Fantasy Football Mock Draft: 12 Team PPR League With NFL Experts (2025)

Published: Jun 29, 2025

Updated: Jun 29, 2025

It may sound a little too old-school for some, but when it comes to your fantasy football prep work, there is no better tool than a good, old-fashioned fantasy football mock draft. You can scroll through fantasy football rankings and study up on fantasy football ADP trends, but until you see it all in action…until you actually live it…they’re just words and numbers on a page. Are you prepared? You will be if you put your knowledge to the test in a series of quality mock drafts.

2025 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: 12-Team, PPR

Before we dive into the first fantasy football mock draft, I just want you to know that your purchase of the 2025 Fantasy Football Draft Guide and/or your paid All-Pro subscription to Fantasy Alarm will get you an invite into some of our upcoming mock drafts. For this one, though, we stayed with the Fantasy Alarm analysts of yesterday and today. Your turn will come soon enough!

Also, a quick note about ADP -- If you look at the majority of data around the interwebs, it is filled with numbers from best ball drafts. With large-field best ball tournaments like Underdog’s BestBall Mania VI, the Fantasy Championships on RT Sports and the FFPC’s Best Ball Tournament offering huge prize money, the majority of the fantasy industry’s focus is on these contests. But drafting in a large-field best ball tournament is significantly different from drafting a season-long fantasy football league.

Tournament drafting leans more toward upside than it does a player’s floor, especially at the wide receiver position where you’re just looking for maybe to or three to go off on a given week. In season-long, you need to mix in high-floor players for consistency’s sake. When you are making your own lineup decisions, a lot is based on who your opponents are playing against you. Do you feel like your team is significantly stronger? Maybe just go with the high-floor guys then. If you think you need to swing for the fences, then perhaps you shot for the moon with high-upside, high-risk players.

So when you’re looking at the current ADP, keep in mind right now that the data skews towards the upside guys. If you need help identifying who the high-upside guys are, then take a look at our Dynamic Tier Rankings as everyone is categorized for you.

Now let’s get to our fantasy football mock draft!

Fantasy Mock Draft Format & Scoring

12-teams, 16 rounds, snake draft
Full-point PPR scoring with the usual touchdown and yardage scoring (no bonuses)
Starting Rosters: QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 2 FLEX (R/W/T)
Bench: 7 players

Our Fantasy Football Mock Drafters (In Draft Order)

If you’re on X (formerly known as Twitter), please give everyone a follow! And check out their sites as well for all of their work. They are all worth it!

The 2025 Fantasy Football Mock Draft Board

The final mock draft board is pasted here, but you can also click here to open it in a new window for easier reference.

It's a gorgeous board, is it not? But how about some context around these picks?

12-Team PPR Fantasy Football Mock Draft Results & Strategy

It wouldn’t be a Fantasy Alarm mock draft without a little bit of drama to start, so when the draft order reset just minutes before it began, you knew it was going to be a bumpy ride….for some.

Originally slotted at the 10^th pick, I was fine with the last-minute change to the second pick. I prefer being on either end of a draft as opposed to being in the middle. My picks are closer together between rounds and I have a better shot at starting a position-run if I need to try and nudge the draft room along. I did, however, change my strategy a bit.

I have always preached the use of a good mock draft as a tool to hone your skills and one of my favorite mocks I do is the one where I don’t take a single guy I usually take. It’s a strategy to see what the actual ADP looks like as I am always worried that I’m the guy juicing up the ADP numbers. Not to mention, it can sometimes point me into directions I have yet to discover over the course of the draft season. But it’s easier to do that at the end of the first round as opposed to the beginning, so rather than do something crazy like drafting Brock Bowers well ahead of ADP, I played it safe to start.

Yes, had Josh Wagner not taken Ja'Marr Chase, he would have been my first pick. Instead, I went with Bijan Robinson, a smart, safe pick with outstanding upside and from there I would look to see what kind of running back/wide receiver value was available to me. When eight running backs went before my second pick and AJ Brown was sitting there, I grabbed him, expecting to see the Eagles do more passing this season.

