Fantasy Football 2026: Sleepers & Busts
Who to Target and Who to Fade in Fantasy Football Drafts
LAB REPORTS
Every fantasy football season, we see dozens of articles and videos promising to identify the next league-winning sleeper or the player who is destined to completely bust. We approach it a little differently.
At Fantasy Theory Optimal, sleepers and busts aren't necessarily about whether we think a player is good or bad. They are about price.
A sleeper doesn't have to be a player going in the 12th round. In fact, some of our favorite sleepers this year are players being drafted inside the first 10 rounds. We aren't saying these players are necessarily the best at their position. We're saying that we like their expected production more than the market likes it.
The same concept applies to our busts. A bust isn't necessarily a player we refuse to draft. There is a price at which almost every player becomes draftable. Our job is to figure out where that price is.
Our sleepers are players we want to draft earlier than ADP suggests. Our busts are players we'd prefer to draft well after their current ADP.
With that in mind, here are some of the players we're targeting and fading in 2026 fantasy football drafts.
💤Sleepers
Tucker Kraft — TE, Green Bay Packers Target Pick: 70
Tucker Kraft is currently our highest-owned player across all of our fantasy football drafts.
We're entering drafts with the goal of getting one of the top nine tight ends on the board, but we aren't necessarily trying to pay the premium for the first couple of names.
Brock Bowers and Trey McBride are the two tight ends we're most comfortable projecting ahead of everyone else. After that, things get much more interesting. In this spot, we're willing to bet on the talent, athleticism and offensive environment giving Kraft a legitimate chance to finish as a top-three fantasy tight end.
We have an important distinction - We're not projecting Kraft ahead of Brock Bowers or Trey McBride. We don't need to. We wouldn't even draft Kraft ahead of Colston Loveland, who also has a strong chance to finish as a top-three fantasy tight end.
The tight end position is also one where paying for upside matters. With a one-off position like tight-end, you can create a clear weekly edge by drafting an elite scorer versus a low-end TE1.
👉FTO Take: We're not saying Kraft is the third-best tight end in football. We're saying we like the price of his top-three upside more than the prices of most of the tight ends going around him.
Tyler Shough — QB, New Orleans Saints Target Pick: 115
Quarterback is one of the positions where we are perfectly comfortable waiting. Tyler Shough is one of the biggest reasons why.
Entering his sophomore season, Shough has a fast-pace offense, playing in a dome environment, and a defense that should give the Saints plenty of reasons to keep throwing.
Shough also showed some fantasy upside late last season. He averaged 20 fantasy points per game from Week 10 onward, while adding useful rushing production to his passing numbers. The Saints are expected to operate in a high-paced, pass-heavy system under Kellen Moore, and the 2026 schedule gives Shough another reason to intrigue us. Especially interested in the back half of the schedule.
(We've already written about the Saints having an elite fantasy playoff schedule. Read more here.)
The market is currently pushing Shough well into the later rounds in many drafts, making our preferred price around pick 120, which is a significant discount from where we would be comfortable taking him.
If we wait at quarterback, Shough is exactly the type of player we're looking for: inexpensive, plausible upside and an environment that could create fantasy points.
👉 FTO Take: We don't need Shough to become an elite NFL quarterback. We need him to throw the ball a lot, run enough to add some cheap fantasy points and take advantage of a favorable offensive environment.
Josh Downs — WR, Indianapolis Colts Target Pick: 72
We're planting our flag on Josh Downs. We believe he's the best wide receiver in Indianapolis, and that makes his current price extremely appealing to us. Downs has the talent, but more importantly, we see a path to the target volume necessary to make him a difference-maker in fantasy.
That's ultimately what we're looking for when we're drafting wide receivers in this range. We don't need Downs to become the most explosive receiver in the NFL. We need him to consistently get the football.
If we're drafting around pick 80, we're looking for players who have a realistic path to becoming weekly starters. Downs checks that box for us because of his talent, role and expected target share.
The market is still treating Downs more like a complementary piece than a potential WR1 for his team. That's a disconnect we're willing to attack.
👉 FTO Take: Talent + opportunity is usually a pretty good formula. At around pick 80, we're betting that Downs' target volume makes him one of the better values at the position.
