Fantasy Football Draft Guide 2025: NFC North Coaches & Their NFL Systems

If you’re ready to dominate your fantasy football leagues, this is exactly where you need to be. One of the most underrated features found in Fantasy Alarm’s Fantasy Football Draft Guide is this article series on NFL coaching systems. Maybe I’m biased as the author, but over the years, I have learned more about football and subsequently won more money and more fantasy football championships the deeper I dive into learning about NFL coaches, their schemes, personnel packages and tendencies. 

You can look at a fantasy football rankings list and see who we like better, but without understanding why some players are ranked higher than others, your success rate will always be capped. The knowledge you can attain by reading through this series will prove to be invaluable.

It’s not just about having a strong draft and hoping for the best. Understanding which players fit best into their respective schemes will allow you to unearth a variety of fantasy football sleepers, avoid the busts and not be one of those people who lives and dies by the fantasy football ADP. Test it out in a fantasy football mock draft and you’ll see for yourself! It also takes you further in-season as well. Absorbing all of this information will help you make better lineup decisions each week as well as help you make better choices on the waiver wire. 

Anyone can look at a receiver’s stat line in Week 1 and empty out their FAAB wallets to get him, but someone with a knowledge of NFL systems will allow you to determine whether this player is actually worth the add or if he was just a one-week wonder. To win a championship, strong waiver work is half the battle, so keep reading and bring that gun to your league’s knife fight.

As always, if you need to refer back to the glossary of system terminology and personnel packages, you can find it here in the AFC East Systems article. It’s always good to make sure you have it handy in case you run into a question or two as you dive into the next division.

2025 Fantasy Football: NFC North NFL Coaching Systems

Chicago Bears

Bears Offensive Breakdown

It’s a new era in Chicago as the Bears landed themselves the most coveted of young, offensive minds in the NFL in Ben Johnson. The architect of the offense run in Detroit over the last three seasons, Johnson said that he wasn’t going to just transfer everything over to Chicago, but we can certainly expect a lot of similar elements. His number one priority is getting second-year quarterback Caleb Williams prepared to lead this offense and he’s already begin the process. Now it’s time to get the rest of the team ready for our fantasy season.

Johnson’s scheme is run-first and while we were all thinking the Bears were going to bring in a bruising back to pair with D’Andre Swift a la Jahmyr Gibbs/David Montgomery, they did not, so we are expecting a significant uptick in work for him. They have both Roschon Johnson and Kyle Monangai, so perhaps one of them takes on some of that bruising role, but for the most part, we are expecting Swift who has the versatility to move within both the inside and outside zone work. Fantasy-wise that’s great to know, especially with how the Bears revamped their offensive line, but we always urge caution given his history here in the NFL. Fortunately, the ADP isn’t so bad and you could be getting a huge bargain if everything goes right.

In the passing game, you can expect the use of a number of different formations with a lot of different personnel swapping in and out. You can also expect this to be all about timing. Johnson prefers his quarterback to throw to a spot on the field rather than directly to the receiver as that tends to prompt ore yards after the catch. While I don’t want to get hung up on too many comparisons, it does read easier to those who watched the NFL and played fantasy last season to say that DJ Moore is expected to fill that Amon-Ra St. Brown role of being the go-to receiver who runs a variety of routes with the goal to find him with the ball out in space. Rookie Luther Burden is cut from a similar cloth, so we could see these guys doing similar things on the opposite side of the field while Rome Odunze is featured more in the way Jameson Williams was over the past three seasons.

There is going to be a lot of flexibility in this passing attack as the multiple receiving options move in and out of the lineup. You’ll see a lot of pre-snap motion to confuse the defense, but overall, when the Bears do pass, it’s going to be interesting to see just how much they are able to spread it around. Williams should be comfortable enough to throw to anyone at any time, including TE Colston Loveland who should emerge as a strong option in this scheme.

