“Washington might be the single most mispriced player at any position. He is the Exodia WR to end all Exodia WRs. And Washington (my WR27, which is a conservative ranking, by the way) is such a strong value (being drafted as the WR39-40 on all major sites) that you can reach more than a full round and still come away a winner. So, after your draft ends, I want you to tell me: Are we still friends?”

“a great value on Yahoo! and FFPC as the WR23, and an acquire-at-all-costs Exodia on ESPN at WR28. He loses Exodia status on Sleeper (WR17).”

“The disrespect on Evans is astounding, reminiscent of 2023 Keenan Allen (a former Exodia that worked out great for us). He's going WR26-30 as my WR22 … just make sure that you’re lighting candles and saying a weekly prayer to the patron saint of hamstrings.”

Hurts finished as a league-winner in 2022, 2023, and 2024, but has lost some steam after averaging 19.3 FPG (~QB7) last season and losing A.J. Brown. He did see a decline in rushing attempts per game (from 10.0 to 6.6, though that was still the same as Josh Allen) and in his rushing TD total (from 14 to 8, the fewest he’s scored since his rookie season), but his rushing role is still elite among QBs. Hurts led the position in designed rush attempts per game (4.1) and designed rushing XFP/G (3.3). Plus, far too much has been made of his lack of success with the “Tush Push” last year. Hurts’ TD rates on designed attempts inside the 2-yard line (61.1% and 62.5%, respectively) were virtually identical. The Eagles simply got into scoring position much less often relative to every other season of Hurts’ career.

A whopping 50.2% of Brown’s XFP came from receiving last year, while ranking top-5 in route participation (54.2%) and targets per game (5.1). And it’s mostly a fluke that he wasn’t a league-winner last year; he averaged 21.0 FPG (~RB5) in games Joe Burrow started and finished, and was the 3rd-most common RB (and 10th most common overall player) on championship-winning rosters. The knock on Brown is usually that he isn’t as talented as other backs going in this range, and he can be inefficient when given loaded up with 20+ carries. But in his six high-carry/inefficient games, Brown averages 21.3 FPG (on 22.2 XFP/G). In the other 8 games Joe Burrow started and finished since Brown took over the backfield in Week 9 of 2024, he averaged 20.1 FPG (on 16.8 XFP/G). Whether Brown is moderately inefficient on a top-2 workload or efficient on a top-5 workload is immaterial; he’s been a high-end fantasy RB1 either way, who you can draft at the end of Round 2!

Waddle averages 2.44 YPRR (~8th-best) since 2022, only ranking outside the top-10 in one of those four seasons. He was the WR22 by FPG in Tua Tagovailoa’s starts last year — almost exactly where he’s drafted on ESPN and Sleeper — on an offense that ranked 30th in dropbacks. The Broncos ranked 7th last year, and want to play even faster under new playcaller Davis Webb. How big a difference could more dropback volume make to Waddle’s fantasy output? If Waddle (who averaged 0.51 FP/RR in 2025) had run as many routes as Courtland Sutton last year, he'd have averaged 16.5 FPG (~WR8). If you instead plugged in his four-year efficiency without Tyreek Hill, he’d average 17.4 FPG (~WR6).

“Lawrence easily led all QBs in FPG (25.8, +3.4 more than anyone else) from Week 12 through the Wild Card round, once Jakobi Meyers and Parker Washington were full-time players in the offense. He ranks 3rd among all QBs in rushing TDs since 2022. He was one of only five QBs to average 5.0 or more rushing FPG across 8+ games last year. And Liam Coen is a playcalling genius.”

“Tuten is a Year 2 RB (one of the most common breakout years). HC Liam Coen ranks 7th in backfield XFP/G among all playcallers over the past three seasons, largely thanks to the potency of his screen game. I see Tuten as the most talented all-around player in a backfield that has always produced excellent fantasy results.”

“Across well over 1,000 routes in three NFL seasons, Downs has averaged a 0.25 TPRR. Only nine players since the 2021 draft class have exceeded that mark over an initial three seasons, and every other name on the list below goes inside the first five rounds … The main reason that Downs has bounced in and out of fantasy viability has been a lack of raw routes run, as he rarely played in any 2-receiver sets (12 personnel) with Michael Pittman in Indianapolis. But now that Pittman is gone and Alec Pierce is nursing an injury — potentially leading to vertical movement deficiencies until as late as November, per our injury expert Jeff Mueller — this year could be the first time we’ve seen Downs in a featured and truly full-time role.”

“LaPorta averages 15.9 FPG (~TE2) in 18 career games above a 75% route share. New Lions OC Drew Petzing has had Trey McBride run at least a 75% route share in each of his last 29 games in a row … I have LaPorta ranked ahead of ADP on all three sites, but he’s by far the best value on Sleeper, where I have him 17 spots ahead.”

He’ll be about nine months removed from ACL and LCL repairs at the start of the season after having surgery in mid-December for his Week 15 injury. That’s an awfully quick recovery for multiple ligament tears… We’ll continue to avoid selecting him despite his QB4 (21.2 FPG) finish from last season, which was largely aided by career-highs in rushing TDs (5) and rushing YPG (30.1). Mahomes also averaged a career-best 5.2 FP as a runner, which is simply unsustainable for a player coming off a major knee injury.

Arizona handed $8 million in guaranteed money to Tyler Allgeier in free agency, and James Conner and Trey Benson remain in the mix for now, so they won’t have to overextend Love at all this season. The Cardinals easily paced the league in pass rate over expectation (7.3%) and pass attempts per game (38.2) last season. While their pass-happy ways will regress in the first season under Mike LaFleur, they’ll still be trailing in plenty of games with the NFL’s lowest win total at 3.5 (-136), which could slightly limit Love’s carries.

T-Mac is talented enough to reach double-digit TDs, but Bryce Young is too inconsistent to completely trust him at his current ADP. Carolina scored a whopping 74.3% of its TDs through the air last season, which should regress after 55% of their TDs came via the air in 2024. The Panthers easily led the league with a 16.4% pass rate over expectation from inside the 5-yard line last season, but they ranked 30th in PROE from outside the 5-yard line at -4.5%. Plus, Young is coming off a 4.8% TD rate thanks to Carolina’s pass-heavy approach near the goal, but he owns a meager 3.5% TD rate for his career. And while McMillan ranked 16th in target share (23.1%) as a rookie, he could face more competition for targets if Jalen Coker remains healthy after an injury-plagued 2025.

McBride is the top target in Arizona after racking up 237 receptions and 303 targets over the last two seasons, but he could have a tough time maintaining the 10th-best target share (25.9%) and the third-most routes (1178) over that span with Marvin Harrison Jr. entering a pivotal third season and Michael Wilson coming off a breakout third season. McBride reached 1100+ yards the last two seasons thanks to volume, but he was below average in YPR (9.83) and YPT (7.51) among TEs last season. He isn’t a bad pick, but we’d rather target Brock Bowers as the first TE off the board, or select a stud RB or WR in the second round rather than reach for McBride’s production from last season.