Going back to running back was easy for me in the third and fourth rounds with two of my favorite targets being available. But with three of my first four picks being backs, I knew attacking wide receiver would be needed and adding guys like Mike Evans and George Pickens seemed like an easy choice.

With a the top quarterbacks and tight ends gone, I figured I would stay the course with running backs and receivers, but I had to sneak Evan Engram in there as well. Knowing that Andrew Cooper still didn’t have a tight end, I couldn’t wait, followed up by a Xavier Worthy add for depth and the ultimate running back handcuff in Zach Charbonnet.

At the quarterback position, I may have waited a bit too long, but Charbonnet was a priority. Maybe I could have/should have gone with Kyler Murray instead of Worthy, but there were still plenty of strong options available. Shout it out to Iggy Gilbert for grabbing both Bo Nix and Murray. Love them both, even Murray who has hurt me before, and was hoping for one of them. Instead, I opted for Dak Prescott (paring with Pickens in a high-volume passing offense) and Justin Fields to give me someone with some mobile upside – the true yin-yang draft strategy.

From there it was depth with some upside until finally, with my last pick, I grabbed the best value on the board which was Mason Taylor of the Jets. Not only can I pair him up with Fields, but I also expect him to be the No. 2 target on the team, behind only Garrett Wilson.

Overall, a very Bender fantasy football draft and a team I would be happy to go to war with in any format.

Now how about the rest of the group…?

What Did Josh Wagner Have to Say?

Going into this with the 1.01, knowing I had Ja'Marr Chase, made things easy at the top, but I knew that I would have to reach on players I liked being at the front end of the turn, moving along in the draft. I will say that I am not particularly a fan of the number 1 spot as we ended up seeing players who were too far outside of my draft pocket that I wanted to pick.

Favorites picks are definitely my double-tap of Rome Odunze and Cooper Kupp in the seventh and eighth rounds, two guys who could easily outperform their draft value, given the roles they could have in their systems

I had no intention of taking Drake London or James Cook in this draft so the picks of AJ Brown and Chuba Hubbard in front of me were definite snipes. I do know I caught Howard by surprise on a pick taking Courtland Sutton over Mike Evans in the fifth round. [editor’s note: I was actually targeting Evans, so…sorry, Josh]

Favorite team in this draft would have to be Joe Gallina’s; that is my kind of draft starting with Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jonathan Taylor and Rashee Rice! Duley noted that I will enjoy drafting each of them in the middle of draft this year if current ADPs stay the same.

Bryan Derr Said…

This mock draft was a wonderful exercise for what to do when you are getting sniped at EVERY PICK. Kudos to Bender and Matt Deutsch for making this draft tough on me, and I loved how both of their teams turned out. I’m not saying I am not a fan of mine, though. Going in with the third pick, I knew Justin Jefferson was going to be my guy (getting J.J. McCarthy late to stack with him was great, too. People are sleeping on the Vikings). My draft strategy is always just to go for BPA (best player available), with a heavier focus on running backs and wide receivers on teams I believe could have the most high-powered offenses or just offenses that are being undervalued, which worked more or less.

Round 4 was tough, as my entire queue went off the board as I awaited my pick (DJ Moore, George Kittle, Rashee Rice, Marvin Harrison, etc.) which forced me to reach a little bit on TreVeyon Henderson, who I still think could be a PPR monster, but not my ideal RB2. I loved getting Darnell Mooney where I did and think Demario Douglas could FEAST in the slot with Josh McDaniels back as OC for the Patriots. But I did miss out on some of “my guys” such as Brashard Smith, Adam Thielen, Jack Bech, etc.

Outside of my team, while I loved my “neighbors’” teams in the draft, I think the overall winner here was Andrew Cooper, who somehow got CeeDee Lamb at pick 11 and built a monster team around him. Overall, a solid mock from the three-spot, and now I am ready and prepared for the inevitable snipes I will be dealing with come draft season!

