t really been linked to any team yet this offseason, so maybe the league agrees with the Chargers’ apparent evaluation. But should he land a job — maybe Dallas? — he’ll at least be interesting.

Nick Chubb, RB

(Age as of Week 1: 29)

Speaking of injuries robbing a player of huge upside, Nick Chubb looked like he could have been an all-timer if not for horrific knee injuries both in college and with the Browns. He returned last year but was a shell of himself for eight games, averaging 3.3 yards per carry on 102 carries and scoring only 4 total touchdowns before a broken foot ended his season prematurely. Chubb turns 30 this season and hasn’t hit many rumor mills yet this offseason, so it might be over. But we know not many players work harder, and with another year removed from his 2023 knee injury, maybe his body will let him come back one more time.

Gus Edwards, RB

(Age as of Week 1: 30)

Edwards was with Dobbins in Los Angeles last year. He had a rough season (365 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns in 11 games). And he is now at 42 targets and 33 receptions since joining the NFL in 2018 — he’s as not-a-receiver as anyone since LeGarrette Blount. But we saw in Baltimore in 2023 that Edwards can be a goal-line weapon in the right situation. If he finds a job somewhere where he can just be the goal-line back, that’s fringy fantasy value every now and then.

Keenan Allen, WR

(Age as of Week 1: 33)

The Bears era of Allen’s career is going to go down as a failure. But it wasn’t that bad — 744 yards, 7 touchdowns, a WR34 finish in PPR, five games of 20-plus fantasy points (interestingly, Allen had zero games between 10 and 20 PPR points — he was the most boom/bust receiver in the league last year). He wasn’t vintage Allen, but he wasn’t a disaster. His 1.5 YPRR (per FTN StatsHub) was respectable, as was his 95.2 passer rating when targeted. Now 33 (his birthday was literally Sunday), Allen’s days as a team’s WR1 are clearly over, but if he can land somewhere as a team’s WR2 or WR3, where he can contribute without having to carry a massive target total — think Dallas behind CeeDee Lamb or New York behind Garrett Wilson — he could have a fairly high weekly floor.

Amari Cooper, WR

(Age as of Week 1: 31)

It was literally only about six months ago that Cooper commanded a third-round pick in a trade that made headlines around the league. Eight (admittedly terrible) games in Buffalo, and suddenly he’s irrelevant? That is a too-far too-fast fall that might make sense for an aging running back, but not for a receiver who had four 1,000-yard seasons in five years before 2024. Dallas would be an interesting fit if not for the way Cooper’s previous Cowboys tenure ended, but there are spots that could make sense for the veteran.

Elijah Moore, WR

(Age as of Week 1: 25)

It’s not that Moore has been great at any point of his career — he’s never reached 650 yards in a season and hasn’t scored more than 2 touchdowns in a year since his rookie year in 2021. But he’s also spent all four of his NFL seasons in dysfunctional situations with the Jets and Browns, and he’s a former second-round pick who is only 25. Is Moore ever going to fulfill that promise? Probably not. But he has enough pedigree that you’d assume someone would give him a shot.

Gerald Everett, TE
Hayden Hurst, TE

(Age as of Week 1: Everett 31, Hurst 32)

The tight end pickings are extremely slim. These two are probably the prizes of the market as far as fantasy possibilities go, and they combined for 109 scoreless yards last year in 26 games. Translation: If you don’t have your tight end yet, you probably aren’t getting him.