2026 Fantasy Football Busts: Five Early-Round Players to Avoid
Welcome to our 2026 Fantasy Football Busts: Five Early-Round Players to Avoid!
Drafting the right fantasy football sleeper is great, but dodging those high-priced landmines is just as critical for your championship aspirations. While you likely won’t win your league in the first few rounds of your fantasy football draft, you certainly can lose it! Whether it’s regression, a declining skill set, or a new offensive environment that isn’t conducive to fantasy success, there are numerous reasons why players fail to live up to expectations. To help you avoid those critical early-round mistakes, we asked five of our writers here at Fantasy In Frames to highlight the one player they believe is set to be the biggest fantasy football bust in 2026.
Also, be sure to check out our fantasy football breakouts and fantasy football sleepers articles!
Colby Conway: Travis Etienne, New Orleans Saints
Last year’s RB10 in PPR is firmly in the bust territory for me in 2026, despite barely being drafted inside the top 20 at the position. He relies on volume for his fantasy success, and he lacks explosion, as seen by his 3.5% explosive run rate last year, which was the 13th-lowest amongst RBs with at least 100 carries last season, per FantasyPoints’ Data.
Alvin Kamara is being drafted at a retirement-tour price. RB52.
— LaQuan Jones (@RealDealFantasy) August 3, 2026
But if he’s splitting first-team reps with Travis Etienne, why am I paying RB17 prices for Etienne?
I’d rather wait on Kamara and get discounted exposure to the same Saints backfield. https://t.co/FvRjp0MTH5
Six receiving touchdowns helped him out immensely last season, and he actually had the ninth-most fantasy points from his work in the receiving game. The problem here is that his inefficiency on the ground, coupled with the fact that Kellen Moore offenses don’t prominently feature backs in the passing attack, isn’t exactly conducive to the most profitable outlook. Furthermore, Alvin Kamara is still in the mix, so there’s just too many questions to use a fourth-round pick on him.
Kyle Zeigler: Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders
It’s mind-blowing to see Daniels going as the QB5 in fantasy. Not only is there an injury concern, but he lacks proven support in the passing game to warrant a top-five price at the position. According to the Fantasy Points Data Suite, Deebo Samuel and Zach Ertz combined for 41% of the team’s target share last year. They’re not walking back through those doors. Outside of Terry McLaurin, the entire receiving corps remains unproven.
Laremy Tunsil getting hurt is just another reason to fade Jayden Daniels
— Bryce DeGroat (@NFL_Convo) August 9, 2026
In no world should he be going as the QB4
Why draft Daniels when you can attach yourself to quarterbacks with far better offenses? Caleb Williams, Justin Herbert, Trevor Lawrence, and Dak Prescott offer a much better return on investment. Don’t pay for Daniels’ ceiling when his rushing upside is already baked into him being the QB5.
Drew Scott: Quinshon Judkins, Cleveland Browns
I like Quinshon Judkins as a pure runner (even though there aren’t a ton of metrics from last season that back that up), but I just think there are a lot more ways for this thing to go wrong than for it to go right this year. The first concern would be that I don’t think there’s a path for Judkins as a 3-down back without a Dylan Sampson injury. Judkins hasn’t been a strong pass catcher since his college days, and he had 100 fewer receiving yards than Sampson last year despite seeing just 4 fewer targets. Whenever you look at the 43 RBs that had at least 30 targets last season, Judkins was:
- 34th in target share
- 25th in yards per route run
- and 29th in first downs per route run
These are 4 players you'll regret drafting in fantasy football this year:
— SAL VETRI (@SalVetriDFS) June 7, 2026
1. Quinshon Judkins.. pic.twitter.com/ZuXtTAwwcu
So now we’re looking at an RB that I expect to be somewhat game-script dependent on a team that I don’t expect to be in positive game scripts often, and someone that’s most likely to be an early down and goal-line back on a team that I don’t expect to be on the goal line very often either. However, there’s still a path for this call to be wrong too.
I do think Judkins can be an effective 2-down back in the right offensive ecosystem, and if the Browns offense produces better than I’m expecting and the offensive line improves from last season, there could be more upside for Judkins than I’m expecting. Last year Judkins had the 4th-lowest yards before contact per attempt among all RBs with at least 100 carries, so giving him some room to run this year would certainly help.
I’m just personally expecting another rough year for the Browns offense and think Judkins will suffer from that as well. Right now he’s going off the board in drafts around RB22, but I’ve got him down at RB27 and prefer guys like D’Andre Swift, Bucky Irving, David Montgomery, Bhayshul Tuten, TreVeyon Henderson, and Jadarian Price that are all going in that same range.
Aidan Weingartner: Jameson Williams, Detroit Lions
I’ve been trying to hammer this home many times this offseason up to this point, but to me, Jameson Williams is a receiver who lives off of high-level athleticism, big-play upside, and big TD potential. I want to see his usage and role expand first before I confidently invest in him, which we have just not seen yet in the NFL.
I get that Jared Goff is a high-level passer and can put up big numbers when asked to, but Williams is in a VERY crowded Detroit Lions passing offense with Jahmyr Gibbs (who is one of the very best pass-catching backs in the entire league), Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Sam LaPorta (who I am expecting a big bounce-back year from).
Worried that Drew Petzing is going to use Jameson Williams as a sacrificial X like he did with Marvin Harrison Jr.
— Frank Ammirante (@FAmmiranteTFJ) August 8, 2026
Turning an already volatile profile to even more boom-or-bust.
That's why I'm out on Jamo.
There’s just a lot going on here, and if you ask me, Jameson Williams is the odd man out. In 2025, Williams averaged 5.8 tgts/g, which equated to a 17% target share. These aren’t very high marks for a “breakout year”. This is a profile and projection that has boom-or-bust written all over it, and I’m personally not willing to deal with that weekly headache during the season.
Jorge Edwards: Kyle Monangai, Chicago Bears
Kyle Monangai wasn't all that good last year.
— Jared Smola (@SmolaDS) May 29, 2026
Ranks among 51 RBs with 90+ carries:
33rd in yards after contact per attempt
40th in missed tackles forced per attempt
30th in rush yards over expected per attempt
26th in @PFF rushing grade
D'Andre Swift beat him in all 4 metrics.
Even before he suffered his knee injury over this past weekend, Monangai’s ADP as the RB34 was too rich considering the likes of Blake Corum, Jordan Mason, Jonathon Brooks were behind him. Not to mention, as the tweet above showed perfectly, he was nowhere close to the level of a runner and receiver that D’Andre Swift was in 2025.
There was practically a zero chance he was even going to be FLEX-worthy, as IMO he was never going to get meaningful snaps in that backfield for Chicago. Now that he’s going to be missing a few weeks to recover from his knee injury, he is 100% an avoid in drafts for me this season!