- Jack Kiser offers some potential beyond Year 1: While his path to snaps as a rookie isn’t great, that path may clear up significantly in Year 2, making him an ideal late-round target.
- Teddye Buchanan offers a sneakily interesting potential as soon as his rookie year: The Baltimore Ravens linebacker room needed reinforcements, and Buchanan could push for playing time if the leash remains short for Trenton Simpson.
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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
Taking dart throws in IDP fantasy football dynasty rookie drafts can be tricky because these are truly low-success plays, but identifying good players in opportune situations to emerge, even down the road, is critical in being able to hit on one or more of these options.
Every year, a select few emerge to become fantasy stars or stash options with the potential to break out the following season, which is exactly the type of players fantasy managers should consider late in drafts. Each player listed below was, at best, a Day 3 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Be sure to check out the full IDP rookie rankings article to see where these players stack up to other IDP options, and the offense and IDP rookie draft walkthrough article to see where the IDPs rank among the offensive players.
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Draft Position Rankings
LB Jack Kiser, Jacksonville Jaguars
- NFL Draft Capital: Round 4, 107th overall
- Suggested IDP Rookie Draft range: 5th Round
Kiser returns to being a sleeper, after being considered so pre-draft, thanks to his landing spot with the Jaguars, despite that Jacksonville has three players at the position thatit is currently heavily invested in. Foyesade Oluokun is the team’s top option, and his long-term contract will back that up. Meanwhile, the team spent a first- and second-round pick on Devin Lloyd and Chad Muma in 2022; however, with the team officially declining Lloyd’s fifth-year option, both are expected free agents at the end of this season.
The departure of at least Lloyd and Muma in the 2025 offseason would clear a significant path to snaps for Kiser, who owns one of the stronger linebacker profiles coming out of college, which includes a career 91.9 PFF grade (95th percentile), 92.0 run-defense grade (97th percentile), an 86.5 coverage grade (81st percentile) and just a 4.8% career missed tackle rate (99th percentile) on nearly 2,000 defensive snaps. Betting on a potential path opening up for a capable linebacker like Kiser in the fifth round of rookie drafts, after the team spent an early fourth-round pick on him, makes him one of the better late-round IDP values in this class.
ED Jack Sawyer, Pittsburgh Steelers
- NFL Draft Capital: Round 4, 123rd overall
- Suggested IDP Rookie Draft range: 6th Round
Sawyer was being projected as a fringe top-50 pick early on in this year’s pre-draft process, according to consensus mock drafts, so his slide to the fourth round was somewhat surprising, but also a great value for a team with a lot of success in developing defensive linemen. Obviously, T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith are high-volume edge defenders who aren’t likely to cede snaps to a rookie, and even Nick Herbig has shown promise as a rotational option when given the opportunity, so the path to snaps for Sawyer is anything but immediate.
Watt is in the final year of his contract, while Herbig has one year remaining after this season, so the Steelers replenishing their defensive line a bit this draft makes sense, as they also added defensive interior players in the first and fifth rounds. Sawyer and his IDP managers will have to be patient for him to get on the field enough to make a consistent impact, but he has the type of profile that the Steelers can benefit from, thanks to his every-down ability. Even as a player with below-average arm length, both Herbig and Highsmith suffered from the same knocks coming out of college, but it didn’t hamper their potential at the next level. Sawyer isn’t much more than a sixth-round rookie pick for those deeper leagues but certainly a player of interest considering the team and long-term potential.
LB Teddye Buchanan, Baltimore Ravens
- NFL Draft Capital: Round 4, 129th overall
- Suggested IDP Rookie Draft range: 5th Round
Buchanan to the Ravens offers some sneaky potential after the team has seemingly moved on from Malik Harrison and Chris Board this offseason. Both players were starting well ahead of the current projected starter for 2025, Trenton Simpson, from Week 12 and on last year. Simpson’s play was clearly not up to par with the Ravens’ expectations of him in Year 2, and they essentially benched him for the latter half of the year. That isn’t to say that Simpson can’t improve or be in starting consideration for this year, but the leash is certainly shorter for him with this coaching staff.
Buchanan gets decent fourth-round draft capital and is almost immediately no worse than LB3 in Baltimore, considering the glaring lack of options at the position behind Simpson and Roquan Smith. Buchanan has nearly 2,500 defensive snaps to his name coming out of college at just 22 years old, both in the FCS and Power Four conferences. Buchanan is a strong tackler who knows how to wrap up, boasting just a 6.8% missed tackle rate for his career (94th percentile) and great coverage numbers, as he owns a 98th percentile career coverage grade (93.7). If Simpson continues to falter in Baltimore as a starter, Buchanan looks like he has the potential to be the next man up and return some excellent IDP value as a late fifth-round pick in rookie drafts.
S Lathan Ransom, Carolina Panthers
- NFL Draft Capital: Round 4, 122nd overall
- Suggested IDP Rookie Draft range: 6th Round
The Panthers’ safety group was one of the thinner units heading into the NFL draft with Tre'Von Moehrig as the lone clear expected starter, and after that, a potential battle between Demani Richardson – a 2024 undrafted free agent – and Nick Scott – a former seventh-rounder who has struggled on multiple occasions when given a starting role in other defenses. The Panthers spending a fourth-round pick on Ransom gives a stronger investment to him than either of the other two options, which could lead to him getting on the field sooner rather than later.
Ransom offers experience as a starter, doing so for three straight seasons at Ohio State, and through his career, he has delivered solid PFF grades across the board without any glaring weaknesses. For IDP purposes, he’s also spent around 30% of his college snaps in the box, gaining some experience around the line of scrimmage, which could allow Moehrig to play his more natural deep safety role with Ransom rotating down more often. Ultimately, Ransom has a decent shot to get on the field as a rookie by outperforming Scott and Richardson, which makes him one of the few Day 3 bets at the position to make late in IDP rookie drafts.
LB Chris Paul Jr., Los Angeles Rams
- NFL Draft Capital: Round 5, 172nd overall
- Suggested IDP Rookie Draft range: 6th Round
The Rams linebacker room heading into the NFL draft was maybe the most uninspiring depth chart in the entire league, led by Troy Reeder, who was arguably one of the biggest veteran winners for IDP coming out of the draft, and a combination of Omar Speights and Nate Landman. If the Rams spent Day 1 or 2 capital at the position, then that player would be one of the top-drafted rookie IDPs in the entire class, and while Paul went in Round 5, he’s still arguably in a decent spot to get on the field as an eventual starter.
Paul is coming off a very encouraging season as the SEC’s top-graded linebacker overall (87.2) and ranking second in coverage grade (78.1), behind only Jihaad Campbell. Paul shouldn’t be overlooked because of his draft capital, as he’s certainly capable enough of leading this defense as anyone else on the roster at this moment. For deep-league drafts, Paul should be a name that we should be interested in for IDP, as his chances of hitting are higher than most fifth-round linebackers.
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