Finding the right fantasy football sleepers can be the difference between winning or not winning your league, but finding the wrong sleeper could cost you a shot at even making the playoffs, especially if you end up drafting multiple players who should be avoided.
Who are some of those top sleepers to avoid? All of these players are currently being drafted outside of the top 100 overall, and there's good reason for that.
WR Xavier Worthy, Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs will have no choice but to play Xavier Worthy extensively this season. That does not mean that fantasy managers need to rush out and aggressively draft him, though. For all his talent, Worthy still feels very much like a boom or bust player who will just frustrate fantasy managers.
Worthy's numbers regressed in 2025, his second season in the league, as he saw his total number drop from nine to just one, and his receiving yards from game went up by just a half yard from his rookie numbers. While the big-play upside is there, we haven't seen enough of Worthy doing, well...all the other things you need a receiver to do in this league.
Despite a career average of just 37.7 receiving yards per game, Worthy is being drafted as a top-50 wide receiver in 2026. It's just hard to see him consistently returning value, even if he's on a Chiefs roster with significant flaws at wide receiver. Best season of his career incoming? Maybe, but he's not going to be someone you enjoy deploying in fantasy.
WR Jayden Higgins, Houston Texans
People are low on the Houston Texans offense this season. The reasoning for that is sound: the last time we saw quarterback C.J. Stroud on a football field, he looked completely inept in a playoff loss to the Patriots. It's hard to trust anyone on this offense outside of Nico Collins and maybe David Montgomery. (I can be talked into Dalton Schultz as well.)
That includes Jayden Higgins, who is expected to step into a larger role this season with Christian Kirk gone. The 2025 second-round pick caught 41 passes for 525 yards and six touchdowns in 2025. The problem, though, is that I'm not so sure the Higgins will even be the No. 2 receiver for this team.
Fellow second-year Texan Jaylin Noel makes more sense in the slot role, so Higgins has to hold off Tank Dell for the other outside receiver spot. Dell missed all of 2025 with injury, but at his best, he's one of the league's premier deep threats. If he can stay healthy, it's going to be hard for Higgins to get enough snaps to be a consistent fantasy producer on an offense that looks to be very mediocre.
WR Matthew Golden, Green Bay Packers
I'm not totally out on Matthew Golden, but his performance as a rookie makes me out on him at his current price in redraft leagues. It's just hard to really see the risk paying off here considering the current state of this Green Bay roster.
Drafted in the first round last season and viewed as the potenial answer for this team at wide receiver after a few years of the front office seemingly just throwing darts to see if any stuck, Golden caught just 29 passes for 361 yards in his first NFL campaign and failed to find the end zone.
Romeo Doubs is gone, but Christian Watson and Jayden Reed are really good receivers, and Golden is going to be fighting with the two of them for targets. Savion Williams could complicate the situation as well. Based on what Golden did as a rookie, I'm not going out of my way to draft him.
RB Isiah Pacheco, Detroit Lions
In 2026, Isiah Pacheco is going to prove to the world that not just anyone can be successful as the guy who spells Jahmyr Gibbs. Pacheco is very much not David Montgomery.
The hard-running player out of Rutgers was really good during his first NFL season, but has taken a huge dip over the past two campaigns.
Rushing Yards | Yards Per Carry | Rushing Touchdowns | |
|---|---|---|---|
2022/23 | 1,765 | 4.7 | 12 |
2024/25 | 772 | 3.8 | 2 |
Pacheco had a couple of good seasons for the Chiefs, but the past two seasons have proven that he isn't that player anymore, and now he'll be splitting snaps with a far better player than the one he was splitting snaps with in Kansas City. He's not going to suddenly bounce back to a level that justifies drafting him at his current cost. Pacheco should be grateful that there's no clear player behind on the depth chart waiting to replace him.
TE Kenyon Sadiq, New York Jets
One might look at Kenyon Sadiq and thinking "New York drafted him highly, so surely they'll be using him a lot early on, and the talent is obviously there, so I should draft him as a late-round dart throw in deep leagues.
But, like, no. You should not do that. Sadiq has talent, but his collegiate history shows that we probably need to give him a bit of time before we start to view him a positive fantasy contriibutor.
Sadiq had a productive final season at Oregon, but it was really his only productive season. He finished the 2025 campaign with 51 receptions for 560 yards and eight touchdowns, finishing with more yards than his other two seasons combined. His adjustment period in college took a bit, and there's really no reason to think that won't be true in the NFL as well.
And yet, Sadiq is being drafted ahead of a number of tight ends that I would strongly prefer in fantasy, including Cade Otton, David Njoku, Evam Engram and heck, even his Jets teammate Mason Taylor, who should be more productive for the majority of the season.
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