2025 Fantasy Football Tiers: Using Rankings to Your Advantage
We tier every single player for redraft in the Ultimate Draft Kit. It is a labor of love and the attention to detail from the Footballers is unparalleled as we update our projections as more off-season news and injury pop up. The Ultimate Draft Kit is a locked-and-loaded tool to help fantasy managers win their #FootClanTitles.
Let’s review how tier-based rankings work and how this simple process helps managers draft with confidence.
Fantasy Football Tiers
We are huge proponents of tier-based drafting when comparing draft rankings during your draft. Tiers allow you to see more than just rankings and end-of-season points totals. In fact, the way fantasy is actually played out in season is you feeling the effects of having a player on your team like Bijan Robinson for the entire year.
It is great for identifying gaps in value at one position.
Take for example the TE position. We know there are two elite TEs. Brock Bowers and Trey McBride are both going in the first three rounds. But identifying where the rest of the TEs stand allows you to weigh out the opportunity cost of drafting them versus passing on the next tiers. Here is a screenshot from this year’s UDK along with the risk rating, ADP, redraft & dynasty outlooks.
As you can see there is a major point projections gap between Tier 1 & 2 among the TEs this year. Rounds 4 and 5 are not a spot where you want to think about drafting a TE. The tier-based approach gives you the confidence to continue to hammer away at RBs and WRs rather than reach on a position just to fill out your starting positions.
The tiers help you see gaps in points where sometimes ranks alone won’t give you that benefit.
Tier-based drafting strategy helps you compare across different positions.
Comparing players across positions is what ultimately allows you to “see the draft board”. The printable cheatsheets in the UDK can give you the type of visualizations needed when you’re on the clock. You might have three WRs available in tier 2 while only one RB is left in your tier 3.
Based on your roster construction so far in your draft, identifying who is “left” in that tier is quite easy. With the new markings system available in the UDK App, you can star someone like Chase Brown as the last guy available in that tier and have confidence you weren’t passing up perceived value. Despite the rankings showing him as a top-10 back, his ADP is the last of this grouping at 3.03.
Not all tiers are created equal.
One of the key takeaways for me was seeing that some tiers are larger than others. While Tier 1 of the RBs might be all too clear, the second and third tiers of RBs consisted of way more than two players as scoring formats dictated a number guys in the mix. Depending on where you feel comfortable, these tiers allow you to stretch yourself in the draft and gain an edge over your opponent.
Tiers for Your Fears!
Remember when you used to wait for that magazine preview to come out and you perused it in the grocery store? Well, with the ever-changing nature of daily news in the NFL, the UDK is updated as a digital product every single day. If someone is traded or released or an unfortunate injury takes place, the Ultimate Draft Kit is updated with the latest projections and statistical outlooks for each player. The situations for teams and how they affect one another are also updated. When you head into your draft, be prepared with tiers that are up-to-the-minute and with you the moment you enter that draft room.
The tiers created by Andy, Mike, and Jason over the years move you from passively drafting to going in with a clearer lay of the land.
- Fantasy rankings turn into actionable information.
- Fantasy projections are illustrated into sortable layers.
- Fantasy positions are now grouped together instead of one long list.
In other words, the Ultimate Draft Kit tiers actually work! Take it from a couple of #UDK buyers who swear by the tiers:
Two years in a row I am the Champ Champ winning two leagues and couldn’t have done it without the #UDK, the app last year was amazing and can’t forget the ultimate dashboard was another great addition in season !
— Jeff – World Traveler (@j3ffc4m3r0n17) March 28, 2025
Happy #UDK Day! 🎉
Billy on the left got @TheFFBallers #UDK:
-won his league's championship
-is awesomeArthur on the right didn't buy the #UDK:
-was not ready for his draft
-came in last place in his league
-now has to spend 24 hours inside of a Waffle House
-isn't awesome pic.twitter.com/1ogUZx8c5a— Joe Beldner (@JoeBeldner) June 1, 2025
Just purchased @TheFFBallers #udk and my toilet time is set until draft day
— Justin Bodenschatz (@phrd_cards) August 8, 2025
Comments
*Chase Brown go past the second
How often do these platforms update ADP? I haven’t seen Bucky go past the mid second in at least a month.