• Best Fits for the System: Caleb Williams, D’Andre Swift, DJ Moore
• Worst Fits for the System: Cole Kmet

Bears Defensive Breakdown

• Defensive Front: 4-2-5 with multi-front looks
• Secondary: Mix of Man and Cover-2
  • Man Coverage: 16.8% (30^th)
  • Zone Coverage: 78.3% (3^rd)

The hiring of veteran defensive coordinator (and head coach) Dennis Allen to be the new DC and ease the transition from Matt Eberflus’ scheme was a great move by the Bears. Say what you want about Allen as a head coach, as a coordinator he knows what he’s doing. And his change to a 4-2-5 set-up up front is going to be tough in gap coverage, especially with the addition of DT Grady Jarrett. Pairing him up with Gervon Dexter in the middle, coupled with MLB TJ Edwards, will also allow Montez Sweat and Dayo Odeyingbo to cheat more to the outside and get some pressure on the quarterback without having to blitz all the time.

With such a strong front, the Bears will be able to maintain five defensive backs and use a combination of both man and zone coverage. Having a shutdown corner like Jaylon Johnson will be huge, especially with Tyrique Stevenson on the other side. He struggled in zone coverage for the most part, but really shined in man-to-man and now with him and Johnson handling the outside receivers, Allen will be able to layer in different zone concepts over the middle and force the opposition into shorter passes and/or more mistakes on deeper routes. 

• Best Fits for the System: Montez Sweat, Jaylon Johnson, TJ Edwards, Kyler Gordon
• Worst Fits for the System: Andrew Billings

Detroit Lions

Lions Offensive Breakdown

Fear not, Lions fans or dynasty owners of Lions players, the loss of Ben Johnson shouldn’t be as catastrophic as you would think. Taking the reins of the offense is John Morton who served as an offensive assistant for Detroit in 2022 and returns after spending the last two years working as Joe Lombardi’s passing game coordinator in Denver. He is familiar with both the staff and personnel and vowed to not change things up, but did say that he would throw a little bit of his own spin on certain things.

Morton probably won’t use as many different personnel formations as the players are used to, but you will see plenty of pre-snap motion, play-action passes and a continued focus on explosive plays downfield. He also added that Jared Goff would have more autonomy at the line of scrimmage and while that might create some concern for fantasy owners who remember Goff from his Rams tenure, his work with Johnson over the last few seasons has significantly helped his ability to read the defense properly and understand how to counter any last-minute changes the defense makes. The roles played by Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams and Sam LaPorta will likely remain unchanged and this teams passing attack should prove to be just as explosive.

The running game will again be the Lions bread and butter and the tandem of Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery will be in full bloom. Expect plenty of zone concepts, both inside and outside and expect both to be used in similar situations. Morton does not want to telegraph his plays by the personnel on the field. Gibbs will likely be the leader of the backfield, however, we are already seeing Morton utilizing Gibbs’ pass-catching abilities and speed, lining him up on the outside throughout OTAs and mini-camp. 

Overall, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Head coach Dan Campbell puts his full trust into his offensive coordinator and he expects a strong, supportive ground game in return. So long as he sees that happening, the world is Morton’s oyster.

• Best Fits for the System: Jared Goff, Jahmyr Gibbs, Amon-Ra St. Brown
• Worst Fits for the System: Jameson Williams

Lions Defensive Breakdown

• Defensive Front: 3-3-5 with multi-front looks
• Secondary: Cover-1 Man
  • Man Coverage: 48.2% (1^st)
  • Zone Coverage: 49.4% (32^nd)

Detroit not only lost Ben Johnson on the offensive side of the ball, but they also lost defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn who went back him to New York to coach the Jets. But the Lions also anticipated the departure and Dan Campbell with the assistance of Glenn himself, groomed linebacker coach Kelvin Sheppard to take over. You can expect the defensive scheme to stay relatively the same, save for a few minor tweaks by Sheppard to put his own spin on the defense.

One change you will see is the increased use of the 3-3-5 base. We saw Glenn mix this in last season and it’s become a very popular formation at the collegiate level. The goal of it is to stack the defense and create confusion with regard to the offense’s blocking assignments. It also affords more blitzing from different angles, something that was greatly missed last season with the injury to Aidan Hutchinson. With him back, this front six is going to be quite formidable.

