To a degree, fantasy football is a game of guesswork. We strive to find the breakouts before they break out, the waiver wire gems before they’re uncovered, and the sleepers before they wake up. We can do our best to predict and project accurately, but there are always surprises.

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And sometimes, the unexpected falls into a pattern. An archetype we’ve seen before. History, as they say, is doomed to repeat itself … so let’s capitalize! By identifying the blueprint for last year’s biggest fantasy surprises and the characteristics that made them successful, we can cast that net forward and catch ourselves a few 2025 stars.

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2024 Surprise QB: Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Heading into last season, Mayfield was a six-year veteran and former No. 1 pick with a career losing record and a single top-10 fantasy finish under his belt (the year prior). He’d never hit a 65% completion rate or 30 passing touchdowns in a season, and while his first year in Tampa Bay had been his best to date, he still hadn’t cracked “star” territory in fantasy. We’d seen glimpses of the talent and moxy that made him the top pick in the draft — like when he broke the rookie passing touchdown record — but he’d become a bit of a wandering stopgap after landing on his fourth team in three years.

Then, in 2024, play-caller Liam Coen fired the Tampa Bay offense out of a cannon. Mayfield’s time to throw and average depth of target both dropped significantly, and the quick-hitting, YAC-based passing game proved to be a revelation. His 71.4% completion rate, 4,500 yards, 41 touchdowns and 106.8 passer rating were all career highs (among others), and he finished as the QB5 in fantasy. In fact, Mayfield became just the second quarterback ever to post a completion rate over 71% and a touchdown rate over 7% in the same season … joining future Hall of Famer Drew Brees (who did it twice).

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And best of all, finding the 2025 version is almost too easy.

2025’s surprise QB is … Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars

Tell me if this sounds familiar: a four-year veteran and former No. 1 pick with a career losing record and a single top-10 fantasy finish under his belt. Much like Mayfield, Lawrence has flashed stretches of that “No. 1 overall brilliance,” but was mostly a disappointment over his rookie contract. His best season (QB7 in 2022) was better than Mayfield’s best, and his upside feels higher … but we’re still waiting to see the second coming of Peyton Manning that we were promised.

Wait, what’s this? Liam Coen, the very same play-caller who elevated Mayfield last year, is now the head coach and play-caller in Jacksonville? And they added electric playmaker Travis Hunter at wide receiver (at least partially) alongside breakout superstar Brian Thomas Jr. to give Lawrence a top-tier 1-2 punch (a la Mike Evans and Chris Godwin)?

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This is getting eerie.

After signing Lawrence to a five-year, $275 million extension last fall — something the Browns refused to do with Mayfield — the Jaguars are hanging everything on the Lawrence ascension. And they may have found the right pieces to make it happen.

Lawrence has struggled through low touchdown rates (3.4%) and low yards per attempt (6.8) in his career, and the lack of efficiency has capped his ceiling. But if Coen can coordinate a system that highlights his strengths, protects his weaknesses and unlocks the “generational” potential every scout recognized back in 2021, the 25-year-old QB could rocket into the elite tier in fantasy.

2024 Surprise RB: Chuba Hubbard, Carolina Panthers

After a surprising 2023 in which Hubbard supplanted Miles Sanders and his $25 million contract in Carolina, the former fourth-round draft pick had a true breakout last season. He rushed for an additional 293 yards on just 12 more carries and scored 11 touchdowns, more than doubling his 2023 total of five.

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Why?

Part of it can likely be attributed to an offseason as the expected starter, and the ineffectiveness of the depth chart behind him (the diminished Sanders, Raheem Blackshear and nothing else). But let’s not forget what happened around him as well. After No. 1 pick Bryce Young essentially bombed as a rookie under HC Frank Reich (fired midseason), interim HC Chris Tabor and OC Thomas Brown in 2023, the front office made a major push to fix their offense. They hired young offensive wizard and purported QB-whisperer Dave Canales as head coach. They paid big money to offensive guards Damien Lewis and Robert Hunt to shore up the interior of their O-line. They drafted wide receiver Xavier Legette in the first round.

And as a result, they went from the league’s worst offense in 2023 — 31st in scoring, dead last in yards, dead last in red-zone drives — to a bottom-10-but-definitely-better offense in 2024. Still not elite, but good enough to support a solid RB2 … and get him into the end zone 11 times. Unthreatened by subpar competition, Hubbard shouldered 293 touches, and between that elite volume and his improved environment, finished as the RB15 despite an RB42 draft-price tag.

