DrakeMaye is primed for a big Year 2: After a promising start to his NFL career, Maye’s situation could be much-improved in 2025, resulting in even greater fantasy production.
Bryce Young showcased his first overall talent in the latter half of 2024: If Young can continue to play at that high-end level, he should live up to his high draft capital and deliver strong fantasy production.
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Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes
Each season, some players take their game to another level while greatly improving their fantasy production along the way. This can be a difficult task at quarterback with fewer options across the league that fit the criteria, but for the 2025 season, there are three, specifically, who stand out.
A few qualifiers before diving into this year’s candidates
Quarterbacks must not have exceeded 250 fantasy points – finished as a QB1/high-end QB2 in any previous season.This eliminatesCalebWilliams from consideration (2024 QB15, 253.6 FF points)
A significant jump in overall fantasy finish or fantasy points per game is expected, not just an incremental improvement.
No rookies. Let’s make things more challenging than that. A list of rookies that will make a fantasy impact in Year 1 can be found here.
Players over the past decade who fit the above criteria before delivering their breakout season:
DrakeMaye,New England Patriots
Maye faced some tough competition among his rookie peers in 2024 with the likes of Jayden Daniels establishing himself as an elite fantasy quarterback, Bo Nix surprising as a top-10 fantasy option, and even CalebWilliams salvaging a relatively disappointing season to finish as the overall QB15 on the year. Meanwhile, Maye didn’t get a chance to take over until Week 6 in his rookie season but flashed plenty of potential as a fantasy difference-maker heading into Year 2. Maye finished as the overall QB21 on the season and tied for QB17 in points per game, but with an improved offense, an upgraded coaching staff and another year in the league, Maye has the potential to deliver top-12 numbers in 2025.
Improvement as a passer
One key area that would go a long way in Maye’s Year 2 breakout is delivering on the high-end passing potential that he showed during his two years as a starter for North Carolina. Maye’s 91.5 career passing grade coming out was the best mark of any quarterback in that class and an 89th percentile mark among 123 quarterback prospects since 2017. It’s unreasonable to expect that level of play immediately from a rookie – even one drafted as highly as Maye – and his 64.9 passing grade in Year 1, which ranked 31st among the league’s quarterbacks in 2024.
Maye will enter a new offensive system this season under offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and head coach Mike Vrabel. Maye ranked 33rd in throws 20-plus yards downfield with a 7.4-yard average depth of target, a bottom-10 mark in the league. McDaniels has typically asked for more aggression than that from his quarterbacks, as his first year as head coach for Derek Carr resulted in a career-high ADoT (9.7) and top-five mark in the league. Maye’s career deep accuracy in college (45.7%) ranked 89th percentile among prospects since 2017. It could be a major key in unlocking that high-end passing ability in Year 2 at the next level.
Thriving as a runner
The big advantage that Maye holds over the other breakout quarterback candidates is his willingness and ability to take off and run, which, as fantasy managers are well aware, can be a massive advantage in his fantasy production across an entire season. This was the case with Maye coming out of college as well, as he had a 95th percentile 11.1% scramble rate while averaging 8.9 rush attempts per game. That translated a fair bit to his first year in the NFL with a 10.7% scramble rate (second behind only Daniels, min. 100 dropbacks), and 4.0 runs per game, which allowed for an additional 4.5 fantasy points per game from his rushing alone. As the offense improves and Maye becomes more comfortable, those scramble numbers and rushing production have plenty of room for improvement, especially as he cleans up the fumbling issues after leading the league with six lost fumbles in 2024.
DrakeMaye’s QB ranks in 2024:
Metric Value QB Rank
Passing grade 64.9 QB31
Runs per game (minus QB kneels) 4.0 QB11
Scramble rate 10.7% QB2
Rushing FF PPG 4.5 QB9
Fantasy points per game 16.3 QB17
Bryce Young,Carolina Panthers
Young is the lone Year 3 player on this list after a rough rookie season and a disastrous start to his second year before turning things around late in Year 2 to create significant optimism that he can live up to his No. 1 overall pick potential. This is true not just for the Carolina Panthers, who hope they have their franchise quarterback, but for fantasy purposes as well, as he went from a non-factor for the first year and a half for fantasy to a legitimate fantasy starter for the second half of last year. With a new WR1 added to the mix and a significant improvement as a quarterback, Young enters Year 3 with a new lease on life to start the season on the path to a potential breakout fantasy season.
Live up to his draft capital for the entire season
Young's immediate improvement from the first half of last season to the second half was about as dramatic a turnaround as there could be in the NFL at the position. Because it was only a half-season, there’s some trepidation about whether Young can maintain that level of play for an entire season. He went from ranking tied for last in passing grade (49.6) through his rookie year until Week 7 of 2024 to QB7 from Week 8 of 2024 until the end of the regular season in that regard (83.7). As a result of greatly improved play, Young’s fantasy production also increased to the point where he was the QB12 over that span (Week 8-18).
