We’ve been pretty darn positive ‘round these parts so far this fantasy season. Sure, there’s the occasional shot across the bow at Jaylen Waddle or Ladd McConkey, but it’s mostly been sunshine and lollipops. Less than a week away from the start of the NFL season, though? It’s time to get real.
We must here differentiate between fantasy football and actual football; to quote the great Matthew Berry, progenitor of all a 20-something fantasy football columnist like myself, I don’t love or hate players, I just see certain guys as more or less valuable based on the opportunity cost. In the real world, offensive players have a role to fill and unclear volume week to week — as all A.J. Brown managers will tell you last year, fantasy production does not necessarily correlate with team success. We are talking about fantasy fool’s gold; I’m sure CeeDee Lamb is a lovely person.
Also, just because a guy is on this list does not mean you should never take him. We’re talking here about guys going in and around the Top 30 of fantasy drafts, not like … Courtland Sutton. If your entire league reads this and decides Drake London is more of a fourth round pick than a second, maybe snag him at pick 35. I’m predicting busts relative to slot, not mid-round picks that might sink your league. Just avoid the Pittsburgh Steelers entirely if you’re worried about that. (checks watch) Wow, three paragraphs of intro, we better get moving. Onward and upward!
WR CeeDee Lamb, Dallas Cowboys
- Current PPR-league ADP: 11
- Players Before and After Jackson's ADP: WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, RB James Cook, RB Saquon Barkley, WR Justin Jefferson
CeeDee Lamb is a beast; no one is doubting the talent nor the connection with Dak Prescott and the kind of results he can produce when fully healthy. He was the number one receiver in fantasy in 2023 for a reason. The argument for Lamb is simple: he massively underperformed his expected touchdowns (6.6) with only three scores and is likely to do better when he’s healthier in 2026. That’s all fine, and I’m sure Lamb will be a good asset this year like always.
But do you want to spend a first-round pick on someone who is only probably the number one option in their offense? I feel like everyone around me is being far too cavalier about the impact George Pickens had on Lamb’s production in 2025; Pickens was a major target-stealer in the 12 games he played with CeeDee last season, commanding almost a quarter of all targets in those games. The Cowboys offense projects to be plenty productive to support both Pickens and Lamb, but will there be enough air yards to justify taking Lamb in the first round of drafts, ahead of the much-more-guaranteed volume for guys like DeVon Achane and Justin Jefferson?
I don’t think so. If you can grab Lamb towards the end of the second round, great. But I wouldn’t be itching to drop a top-10 pick on someone who has an uber-talented teammate that outperformed him last year going three or four rounds later. If you’re in on the Cowboys this year, just take Pickens.
WR Drake London, Atlanta Falcons
- Current PPR-league ADP: 20.5
- Players Before and After London's ADP: WR A.J. Brown, RB Ashton Jeanty, WR Nico Collins, TE Brock Bowers
Ranked 18th on ESPN with an ADP of 20.1, London is currently a solid second-round pick in standard-sized leagues … and to that I say hell no. Absolutely not. Nope. Do not want.
London is supremely talented and has shown a propensity for dunking on cornerbacks for much of his career to the glee of his fantasy managers. But (and I know I’m a broken record about this but I need to nail it home) I will not go anywhere near the Atlanta Falcons offense until I know Tua Tagovailoa will not be the quarterback.
You (or someone else, I guess you could agree with me) will retort that Tua has sustained god-mode fantasy receivers in his career, having led the league in passing in 2023 and turning Tyreek Hill into a fantasy nuke. He can throw accurately so long as his pocket is protected like it’s the Danish Crown Jewels, and Kevin Stefanski will surely understand who his quarterback needs to get the ball to for them to win games: Drake London.
Here’s the thing, though: I swore an oath. An oath that I would never talk myself into Tagovailoa as an NFL-quality starter ever again after a Thursday Night Football performance against the Ravens last year. It was such a jarringly terrible performance; so blindingly incompetent that I felt the desire to scrub my eyeballs with corrosive industrial detergent. I will not invest in any players that rely on Tua for their fantasy production ever again. It is a rule.
QB Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens
- Current PPR-league ADP: 39.4
- Players Before and After Jackson's ADP: WR Zay Flowers, WR Ladd McConkey, WR Jaylen Waddle, RB Travis Etienne Jr.
Nowhere is name value doing more work for a player than with Lamar Jackson as a fantasy superstar in 2026. He did not have a good 2025, and some will explain away his second half by saying he dealt with injuries, which is true … but there was also a decision-making component. Jackson clearly understands that to be most effective for his team, he needs to stay on the field. At 29 years old, he’s not the spring chicken that was baptizing open-field tacklers with spin moves in 2019 — he needs to stay healthy, and to do that he needs to run less and take fewer hits.
That’s probably good for the Ravens, but would relegate Jackson to the middle tier of quarterbacks rather than the Josh Allen tier he’s being drafted in. There is always a chance he was just injured and will suddenly start running again, but do you want to stake your third-round pick on that happening?
Jackson is a tremendous pure passer, one of the aspects of his game that was so persistently underrated early in his career. He is still a solid fantasy quarterback without the running upside, but there is no reason to go for him at the rank or ADP — both in the early/mid 30s. He is being drafted like a lock to be the fantasy cheat code he once was, but I wouldn’t gamble on that happening when there are so many better quarterback picks this year.
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