Six Key Preseason Fantasy Takeaways: Ollie Gordon's ascent, Marvin Mims is For Real, and More

The 2025 preseason has come and gone. Thankfully not many overly fantasy-relevant injuries occurred, but that doesn't mean us fantasy nerds and virgins haven't found reasons to adjust the ole ranks anyway.

This brings us to today's goal: 10 preseason happenings that have forced me to adjust dem rankings ahead of the 2025 season.

(Quick note: use code "Ian" for 20% off a premium year-long FL+ sub and enjoy all the spoils!)

Reminder: Preseason USAGE is far more important than performance, so make sure you also check out Fantasy Life Director of Analytics Dwain "The Rock" McFarland's excellent breakdown from this past weekend's action. That said, while it's just the preseason, it's still better to see players play good vs. bad during these glorified exhibitions. We can surely agree on that, right? RIGHT?

As always: It's a great day to be great.

1. This Jaxson Dart guy looks GOOD

For real. The dude rocks a visor and sleeve while putting a single strip of eye black under his right eye–an ode to Anakin Skywalker! What's not to love?

Oh yeah, the on-field football stuff has also looked good too. While Giants head coach Brian Daboll has been adamant that Russell Wilson is the team's starting QB, Dart made the most out of his opportunities during three extended preseason appearances.

Dart among 68 QBs with 25-plus preseason dropbacks

PFF pass grade: 88.5 (No. 2)
Big-time throw rate: 8.3% (tied for No. 5)
EPA per dropback: +0.36 (No. 5)
Yards per attempt: 7.9 (No. 12)
Explosive pass play rate: 16.3% (No. 13)
Passer rating: 113.1 (No. 8)

There's off-script ability here, the man isn't afraid to take a hit, and Dart sure can make some pretty throws when he knows where to go with the football. Throw in 52 yards and a score on the ground, and the 2025 NFL Draft's 25th overall pick profiles as the sort of QB capable of forcing defenses to account for every blade of grass on the field.

Ultimately, the Giants' hellacious schedule doesn't figure to help the artist known as DangeRuss keep his job for too long should the wins fail to pile up. Reminder: The Giants were favored to win *one* game when schedules initially came out back in May.

If I was a betting man (I am), I'd venture to say Week 5 against the Saints is when we'll see Dart make his starting debut after the Giants fail to win more than one of their first four games. Week 7 following a Thursday night game (AKA longer opportunity to prepare) feels like the floor here for a head coach and general manager on liquid lava-level hot seats at the moment. Russ would REALLY have to play some great football for the team to wait until Week 15 after their bye.

Either way, Dart should get a chance to show what he can do sooner rather than later in 2025–and don't be surprised if the returns in fantasy land are quite nice considering the Ole Miss product's proven rushing upside.

2. The Jacory (Bill) Croskey-Merritt era is NOW

It's unclear if Bill resting with the starters was due to him being the new starter with Brian Robinson sent to San Francisco, or if that choice was made more so due to a lingering shoulder injury.

Either way: I find it hard to believe the Commanders sent B-Rob packing for any reason other than belief in their seventh-rounder's ability to contribute from day one. Now, Austin Ekeler isn't going anywhere on pass downs, and Chris Rodriguez will probably factor into the early-down/short-yardage equation as well; just realize the former 30-year-old veteran commanded just 77 carries in 12 games last season, and the latter third-year back was released (and later re-signed) twice last season.

While the history of day three backs making big things happen as rookies is barren, it's less so at RB, and Croskey-Merritt's case is unique considering his senior season at Arizona was cut short after just one game due to a weird ass NCAA investigation relating to confusion surrounding his redshirt campaign at Alabama State after he gave his number to a teammate (seriously). Super normal stuff from a complete joke of a ruling body the NCAA.

Where there's smoke, there's fire: Don't expect Bill to push for 25 touches per game or anything, but he profiles as the favorite for early-down work inside the league's reigning fifth-ranked scoring offense. Not a bad sleeper to target, and Croskey-Merritt accordingly is someone I'm quite happy to target after the top-28-ish RBs and top-45-ish WRs are off the board.

3. Ollie Gordon, running back, THE (backup) running back, y'all

The Dolphins' sixth-round rookie didn't exactly come out of nowhere. In fact, Gordon was a trendy late first-round pick in way-too-early mock drafts this time last year after his huge 2023 season at Oklahoma State. Overall, Gordon joins Ashton Jeanty and Cam Skattebo as the only three RBs to register a season with 2,000-plus total yards and 20-plus rushing TDs in one of the last two seasons.