This is the Alabama version of Young that the Panthers had hoped for when selecting him first overall in 2023, which is why he makes this list of optimism heading into 2025. The other element of Young’s game that helps his case is a willingness to run, evidenced by an 8.0% scramble rate (seventh) that added 3.6 rushing fantasy points per game (14th). Finding the end zone as a runner was key as well, as he delivered six rushing touchdowns, five of which came in that stellar second half of last season.
An overall improvement for the offense
Dave Canales enters Year 2 as head coach of the Panthers after finding incremental success taking over in his first season, improving the team's overall offensive grade (72.2), average yards per game (5.2), offensive scoring plays (62) and offensive touchdowns (40) as the team was often bottom-three in the league in those categories in 2023. The 2024 numbers were still often below average, though still an improvement with room to grow in 2025. Adding top-10 wide receiver pick Tetairoa McMillan out of this year’s NFL draft should also provide the offense with a reliable weekly top target in the passing game, which was lacking last season.
The Panthers offensive line is above average in terms of pass-blocking grade, but Young still ranked near the bottom of the league in clean pocket dropbacks (59.7%), which partly comes from Young inviting pressure. Young’s 2.94-second average time-to-throw was among the higher marks in the league for the season and didn’t improve during his strong second half of the year. This was an area where Young was much better than the typical quarterback prospect coming out of college and even improving to average in that regard can help Young operate from a cleaner pocket.
Bryce Young’s QB ranks from Week 8-18 in 2024:
Metric Value QB Rank
Passing grade 83.7 QB7
Big-time-throw rate 7.7% QB2
Rushing yards 223 QB10
Rushing touchdowns 5 T-QB3
Fantasy points 190.5 QB12
Michael Penix Jr.,Atlanta Falcons
While Penix was a surprise as a top-10 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft after the team signed Kirk Cousins to a big contract that same offseason, but after taking over for the faltering Cousins late in 2024, Penix put together a small stretch of very encouraging play. After taking over as the starter in Week 16, Penix looked more than capable of running an NFL offense, earning an 84.0 passing grade through the final three games, a top-10 mark in the league over that span. As a fantasy asset, Penix has room to improve, ranking as the QB17 over that final stretch, although he did deliver a QB6 finish in Week 18 thanks to high-end passing play, which is the catalyst of his potential breakout, as he’s not the effective rushing threat that the other two breakout candidates are on this list.
Maintaining his high-level passing from 2024
Penix’s 87.6 passing grade, despite just three starts on the year as a rookie, provides a lot of optimism that he could be Atlanta’s best starting quarterback since Matt Ryan in 2021, who, even at that time, wasn’t the best version of himself and finished as the QB18 for fantasy purposes. Penix, in the prime of his career and with a better receiving corps than what Ryan had in 2021, holds the potential to outperform that finish. He is getting drafted later than that as well.
Penix’s best game last season came in Week 18 when he delivered an elite 94.5 passing grade on the back of seven big-time throws, 312 passing yards and two passing touchdowns, finishing as the overall QB6 for the week. That game did come against one of the worst defenses in the league (Carolina Panthers), but based on PFF’s strength of schedule metric, Penix owns a top-10 favorable schedule for fantasy production in 2025, which would play a big part in allowing him to maintain that high-end level of play as a passer, fueling his breakout fantasy season.
Utilizing this offense to his advantage
Penix gets a massive help by playing behind one of the best offensive lines in football, as it ranked top-10 in pass-blocking grade and first in run-blocking last season, with only one change at center among the starters. Penix should be able to operate from a clean pocket more often than not, as he (and Cousins) spent 68% of his dropbacks from a clean pocket last season, which ranked 15th among 47 qualifying quarterbacks. The best part about that is that Penix earned a 93.3 passing grade from a clean pocket last season, which ranked third behind only Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow.
The other aspect of this offense that Penix can weaponize to build his fantasy production comes in the form of two top-10 players at their respective positions in BijanRobinson and Drake London. This gives him two elite weapons that Penix can get the ball to at different levels of the passing game, where they can take the ball and deliver high-end efficiency in racking up bonus yardage for their quarterback. Both players ranked top six at their respective positions in PFF receiving grades and stand out as reliable pass-catching options to lean on every single week, on top of any potential that Kyle Pitts and Darnell Mooney can provide as additional options puts Penix in a great spot to breakout in Year 2.
Michael Penix Jr.’s QB ranks from Week 16-18 in 2024:
Metric Value QB Rank
Passing grade 84.0 QB9
Big-time-throw rate 8.5% QB4
Pressure-to-sack conversion rate 9.7% QB9
Passing yards 737 QB8
Fantasy Points 45.6 QB17