Now that the 2025 fantasy football season is officially over, I wanted to break down the 10 players this year who actually won fantasy leagues.

Now, these players were on the most championship rosters, and I want to take a look at why that happened and how we can learn from it.

And we're going to start with the guy in Michael Wilson, the wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals, who was the very rare.

And I say very rare because this often doesn't happen, a late season wide receiver league winner. Normally if we find a wide receiver on the waiver wire, it's after the first couple of weeks of the season. Maybe somebody breaks out and offense is better than expected, but it doesn't happen all the way out in like week 10 when it did for Michael Wilson. Now, if you look at his overall stats, it's good, but nothing crazy. 12 and a half fantasy points per game, the wide receiver 21, obviously better than the expectations coming into the year when he was undrafted in almost every single fantasy draft out there. But this doesn't take into account the entire thing. The first nine weeks of the season, really the first 10 weeks of the season, Michael Wilson wasn't involved. It was the Trey McBride offense for a chunk of those first four to to five weeks, it was a James Connor as well before he got hurt. And of course, Marvin Harrison, right? But then the quarterback change happened in week six to Jacoby Berset. And more importantly, heading into week 11, Marvin Harrison was out with an injury. And from that point forward, it was an absolute breakout for Marvin Harrison. You can see those seven games to end the year. He averaged over 21 fantasy points per game. An insane 11.4 targets per game was second in the NFL only behind

Puka Nakua and 97 receiving yards per game. He literally went from a name that you kind of

remembered if you're really into fantasy or if you're a fantasy Arizona Cardinals, third round wide

receiver taken from Stanford a couple

years prior. He went from like somebody that only a couple of people knew to everybody knew. He was the hottest waiver wire ad in fantasy football heading into week 12. Week 12, it was that late in the season that he broke out. And it wasn't just like a one week thing like we see with many receivers. Trey Tucker earlier in the season has a one week blimp, right? It wasn't that with Michael Wilson, he continued his success the rest of the year.

And sure, the catalyst for this was Marvin Harrison getting injured, but that's all it took for the garbage time Arizona Cardinals and Jacobi Berset, who played from behind in every game to sustain Tray McBride and Michael Wilson. If you look at it, Michael Wilson right here, Weeks 1 through 10, wide receiver 77 and fantasy was a clear backup, the third or four option on this team. Weeks 1 through 10 wide receiver 77 in fantasy was a clear backup, the third

or four option on this team. Weeks 11 through 17 was the wide receiver three in fantasy, literally

a top three fantasy wide receiver. And it only continued into the fantasy playoffs who were in the

most important weeks of the year for you. He averaged 16 and a half points per game, a top 10

wide receiver. Now, as I mentioned, Michael Wilson just wasn't added or picked up in any leagues to start the year. He wasn't drafted. On average, his draft slot was 280 or 267th. He went wide receiver 82 in drafts. Look at some of the names he went after. Jatavian Sanders, the Panthers tight end. Damian Pierce, who was like a depth piece at that point for the Houston Texans.

He was still in the Houston Texans.

Tyler Lockett, right?

These are the names that he was going after in fantasy drafts.

He wasn't drafted.

Now, like, what is the takeaway from this?

For the most part?

These things don't happen often.

You don't get a wide receiver who kind of just slots in with no past experience.

Sure, he was talented. He came out of college with some medical conditions. That's why he fell in the draft. But I don't think we have a lot of takeaways here. We're not going to save our fad budget to the end of the season. You want to use it earlier because historically that's when the best available players are in the fantasy season earlier on when we start to get that information, not later on when these one week things happen. Maybe moving forward towards next year, now the question truly becomes Michael Wilson or Marvin Harrison.

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