Fantasy Football: Defensive back IDP breakout candidates for 2025

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• It’s finally time for Jordan Battle to break out: After taking over as a starter in back-to-back seasons to start his career, this high-end tackler should be locked in come Week 1.
• Andru Phillips has CB1 potential heading into Year 2: The New York Giants’ slot corner was the best tackler at the position as a rookie and will look to take on an even bigger role in 2025.
• Get a head start on fantasy football: Use PFF’s fantasy football mock draft simulator to create real live mock draft simulations to get ready for your live draft!

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Each season, players take their game to new levels and significantly improve their fantasy production along the way. The defensive back position for IDP often relies heavily on playing time, and that is going to factor in quite a bit for this year’s breakout candidates. To make things a bit more interesting, we’ll look to highlight some non-obvious candidates who are still sorting out their roles for 2025, to potentially get a leg up on these potential breakout safeties and/or corners.

Notes

• A significant jump in overall fantasy finish or fantasy points per game is expected, not just an incremental improvement.
• We’re looking for at least double-digit points per game in 2025.
• No rookies.
• For reference, preferred IDP scoring, past season scoring leaders, and expected sack/tackle production leaders can be found here.

S Jordan Battle, Cincinnati Bengals

For Battle’s IDP managers, this has felt like a long time coming as he’s been held back from a starting role to start both of his first two seasons in the leagu, while eventually taking over as a starter by season’s end each time. Now, heading into Year 3, Battle appears locked into a starting position come Week 1, which puts a very promising tackler for the position in line for a true IDP breakout season in 2025.

Through Battle’s limited opportunities in 2023 and 2024, he established himself among the best tackling safeties in the league, ranking 97th percentile in tackles versus expected as a rookie and 88th percentile last year. Battle’s ability to rack up tackles at such a high rate makes the idea of a larger snap share significantly more exciting for his IDP potential, as he’ll get the opportunity to push himself to within range of the top consistent performers at the safety position should he maintain that pace.

This is easier said than done at such an unstable position where production fluctuates significantly year to year, but with Al Golden stepping in as the new defensive coordinator, there’s decent opportunity for not just a starting role, but a box-heavy one, which will greatly help that tackle potential. As head coach of Notre Dame last season, Golden ran a very high rate of single-high coverages, including the highest Cover 1 (52.0%) rate in the FBS. With Geno Stone the more likely deep option, and assuming Golden’s tendencies transfer over even partially to the NFL, Battle could find himself playing up near the line of scrimmage at one of the highest rates in the league this coming season, which is why he cracks the top-20 defensive backs in the IDP rankings.

S Tykee Smith, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Smith comes off a promising rookie season operating as the team’s primary nickel corner, earning a top-10 run-defense grade among corners and top-40 marks overall and in coverage. Smith’s solid play resulted in decent IDP production in the games that he played, averaging 10.7 IDP points per game, a good mark to start, but there’s room for improvement, as he averaged just 71% of the team’s defensive snaps in those games that he played and is in line to improve that number in 2025.

How Smith improves that number remains to be seen, whether he continues as a nickel corner or if he moves to a full-time safety role. The expectation, at the moment, is that Smith makes the move to safety, assuming he doesn’t look completely out of place in that role, but also depending on how well the next nickel corner steps up for the team. For now, we’ll assume that Smith will take on the starting safety role next to Antoine Winfield Jr. for this year, which is his safest bet to play 100% of the time in Year 2 and increase his chances of an IDP breakout season.

Smith’s safety role in Todd Bowles’ defense could be a favorable one as well, where he’d have a chance to rotate down toward the line of scrimmage while Winfield roams deep more often than not as the better coverage player. If Smith gets the more favorable IDP safety role, he’s already shown he can be an effective tackler as a rookie, which would ideally translate to his larger role in Year 2 and make him a consistent fantasy starter.

S Jaden Hicks, Kansas City Chiefs

Hicks came out of the 2024 NFL Draft as one of the better tackling safety prospects in the class, offering a lot of experience playing around the line of scrimmage, as a high 47% of his career college snaps coming in the box. That role, of course, led to a strong 10.8% career tackle rate in college, and he may be in a similar position in Year 2 for the Chiefs with Justin Reid‘s departure in free agency. 

Reid’s role in Steve Spagnuolo’s defense allowed him to play 47% of his defensive snaps in the box last season, a top-10 rate for the position. Reid wasn’t the most efficient tackler for the position, but he certainly had his opportunities last season with such a high box snap rate. Hicks is the favorite to absorb that role given his experience in college and Bryan Cook fitting more of a deep safety role. As a high-end tackler, he’d be in the best position to get more opportunities to rack up IDP production in 2025.

Hicks isn’t a shoe-in for that box-heavy role, but he currently makes the most sense with Chamarri Conner the team’s more likely primary slot defender, things are at least lining up for Hicks to take on a great IDP role in Year 2 en route to a breakout season.

CB Andru Phillips, New York Giants

Phillips missed time as a rookie and was unable to lock down a consistent full-time role as a result, but when he was out there, he was a tackling machine. Even considering Phillips’ high 83% snap rate out of the slot, he still delivered more tackles over expected (+25.0) than any other player at his position in 2024. Seeing those tackle numbers combined with his strong PFF grades across the board is naturally going to create a lot of excitement for any player heading into a new season.

Phillips will have to stay healthy for this breakout to come to fruition, as he missed three games and only played more than 90% of the Giants’ defensive snaps twice all season. As is the case with a lot of breakout candidates, there’s plenty of untapped IDP potential to target in 2025. Even when considering Phillips’ 68% average snap rate, he was able to deliver 10.6 IDP points per game (CB24), which is a great number for that below-average snap share. I shouldn’t have to convince IDP managers that more snaps only increases his chances of a higher IDP output.

Phillips ranked top 12 at the position in coverage grade and overall grade for PFF, while ranking top 25 in run-defense grade. There were top-five marks for the entire Giants roster in all three categories last season and immediately has him in consideration as the Giants’ best cornerback, even with the Paulson Adebo addition in free agency. He is expected to play outside. The Giants will need to rely on more playing time for Phillips in 2025, specifically out of the slot, putting him in a prime position to deliver stronger tackle numbers than even last season and push for CB1 IDP numbers in Year 2.

This news was originally published on this post .

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