Matt Deutsch Here…

My 2025 plan is to draft Brock Bowers in the first round as I see him as the player with the highest floor and a very high ceiling. My running backs are also high-floor players, creating a consistent base. At receiver I am targeting quarterbacks and offenses I trust, in this case the Rams (Matthew Stafford), Steelers (Aaron Rodgers) and Commanders (Jayden Daniels.) It worked out that my top three receivers are all playing for new teams, which is a red flag for many, but I am banking on those quarterbacks to make it work with these accomplished veteran target-monsters. While I wasn't able to get handcuffs for James Conner and Chuba Hubbard, I did secure a bunch of running backs I believe all have a path to playing time in Javonte Williams, J.K. Dobbins, Will Shipley and Brashard Smith. And I wasn't going to allow tight ends I think will be the second pass target on their teams to be drafted by others, so I ended up with three after grabbing Pat Freiermuth and Jake Ferguson. My goal was to be the last team to draft a qyarterback and I had my choice between three who could finish inside the top-12 - Cameron Ward, Bryce Young and Michael Penix. I drafted Penix based on the best core around him and a bad defense.

Heard This from Iggy Gilbert:

I drafted fifth in a 12-team, three wide receiver PPR league, and knew I must look at the best wideout available for my pick. I went with Puka Nucua who is capable of 100-plus receptions, followed by Bucky Irving who earned 47 receptions, 392 yards, and one receiving playoff touchdown. After that a double down of wide receivers was on deck, and, oh baby, they were top-24 receiviers in the Draft Guide!

Terry McLaurin and Zay Flowers paired with Nucua is every offensive coordinator’s dream. George Kittle was chosen due to his reliable volume of receptions and being a standalone value at the position. Key players in this #FAmily staff draft included a ‘yin-yang’ approach to QB in Bo Nix and Kyler Murray. And a loaded field of potential breakouts; Xavier Legette, Jalen McMillan, Romeo Doubs, and rocksteady Wan’Dale Robinson.

According to Drew Phelps:

I jumped into my first mock draft of the 2025 fantasy football season this week — a chance to shake off the rust and get an early sense of where the fantasy community stands on player value.

My usual strategy is straightforward: secure a workhorse running back in the first round, hammer wide receivers in the second and third, then pivot to either my RB2 or quarterback. That plan unraveled quickly.

I was thrilled to land Ashton Jeanty early. In the Pete Carroll offense, he has the potential to be a true bell-cow. But when Kyren Williams was still on the board in the second, I couldn’t pass him up. I have both backs inside my top-10 overall, and the value was too strong to ignore.

Then things got messy.

Breece Hall in the 3rd — in full PPR — was too tempting. I told myself he’d slot in at FLEX, but starting RB/RB/RB in today’s landscape is tough to recover from. That early imbalance cost me at wide receiver.

I ended up with DJ Moore as my WR1 and Stefon Diggs as my WR2 — not ideal given the positional depth this year. I salvaged things a bit with a Patrick Mahomes-Travis Kelce stack, hoping they have one more year of top-tier production in them.

Final grade? C-minus. But that’s what these mocks are for: testing strategies, exposing blind spots, and getting reps against sharp drafters.

Big thanks to Fantasy Alarm for the invite. On to the next one.

Jon Impemba Added This:

I'm an old school fantasy football player. I like building my teams around elite running backs and guys who score touchdowns so I'm absolutely loving it when I get to draft at the end of the first round where guys like Christian McCaffrey, Derrick Henry and Jonathan Taylor are all on the board and in this draft getting to go CMC and Henry honestly feels like a dream start. I'm also a HUGE Jalen Hurts guy and I have plenty of receipts to prove it, so while taking him over Jayden Daniels might be controversial, as long as the "tush push" is legal, the upside is tremendous.

At wide receiver I took some risks, Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the lead guy in Seattle now with Sam Darnold as his quarterback. Calvin Ridley is going to be catching footballs from the number one overall pick Cameron Ward but he’s still a rookie. Travis Hunter may end up being a big-time playmaker or a gadget player and Michael Pittman's quarterback prospects are also suspect. However, all of those receivers have some really nice upside. Being able to get T.J. Hockenson in drafts this season has been a bit of a priority for me. He's an elite offensive tight end and J.J. McCarthy, in what is essentially his rookie season, should lean on his safety net.