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2025’s surprise RB is … D’Andre Swift, Chicago Bears

Once again, the recipe to find our “surprise successor” is almost uncannily obvious. Last year, No. 1 overall rookie Caleb Williams was subpar at best under HC Matt Eberflus (fired midseason), interim HC Thomas Brown (remember him?), and a play-calling carousel that included Brown and the frequently fired Shane Waldron. Then, this offseason, Ryan Poles and Co. hired young offensive wizard Ben Johnson, signed offensive guards Joe Thuney and Jonah Jackson to shore up the interior and drafted first-round tight end Colston Loveland and second-round wide receiver Luther Burden III.

So, the offense that ranked 28th in scoring, dead last in yards and dead last in red-zone drives last year is poised for a major breakout in 2025. Following so far?

Meanwhile, Swift saw 295 touches last year and racked up a quiet 1,345 scrimmage yards, but scored just six touchdowns in the aforementioned anemic offense. Swift — who once succeeded Miles Sanders back in Philly — still has minimal competition in Chicago, with plodder Roschon Johnson and seventh-round rookie Kyle Monangai constituting the only “threats” on the depth chart. Despite finishing as the RB19 last year — and with all the improvements around him — he’s going as the RB27 in Yahoo ADP.

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All arrows are pointing up for Swift (except maybe his ADP), and he is a legitimate threat to double his touchdown total in a breakout offense and threaten an RB1 finish at absurd value.

2024 Surprise WR: Terry McLaurin, Washington Commanders

Entering 2024, we knew McLaurin was a good wide receiver. He’d posted 75+ receptions and 1,000+ receiving yards in four straight seasons — and made the Pro Bowl in 2022 — all despite playing with an infamously awful spread of backup-turned-starter quarterbacks like Taylor Heinicke and Sam Howell. The biggest symptom of his QB conundrum: he’d never scored more than seven receiving touchdowns in a season, and had scored either four or five in four straight years. McLaurin’s best finish was WR14 (in 2022), and he seemed doomed for low-end WR2, high-end WR3 purgatory.

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Then came Jayden Daniels.

The second overall pick won Offensive Rookie of the Year while logging a 69% completion rate, a 5.2% touchdown rate and a rare-for-a-rookie 100.1 passer rating. The Commanders offense pulled an impressive about-face, from bottom-10 offense in 2023 (and for essentially six years straight) to top-10 offense in 2024. With a true franchise quarterback under center, McLaurin scored a whopping 13 receiving touchdowns, including five on deep passes alone … a mark that was only topped by Ja’Marr Chase’s six last year.

McLaurin immediately rocketed from a borderline FLEX play to a WR1 in fantasy — specifically, the WR6 overall on the season. And he did it at 29 years old, after he was drafted as an “old” 24-year-old rookie back in 2019.

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Whether Washington works out a contract with the star wideout for 2025 remains to be seen, but, at least for one year, he was a surprise star for fantasy on the merits of a major QB upgrade.

2025’s surprise WR is … Calvin Ridley, Tennessee Titans

So, for 2025, we’re looking for an older veteran wideout on a previously bottom-10 offense, who’s struggled through poor-to-middling QB play in his career, lived on the WR2-WR3 fringe for a while and now welcomes a highly-touted rookie with an impressive deep ball.

Hmm … I wonder.

Calvin Ridley, come on down!

While Ridley’s highest high — WR4 overall in 2020 — is far higher than McLaurin’s, he has since missed entire seasons and been relegated to the middling version of Lawrence and the Tennessee mess of Will Levis and Mason Rudolph at QB. These last two years, he’s finished right in the McLaurin sweet spot, with around 70 receptions, 1,000 yards and 5-8 TDs each year. Now, at age 30 — he was also a 24-year-old rookie, back in 2018 — Ridley will be paired up with No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward out of Miami. Just how drastically Ward can elevate a Titans offense that’s been bottom-of-the-barrel for three straight years remains to be seen, but it feels almost inevitable that he will elevate it to some degree.

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Ward may not have the accuracy, decision-making or mobility that Daniels does, but he has transcendent arm talent and is an exciting off-schedule playmaker. Both those attributes pair well with Ridley and his downfield prowess, and the two are already linking up to flash that connection in training camp.

Meanwhile, the Tennessee depth chart is a veritable wasteland. Ridley’s competition for targets consists of Tyler Lockett (or, the ghost thereof), Van Jefferson, a pile of Day 3 rookies and Chig Okonkwo at tight end. It would be rather shocking to see Ridley fall short of McLaurin’s 117-target mark, and most projections have him closer to 130 or more. Barring a complete bust from Ward, that would likely put Ridley in striking distance of 80+ catches and 1,100+ yards. If he can also threaten double-digit touchdowns — like he did as a rookie and McLaurin did last year — that’s legitimate top-10 upside for a player going outside the top-30 wide receivers in ADP.