The big question regarding the secondary is just how much they plan to use man-coverage versus zone. Last year was almost exclusive man and they allowed the second-most passing yards in the NFL. Did that have to do with the injury to Hutchinson and the weak pass-rush? Perhaps. It sounds like they are going to open the season with man again as new arrivals D.J. Reed and Avonte Maddox have been very serviceable in that fashion. If Terrion Armstead can take a step forward, then maybe they leave things as is, but that is definitely something to look at early in the season. 

• Best Fits for the System: Aidan Hutchinson, Jack Campbell, Brian Branch
• Worst Fits for the System: Amik Robertson, Marcus Davenport

Green Bay Packers

Packers Offensive Breakdown

The base of Matt LaFleur’s offense is west coast in nature with the run setting up the pass. When he had Aaron Jones as his running back, he used an inside zone blocking scheme, but last year’s change to Josh Jacobs saw a fairly quick change to outside zone mixed with some power/gap. Jacobs ran well (4.8 YPC in zone; 4.3 YPC in power/gap) and the Packers doubled-down in the offseason with the addition of OG Aaron Banks and the move of Elgton Jenkins to center. Banks was a huge asset to Kyle Shanahan in his outside-zone scheme. We should expect more of the same as last year, but there is some speculation that MarShawn Lloyd will actually get more usage in an effort to keep Jacobs fresh. His 350-plus touches from last year make for quite the workload and no one ants to see him beak down.

The passing attack is where we might see a few tweaks and adjustments this season. Not so much around the basic concepts but just a way to get Jordan Love back on-track in being more consistent. LaFleur’s play design revolves around quick 3-5 step dropbacks so that Love gets rid of the ball quickly. They layer in a variety of routes, both underneath and deep, to spread out the defense and allow Love to find the best option in the most favorable match-up. A key problem last year, and probably the reason the team finally used a first-round pick on a field-stretching receiver, is that Love prefers to take the deep shots. He likes the hero-ball, but save for Christian Watson who was never healthy, the Packers just didn’t have the receivers to connect on those. Enter Matthew Golden who is ready to be launched into the stratosphere.

The Packers will also utilize plenty of RPO and play-action as well. Love isn’t a big runner, but he doesn’t need to be for the RPO to be successful. The play freezes the linebackers and affords him the opportunity to drop in a pass over their heads and let his receivers pick up the extra yards after the catch. Love was actually quite effective in play-action last season, so expect more of it, especially with the way LaFleur likes to run the football.  

• Best Fits for the System: Jordan Love, Josh Jacobs, Matthew Golden
• Worst Fits for the System: Romeo Doubs

Packers Defensive Breakdown

• Defensive Front: 4-2-5 with some multi-front looks
• Secondary: Cover-2 and Cover-3 Zone Mix
  • Man Coverage: 20.5% (29^th)
  • Zone Coverage: 79.3% (2^nd)

Now in his second year as the Packers defensive coordinator, Jeff Hafley is looking to build off some of the marked improvements we saw from this Packers defense last season. He switched them to a four-man front where DTs Kenny Clark and Devonte Wyatt and DE Rashan Gary thrived with regard to gap coverage. They allowed 500 fewer yards and knocked a half yard off their per carry allowance for the season. 

The biggest issue for the Packers defense was the lack of a pass-rush. Despite recording the eight-most sacks, they ranked pretty low in QB pressures. Perhaps it had something to do with a lack of blitzing, so maybe with the improved play up front, Hafley will find a way to blitz more and apply more pressure to the quarterback and his offensive line.

The secondary will be almost exclusively in zone coverage with a mix of Cover-2 and Cover-3 concepts. Losing Jaire Alexander takes away a major weapon for them in man-coverage, though he’s missed a lot of time, so there won’t be any real sweeping changes. You’ll see a lot of two high safeties in an effort to keep the throws underneath and not get beaten by the deep pass. Xavier McKinney and Evan Williams should be able to keep everything in front of them while we watch and see how the rest of the defensive backs fall into line.

