Training camp has now kicked fully into gear leaguewide, and the great annual tradition of training camp hype is not far behind.

And while it is great seeing receivers making marginally impressive catches against air and hearing coaches give canned praise to the guys battling for jobs, now's the time to look eight months back in time and remind ourselves: Who was on the rise when there was last some real football being played?

Last year's rundown of the players on heaters to close out 2023 was not strictly predictive: Jordan Love couldn't keep pouring the ball into the endzone nonstop; Deebo Samuel's ferocious touchdown binge proved to be a mirage; Isaiah Likely's arrival was kept in check... mostly.

But there were also kernels of truth: Rashee Rice and Chuba Hubbard proved their strong 2023 finishes were signs of what lie ahead. Derrick Henry proved that, unlike Deebo, his late resurgence was anything but a mirage. Tucker Kraft proved to be much more than just a Luke Musgrave fill-in. David Njoku's belated emergence as one of the league's hungriest target hogs continued unabated. Even 'league winner' Demarcus Robinson followed up his December 2023 touchdown bonanza with a career-high seven touchdowns!

Let's see if we can't find some kernels of truth here.

QBs
Last season's top fantasy performers at quarterback were remarkably stable: Four of the top six performers thru Week 11 also logged top six finishes from there on out. Eight of the top 13 QBs prior to Week 12 remained there from that point on, and one of those who didn't was quite possibly due to injury (Purdy).

Bryce Young's rebound was impressive. Reinserted into the lineup after a five-week demotion, Young oversaw gritty wins against the Saints in Week 9 and the Giants in Munich the week after (Daniel Jones' final start for the Giants). He didn't do much in those games though: Two total touchdowns, 149 yards passing per game.

The Week 12 return of Adam Thielen to the lineup enabled the strongest stretch of Young's nascent career: An 8:3 TD-INT ratio and 222 passing yards per game over the next six games, with 154 yards and three touchdowns as a runner. He was even fantasy's top performer in Week 18, racking up five total touchdowns to help slam the door on the Falcons' playoff hopes.

Perhaps even more impressive was Caleb Williams. Limping into a Week 12 home tilt against the Vikings on a four-game touchdown drought, Williams finally started to figure it out: 298 yards passing per game and a 5:0 TD-INT ratio against the Vikings and Lions in the span of five days, with another 334 yards and two scores against Detroit three weeks later. A plus scrambler, Williams also enters 2025 due for major positive rushing touchdown regression: His 479 rushing yards were seventh-most among QBs, and yet only one other QB that topped 200 yards rushing also failed to record a touchdown that way (C.J. Stroud, 233).

RBs
Inevitably overshadowed by the sheer dominance of Saquon Barkley, Jahmyr Gibbs and others, it's nonetheless difficult to overstate how heavily the Packers leaned on Josh Jacobs to escape a banged-up Jordan Love's interception problem (1.6 interceptions per game thru Week 11 - none for the remainder of regular season), and how well he answered the call: 100 yards per game on 21.8 touches per game and a league-best 10 touchdowns over this stretch. From Week 8 on, Jacobs had more games with multiple touchdowns (three) than games with no touchdowns (one).

After a hot start, Jonathan Taylor lost three games to a high ankle sprain only to return to a brutal stretch of defensive draws (under 60 yards and/or no touchdown in three of next five games). But if you somehow endured Taylor's RB27 production thru Week 15, he almost definitely won you your league: 354 total yards and five touchdowns as fantasy's back-to-back RB1 in Weeks 16 and 17. That'll do pig, that'll do.

Many of you will know that Bucky Irving's rookie season was defined by his dominant second half (16.8 fantasy points per game after Week 9), but I for one was surprised to see Rachaad White's production actually pick up from Thanksgiving on. This meaningfully reframed my perspective on the Buccaneers ground game. Irving took the lead, sure - but he didn't fully take over.

Rico Dowdle's moderately strong close to 2024 wouldn't seem to mean much. After all, Chuba Hubbard was just deservedly rewarded with a four-year contract extension that all but assures he'll be eating at the head of Carolina's table for the next two seasons. But Hubbard was quietly a disaster in the receiving game: his 3.29 yards per target were the second-lowest rate of any running back in the NFL that saw at least 25 targets. Dowdle isn't exactly a receiving game maven, but he's a real threat to push Hubbard off the field on a significant percentage of third downs.