Still, a less-than-stellar 2024 season and tumble down the draft board led to many not expecting much out of the 6-foot-2, 225-pound bowling ball. Gordon didn't appear to have a locked-in roster spot ahead of 2025 … and then the Injury Gods struck:

De'Von Achane is dealing with a calf injury that leaves his Week 1 status at least in some question.
Jaylen Wright has an undisclosed leg injury that is expected to keep him out for multiple weeks.
Alexander Mattison will miss the entire 2025 season with a neck injury.

To Gordon's credit, he performed admirably enough in the preseason to warrant RB2 consideration even before these injuries. The disparity in performance between him and Wright was legit alarming. But hey, either way, the 21-year-old talent now profiles as the clear next-man-up behind Achane–a role that, you know, produced 21 f*cking TDs for Raheem Mostert all the way back in 2023!

Buried outside the top-50 RBs while ADP continues to play catch-up, Gordon is an ideal late-round target at the position who profiles as a good candidate to grace the cover of Week 2 waiver wire articles across the fantasy industry.

4. It sure seems like Isaac TeSlaa is quite good at football

There's a lot to like about the Arkansas product:

The 6'3", 214-pound wide-out posted some truly ridiculous testing numbers this offseason, ranking 11th (!) out of 3,441 WRs since 1987 in RAS (relative athletic score).
Not only did the Lions devote day two draft capital to TeSlaa, but they traded *three* third-rounders to move up to get him in the first place.
TeSlaa caught 10 of 13 targets for 146 yards and a trio of scores, most importantly hitting a smooth worm celebration after hauling in this 33-yard score.

Look, the Lions passing game still figures to flow through Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, Sam LaPorta, and probably even Jahmyr Gibbs over TeSlaa, who could still conceivably start the season behind veteran Tim Patrick in three-WR sets despite his electric preseason performances. Still, earning early green check marks in the talent, investment, and production departments is a helluva way to start the career–it's no wonder TeSlaa is one of Mr. Dwain McFarland's favorite late-round darts.

5. Don't sleep on JK Dobbins having a nice role in Denver

Just listen to Fantasy Life's fearless leader Matthew Berry as well as Broncos beat reporter Benjamin Allbright.

Of course, second-rounder RJ Harvey looks like a good bet to soak up plenty of snaps himself, but don't discount the potential for Payton to enable *two* fantasy-relevant backs. After all, the 2017 Saints (Kamara and Ingram) and 2023 Dolphins (De'Von Achane and Raheem Mostert) are the only teams to produce multiple top-12 RBs in the same season since 2011.

Learned doctors believe Dobbins could be closer to 100% an extra year removed from his Achilles injury, and honestly Next-Gen Stats' RB12 in rush yards over expected per carry (+0.6) was already pretty solid last year. Everyone loves to bring up the lack of long speed on this run; just realize the 26-year-old veteran still reached a faster MPH mark than guys like Kyren Williams and Travis Etienne last season.

Dobbins profiles as a quality FLEX-with-benefits option who is priced closer to pure handcuffs. He's a buy for me particularly in this range of drafts where the good WR options are pretty much dried up–particularly in zero- or hero-RB builds that spent early-round draft capital on other positions.

6. Marvin Mims looks a lot like a full-time starting WR

The All-Pro kick returner didn't play more than 50% of the offense's snaps until the Broncos' Wild Card loss to the Bills last season. And yet, that didn't stop Mims from flashing on offense with regularity thanks to fun gadgety RB usage alongside the occasional deep shot. This is a damn good football player!

Enter: The 2025 preseason, which featured Mims playing a near every-down role alongside Bo Nix and the starting offense. Now, Mims didn't exactly do much on his 24 total routes (1 catch for 3 yards), but remember: Usage > performance in the preszn. He's tentatively expected to start in three-WR sets alongside Courtland Sutton and (most likely) Troy Franklin in an offense that just managed to rank 10th in scoring despite operating with a rookie QB.

It'd make sense if rookie third-rounder Pat Bryant carves out some snaps himself, and Sean Payton certainly loves to keep his RBs and TEs involved in the passing game too. Still, we have actual on-field evidence that a newfound full-time role is on the table for one of the game's small sample-size all-stars from a season ago–that's the sort of combination worth throwing a late-round dart at in fantasy land.