• Best Fits for the System: Kenny Clark, Rashan Gary, Xavier McKinney
• Worst Fits for the System: Nate Hobbs, Lukas Van Ness

Minnesota Vikings

Vikings Offensive Breakdown

The evolution of Kevin O’Connell’s offense in Minnesota has been interesting to watch. It remains west coast based with plenty of short, high-percentage passing to move the chains, but we’ve seen a fairly dramatic shift in the amount of two-TE sets they’ve begun to use. O’Connell was using 11-personnel roughly 65-percent of the time but over the last two seasons, we’ve seen an increase of 12-personnel going from 15-percent in 2022 to 22-percent in 2023 to nearly 25-percent last season. Injuries to the offensive line and a desire for added pass-protection have been the primary reasons, but it also had to do with the quarterbacks and the routes run by receivers to accommodate the signal-caller.

With Kirk Cousins under center, the Vikings needed to shorten the receiver routes as his accuracy on the deep plays was deteriorating rapidly. That prompted the big increase from 2022 to 2023. But while they still increased it from 2023 to 2024, it was largely due to injuries on the line and Sam Darnold actually took more shots downfield than originally game-planned. This season, with the shift back to J.J. McCarthy, the expectation is a return to the shorter routes in an effort to keep his confidence and completion-rate up. Josh Oliver will continue to handle the in-line work while T.J. Hockenson joins Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison in the route-running. Remember, this is a west coast scheme that uses the pass to set up the run.

On the ground, O’Connell and Wes Phillips continue to do the smart thing and have retained a lot of the outside zone blocking concepts installed by Gary Kubiak back in 2020. If you haven’t heard me rave yet about the Kubiak/Rick Dennison zone-blocking scheme yet, just wait until you set to the Seattle Seahawks part of the article series as Klint, Gary’s son, follows in his dad’s footsteps. O’Connell prefers to throw the football so you shouldn’t expect a heavy run volume, but the blocking concepts keep the ground game productive. Aaron Jones is also utilized in the passing attack, so don’t be surprised to see Jordan Mason also take some of those rushing attempts in order to keep Jones fresh.

Overall, for fantasy purposes, O’Connell’s offense is solid. Jones will have decent value with Mason having some standalone as well. Jefferson and Addison will see the bulk of the targets with Hockenson joining the fray. The real key is going to be how McCarthy develops. He did not have to throw much at Michigan, but the full year he was forced to hold the clipboard helped him learn the ropes without being thrown into the fire. If he can remain patient and make smart decisions, this should be a productive season.

• Best Fits for the System: Justin Jefferson, Aaron Jones, T.J. Hockenson
• Worst Fits for the System: Ty Chandler, Josh Oliver

Vikings Defensive Breakdown

• Defensive Front: 3-3-5
• Secondary: Match Zone, Two-High
  • Man Coverage: 23.6% (24^th)
  • Zone Coverage: 75.7% (6^th)

Brian Flores is one of the premier defensive coordinators in the game and here in Year 3, he will continue to adjust and evolve his scheme. Flores will use a 3-3-5 base set-up with only three dedicated pass-rushers at a time. However, he will still typically have six men in the box so the offense doesn’t push the run against them all the time. On passing plays, he’ll usually rush four and drop the rest into coverage against the underneath routes. The idea of using six in the box is so that he can overload the offensive gaps, thus causing some confusion for the quarterback, particularly on RPO plays. Expect lots of blitzing as Flores is all about putting as much pressure on the offense as he can.

Once a huge proponent of man-to-man coverage, Flores has turned more to using a matched zone in which they show one defensive set-up pre-snap and rotate into another coverage scheme afterwards. Their corners just aren’t up to snuff with regard to consistent man-coverage, so what he does is employ one of his favorites -- Cover-0 -- where they play man-to-man coverage on every eligible receiver and every other defender rushes the passer, but typically they’ll show this and then pull the safeties back high and use a soft zone underneath. Coupled with the amount of blitzing they do, these on-the-fly adjustments at the moment of the snap have given offensive coordinators some serious fits.

• Best Fits for the System: Andrew Van Ginkel, Jonathan Greenard, Josh Metellus
• Worst Fits for the System:  Jeff Okudah

2025 Fantasy Football: Related Draft Guide Articles