We’ve all been there. You’re in an auction draft, and your team looks great! Wow, Ja’Marr Chase, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Ashton Jeanty? What a squad! Well, congratulations on spending all of your money on three guys. You’re now stuck waiting around to sneak players onto your roster for $1. You can find some values deep in drafts, so I would like to outline an entire squad made of $1 players as determined by Evan’s Auction Values chart (built off of dozens of real fantasy football drafts with real humans, not algorithms fighting each other for players).
Keep in mind these are not “sleepers” or “breakouts” but a different category. Some are saying even better than either of those categories. These are simply players who are quite literally undervalued by most fantasy football auction drafts.
QUARTERBACKS
This is the easiest spot to pick up some ground on your league mates, especially in 1QB leagues. In 2 QB leagues? Congratulations, you screwed the pooch, and fantasy basketball season is right around the corner. There are only twelve quarterbacks with $2+ Average Auction Value (AAV), so we have a bevy of guys to pick from. Here are my favorite three, in order.
Floor Play: Brock Purdy (San Francisco 49ers)
The 49ers backed up a Brinks truck to Mr. Irrelevant’s house this offseason, and he now goes into 2025 with a lot more money… and a lot fewer weapons. His wide receiver corps is a mess, with Brandon Aiyuk, Jauan Jennings, and Brandon Cowing (his WR1, WR2, and WR4) not practicing. But Purdy went the entire season without getting a complete game from two of Aiyuk, Jennings, Deebo Samuel, Christian McCaffrey, and George Kittle. He, like Lawrence, has a sneaky rushing element (66 attempts, 323 yards, and five touchdowns), which helped keep his floor high. With everything that went wrong for the 49ers last year, Purdy still finished as QB10 in points per game. He doesn’t have a lot of upside, but if you punted the position, he’s a good floor play.
Ceiling Play: Trevor Lawrence (Jacksonville Jaguars)
Trevor Lawrence is once again inside my top ten quarterbacks (QB9). There are a lot of reasons to get excited about Lawrence this season. Namely, the Brian Thomas Jr. breakout from last year, the Travis Hunter trade-up in the draft to snag Hunter with the #2 pick, and Liam Coen bringing his magic to the Jaguars. If Coen can maximize Lawrence the same way he maximized Baker, then his numbers would jump into top-six territory at quarterback. He finally has the staff and weapons around him to produce at a high level for passing. He could be one of the league’s most prolific passers, and he gets a minor boost as a sneaky rushing quarterback, too (4 carries for 18 yards per game throughout his career).
RUNNING BACKS
This is a weird year for running backs, as a bevy of supremely talented backs entered the league (Ashton Jeanty, Omarion Hampton, TreVeyon Henderson, and others), and there are still a lot of the old guard floating around. There are too many running backs who could be viable if teams allowed them to produce.
Floor Play: Jerome Ford (Cleveland Browns)
The Browns drafted Quinshon Judkins in the second round of the 2025 NFL Draft, but he remains the only unsigned second-rounder as he deals with the legal fallout from his domestic violence charge that occurred in June. The most likely outcome is that the Browns turn back to ol’ reliable, Jerome Ford, to helm their backfield. He’s been the fallback plan for years now, spelling Nick Chubb off and on for several years. Now, he is once again bailing out the Browns. In Ford’s 23 games without Nick Chubb over the last three seasons, he’s averaging 11.9 PPR points per game on 10.4 carries and 3.8 targets for 64 yards per game. Those 11.9 PPR points aren’t anything super thrilling, but they would have been RB28 last year, and a solid flex play… I’d buy that for a dollar!
Ceiling Play: Braelon Allen (New York Jets)
Three Words: David Montgomery Role. Three more: Jamaal Williams’ Role. New Jets Head Coach Aaron Glenn is importing the Lions’ two-back system to New York, and that system involves a hammer back to pulverize defense on the goal line. Three years ago, it was Jamaal Williams spelling D’Andre Swift, but for the past two seasons, David Montgomery played the hammer role to give Jahmyr Gibbs a breather. While Allen is no Montgomery, Hall has proven that he is no Jahmyr Gibbs. Williams and Montgomery have over 40 combined touchdowns in this role, and Allen could be the next player to fill the hammerback role for a Lions-style offense and reap all the rewards.
WIDE RECEIVERS
Floor Play: Jakobi Meyers (Las Vegas)
Jakobi Meyers is one of the most reliable wide receivers in the league. He’s not a flashy player by any means, but he’s consistently open and has powerful hands. While the target competition is stiffer this year, with Ashton Jeanty, Jack Bech, and Dont’e Thornton joining Meyers and Brock Bowers, I still expect Meyers to play a central role in this offense. Last season, he ranked twelfth in receptions among wide receivers and was one of 21 players with 1000 receiving yards. He’s an incredible PPR floor play to plug into your lineup for Bye weeks or while your down roster sleeper receivers develop into weekly starters.
Ceiling Play: Jordan Addison (Minnesota)
The Vikings’ wide receiver is becoming a tremendous value due to the three-game suspension the NFL just handed down. Given that these weeks come before the Bye weeks, you’re perfectly set up to carry Addison on your bench until he returns to game action. He’s one of five wide receivers ever to have 19+ touchdowns in his first two seasons. He also averages 10 PPR points per game without the touchdowns, as he is averaging four receptions and 58 yards on 6.6 targets per game in his first two seasons in the league. J.J. McCarthy is at least as talented as Sam Darnold, meaning that Addison should once again return good value on a per-game basis once he returns from his suspension.
Tight Ends
Ceiling Play: David Njoku (Cleveland)
David Njoku is one of my Flag Plants this year for the Football Absurdity Podcast, not because the Cleveland Browns will be a high-powered offense, but specifically because the rest of the team won’t steal any targets from Njoku. It’s easy to dismiss Njoku, but every team will throw the ball at least 450 times. Given the Browns’ consistent league-leading play count and their likely need to play from behind, the number is expected to be even higher for Cleveland. Go ahead and divide up the targets, I bet you can’t get David Njoku under 100 without giving a heinous target share to Jamari Thrash or Cedric Tillman, who haven’t earned it. Njoku is my TE4 for the season, which means I’ll be getting him everywhere. You should, too.
Floor Play: Dalls Goedert (Philadelphia)
Goedert is a reliable floor player every year because, when he plays, he is the third target on the Eagles. When I said “every team throws at least 450 times,” that includes the run-heavy Eagles. While Goedert doesn’t always play a complete game, he is extremely useful for fantasy football when he does play. Last season, he played over 20% of snaps eight times, and in those games he paced out to 200.2 fantasy points (81/937/4.25), which would have been TE5 last season. He also led the team in receiving yards in the playoffs. His only notable downside is that he has missed a game or left early nearly 30% of the time since 2021.