WRs
While his big Monday night in Denver made it two years in a row that a Cleveland WR had a legendary December performance, Jerry Jeudy's barnstorming WR8 finish did feel like a bit of a perfect storm: Jameis Winston being Jameis Winston, and Cedric Tillman out for what turned out to the rest of the season after a scary Week 12 concussion. Jeudy slumped to the WR41 over the final three games of 2024, sans Winston. With the Browns fairly well-stocked at receiver (knock on wood, Tillman's health and Diontae Johnson's ... uninitiated self-destruct sequence) and a QB tilt-a-whirl on deck, Jeudy's definitely more of a mid-range full PPR WR2 than an emerging WR1 in my book.

The wide receivers screaming down the home stretch were mostly headlined by a trio of old dogs! Davante Adams and Aaron Rodgers went full buddy cop to close out(...?) their time as NFL teammates. With the Jets out of the hunt and playing out the string with an interim head coach, Rodgers decided to go out with his boots on: From Weeks 12 to 17 he pumped 56 targets at Adams; that 11.2 targets/game mark was the third-highest in the league over that timeframe, trailing only rookie world-eaters Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr. It remains to be seen how Adams will adapt to being the '1A' for the first time since peak Jordy Nelson, but he's given us zero reason to doubt he's got one more top-12 season in him.

As mentioned above, Adam Thielen's return coinciding with Bryce Young putting up the first remotely acceptable numbers of his NFL career was no fluke. Thielen's WR14 figure above somehow understates just how good he was to end 2024: Among receivers with more than 60 targets last year, only one receiver in the NFL had a higher catch rate than Thielen's 78.7 percent and an aDOT (average Depth of Target) higher than 8: Amon-Ra St. Brown, 81.5 percent and 8.3 aDOT, respectively. No receiver caught more of his targets with an aDOT over 9.0. Or 10.0. Thielen's was 11.7.

I'm sensing a theme here. As Thielen was to his young quarterback, so too was Keenan Allen to the embattled Caleb Williams as the Bears tried to carry some momentum into the offseason. The 2013 third rounder turned the clock all the way back to finish his lone season in Chicago, piling up 37 catches for 437 yards and five touchdowns (all of which came in the Bears' brutal four-pack of contests against the Vikings and Lions). How this man lacks for work is a mystery.

Tee Higgins put aside his penchant for nagging injuries - and perhaps any long-simmering frustration with the famously tight-fisted Bengals over his lack of a top-of-market contract extension - to go out and ball like we've always known that he could. Freshly paid and still searching for the first top 15 finish of his career, it's up to you to decide if you think 2025 is the year he breaks that glass ceiling.

And lastly, there was - and is - Jameson Williams. On the ropes in Detroit as recently as last year's two-game PED suspension, the light may have finally come on: After serving his suspension, "Jameo" was fantasy's WR10 from Weeks 10 thru 17, with 603 yards receiving logged at a hefty 17.3 yards per catch clip. Williams will be one of the most popular 'sleeper' picks of 2025... even if his counting stats were virtually identical to Rashod Bateman's for most of last season.

TEs
While the Jonnu Smith Revolution had already begun being televised by Week 12, it ran without commercial interruption after that. It's easy to talk yourself out of Jonnu Smith as the co-starting tight end in what figures to be a low ceiling offense, but as the de facto slot receiver for a 40-something QB looking to avoid damage at the hands of Myles Garrett, Trey Hendrickson and Roquan Smith too grievous for even ayahuasca to help with? That could work. The Steelers seem to be willing Roman Wilson to the Z to clear the deck for Smith.

Closing out the list for the second year in a row is Tennessee's Chigoziem Okonkwo, who hilariously would also have made the list had it run back in 2023 - as a rookie, he closed 2022 as the TE10. With Josh Whyle crowding him for targets in an offense that most had projected for oblivion, there wasn't clear grounds for optimism heading into last season. With emerging folk hero Cam Ward on the scene and a pretty darn wide open target pecking order around him, Okonkwo finds himself on the radar for a top 15 finish in his contract year - that is, if his RuneScape addiction allows.