In "Our Thing," success is dependent on picking the right fellas for your crew. If you have a top-notch family of guys willing and able to do whatever is necessary to ensure that all goes well and everyone eats, then nothing can stop you.
Top of the world, Ma!
However, any crew is only as strong as its weakest link. Put the wrong guy in the wrong spot at the wrong time, and everything can fall apart. Other crews will take what's yours. At best, you'll be left a broken shell, getting by day by day in Boca Raton. At worst, you'll wind up in the trunk of a 1984 Ford LTD Crown Victoria or spending 25 years staring out a tiny window at Sing Sing.
Or whatever happened to Tony Soprano. None of the options are great.
Fantasy football is pretty much the same. You know, without the car trunks and prison and, well, stuff.
Drafting a solid team isn't the only thing that wins championships. It may not even be the most important thing. But it's a lot easier to win a league if you aren't already trying to figure out why your WR2 never came back from that trip to Vegas in September. Starting the season in scramble mode is not ideal.
Getting value as often as possible on draft day is the best way to do that. But the more drafts one does in a given summer (Eight. 78. Whatever. I don't judge), the more one realizes that there are certain players who just keep showing up on their rosters. Players they keep going back to the well for again and again.
Everyone has "My Guys." And the Godfather is no different.
You have to give love to your family.
Many of the players in this piece have already been mentioned by me this summer--some more than once. Maybe I'm just stubborn. Or maybe they were IDP values then and remain IDP values to be had now.
Whatever the reason, these are the IDPs that mi piace molto in 2025. And look at the bright side.
If I'm wrong, you can at least take solace in the fact that my teams will be sleeping with the fishes.
The Godfather's Defensive Linemen
EDGE Harold Landry III, New England
After seven seasons and 50.5 sacks with the Titans, Landry has been reunited with former Tennessee head coach Mike Vrabel in New England, where he will assume the role of the Patriots' No. 1 edge-rusher. It's a role he thrived in under Vrabel in Nashville, including a pair of years in which Landry hit 70 total tackles, logged double-digit sacks, and finished as a top-15 defensive lineman in The Godfather's Default IDP Scoring.
Last year, in a Vrabel-less season in Tennessee, Landry hit 70 total tackles and nine sacks for the third time in four years--numbers that quietly landed him ninth in fantasy points at his position. If you are the type of IDP manager who cannot get enough every-down linebackers, then DL1 value at a DL2 price tag can turn a solid fantasy defense into a dominant one.
Landry will finish higher than DL9 in 2025. So let it be written.
So let it be done.
EDGE Travon Walker, Jacksonville
Walker is one of those players who The Godfather just doesn't understand. The IDP community did the exact same thing a year ago after the first overall pick in 2022 posted 52 tackles and 10 sacks in 2023--just kinda shrugged our collective shoulders and moved on. Then, Walker backed those numbers up in 2024, posting 61 total tackles and 10.5 sacks.
It's like, unless a sack total ends in "teen," it isn't worth a canoli.
OK, so Walker isn't the force of nature that Cleveland's Myles Garrett (another No. 1 overall pick) is. But, um, who is? Walker has improved each and every year he's been in the NFL. He had a better 2024 than batterymate Josh Hines-Allen, who is drafted rounds ahead of him. And Walker won't turn 25 until December.
Walker's asking price is his floor. His ceiling could win leagues.
EDGE Jonathon Cooper, Denver
Nik Bonitto's 13.5-sack rampage and DL2 fantasy finish last year certainly resonated with IDP managers--drafting him outside the top-12 at the position likely isn't happening. But Cooper had a career year of his own in 2024. After a strong start to his fourth season, the former Ohio State standout got an in-season extension from the Broncos--and then went out and earned it.
Like Bonitto, Cooper's career year wasn't totally out of left field--prior to last year's 58 stops, 10.5 sacks and DL11 finish in fantasy points, Cooper had logged 72 tackles, 8.5 sacks and DL10 numbers the year before. But somehow, Cooper is regularly falling outside the top-20 defensive linemen in drafts.
He was drafted as DE22 in the Dick Butkus Division of the King's Classic drafts at the Pro Football Hall of Fame last week--and we're supposed to know what we're doing.
Supposedly.
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