From the Mind of Joe Gallina:

I had the 10th overall pick and wanted to make sure that I walked away with a top wide receiver and running back with my first two picks. I especially wanted to draft a running back early because the position dries up pretty quickly and Jonathan Taylor is coming off a tremendous season. Taylor missed a combined 13 games between the 2022 and 2023 seasons and at 26-years-old, still has a lot of tread left on the tires.

With my next two picks I added receivers who have the opportunity to be top-10 performers at the position. Garrett Wilson can catch 100 balls if Justin Fields can get it to him and Rashee Rice is Patrick Mahomes’ best receiver. Rice could be possibly facing a suspension due to off the field felony charges so he might be a risky pick but he has a lot of potential upside. Should Rice be suspended, Hollywood Brown could be a top target for Mahomes and I grabbed him in the 13th round. I have a deep crop of receivers using my seventh and eighth round picks to grab Khalil Shakir, who is one of Josh Allen’s favorite targets, and Jakobi Meyers, the Raiders’ clear WR1.

My second running back, Isiah Pacheco, is coming off an injury-plagued season and has a chance at having a big bounce-back year. I grabbed his handcuff, Kareem Hunt, who still has some game, in the 12th round. Running back is a volatile position and I also added Tyler Allgeier, one of fantasy football’s best handcuffs, in the 11th round.

I may have jumped too soon when I drafted Sam LaPorta in the sixth round. He had a disappointing sophomore season but LaPorta has the ability to be one of the top fantasy tight ends in the game. Cade Otton quietly had 59 catches last season. It was the second-straight season he managed to best his previous reception total from the year before. He’s only 26-years-old and still has time to continue to grow as a fantasy tight end.

I waited before picking up my first quarterback like every good fantasy football manager should do in a single-QB league. I ended up with a very good one in Mathew Stafford in the ninth round. I backed him up with Justin Herbert in the 16th and final round.

Nothing more I can say other than I truly believe this roster I put together has enough talent and depth to lead me to a potential fantasy football championship. Too bad it’s just a mock draft!

From Andrew Cooper:

This is the most difficult mock draft I do each year. Not only is it early but it's with the #FAmily - the people who I talk the most with about football. Howard knows that and he took Kenneth Walker and RJ Harvey early, who we both like. I went heavy wide receiver to start off with a nice discount on CeeDee Lamb at 11^th overall, Brian Thomas Jr, and Tee Higgins so I need to make up ground at running back.

I went for upside, taking Alvin Kamara who was a star when healthy last year as well as two rookies in Omarion Hampton and Kaleb Johnson. After drafting four receivers and three running backs, I was able to get aggressive at tight end with both Mark Andrews and David Njoku while still getting a premium quarterback in Baker Mayfield. My starting lineup is pretty solid so I focused on upside picks with my bench.

And Finally, from Jen Piacenti…

There was a last-minute change in draft order, so I went in expecting the fifth pick, but ended up picking on the turn. Based on the way the first round went, it was too hard not to double-tap receiver, and then I found myself not liking any running back value when the third and fourth rounds came back to me, so I did something I never do -- I took a tight end and a quarterback before a runner.

I’ll be honest. It was uncomfortable. I am running back-early, quarterback-late kind of girl.

I foolishly thought I might be able to get Kenneth Walker in the third…but I guess I forgot I was drafting with Howard Bender who also knows how undervalued he is right now based on how he will fit into the Seattle system. Chuba Hubbard was also long gone, too.

In the end though, I kinda like it. I was still able to get Joe Mixon, Quinshon Judkins, Brian Robinson and some others late who should be able to hold up the weekly floor, and maybe I’ll even get some late-season upside with Jaydon Blue. I should tally plenty of PPR points with the early picks of Malik Nabers, Nico Collins and Trey McBride. Oh, and I also have the league MVP at quarterback. Maybe it’s good for me to get out of my comfort zone!