Wan'Dale Robinson — WR, Tennessee Titans Target Pick: 75
Wan'Dale Robinson is another player we're willing to be aggressive on. We really like the scheme fit.
Robinson previously played in Brian Daboll's offense in New York, and we're interested in what that familiarity can mean for his role and usage. His ability to operate underneath and create after the catch gives him a skill set that can be extremely useful in a high-volume passing attack.
We're also not dismissing Carnell Tate. We like what Carnell Tate brings to the offense and understand why fantasy drafters are excited about his upside. But that doesn't mean Robinson can't have a big season. There are enough targets available for both players to matter.
Robinson's current consensus ADP is around the 90s overall in PPR formats, depending on the platform, which is exactly the type of range where we're willing to take a shot on a player with his potential volume.
👉 FTO Take: We're not drafting Robinson because we think he's guaranteed to be a top-20 receiver. We're drafting him because we think his range of outcomes is better than his ADP suggests.
Kenneth Gainwell — RB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers Target Pick: 100
There aren't many backs we're willing to aggressively take ahead of market price. But if we had to pick one, Kenneth Gainwell would be near the top of the list.
Gainwell doesn't need to be an elite talent to outperform his ADP if the workload is there.
We're generally more hesitant to reach for running backs because the position carries so much volatility. But when we find a player whose expected role isn't fully reflected in the price, we're willing to make an exception.
We're not saying he's going to finish as an RB1. We're saying that if the market is giving us a potential lead-back workload at a discount, we're interested.
👉FTO Take: This is less about projecting Gainwell as an elite running back and more about identifying a player whose opportunity could significantly exceed his current price.
❌Busts
Again, we're using "bust" differently than some fantasy football analysts. We're not saying these players are undraftable. We're saying we don't want to draft them at their current ADP.
Every player has a price. These are players where we believe that price is currently too high.
Kyler Murray — QB, Minnesota Vikings Target Pick: 130
If you're reading this, you've probably heard about our dislike of Kyler Murray in 2026.
The easiest place to start is with the rushing production that made Murray such a fantasy cheat code early in his career.
From 2019-2020, Murray rushed for 1,363 yards and 15 touchdowns. That's an enormous fantasy advantage from the quarterback position. But since then, the rushing production has fallen off considerably. From 2021-2025, Murray averaged just 45 rushing attempts, 267 rushing yards and 3.4 rushing touchdowns per season.
That decline matters because Murray's passing numbers haven't been good enough to compensate.
In 2024, his first full season back after the ACL injury, Murray threw for 3,851 yards, 21 touchdowns and 11 interceptions while adding 572 rushing yards and five rushing touchdowns. That's solid production, but it translated to only 18.9 fantasy points per game.
Things got considerably worse in 2025. Murray played just five games and finished with 962 passing yards, six touchdowns, three interceptions, 173 rushing yards and one rushing touchdown. His 17.9 fantasy points per game were a career low.
The biggest issue for us is that Murray's fantasy value has become increasingly dependent on rushing touchdowns and rushing production that we don't believe we can confidently project. Murray has scored 32 rushing touchdowns in his career, but 15 of those came in his first two seasons. Since 2021, he's averaged fewer than four rushing touchdowns per season. That's a massive difference from the version of Murray the fantasy community still seems to be drafting.
And then there's the supporting cast argument. Yes, Murray now gets to throw to Justin Jefferson. Yes, Minnesota has a talented group of pass catchers. And yes, we understand why people want to bet on a bounce-back. We are simply not willing to assume that adding better weapons automatically fixes Murray's fantasy profile.
It also does not sit well with us that both Trey McBride and Michael Wilson performed significantly better after Murray was replaced.
Our ranking is QB21. If Murray falls far enough, we'll happily reconsider. Remember, this is a price argument, not a declaration that Kyler Murray is undraftable. Still, we would prefer to let someone else bet on the bounce-back.
👉 FTO Take: The elite rushing production that made Murray a fantasy difference-maker early in his career has declined significantly. His passing numbers haven't been good enough to make up for it, and we're not willing to pay for a return to a version of Murray we haven't seen in several years.
Justin Jefferson — WR, Minnesota Vikings Target Pick: 18
This one might be our most uncomfortable bust. Justin Jefferson is one of the best wide receivers in the NFL. Unfortunately, fantasy football isn't an NFL talent competition. Opportunity is king here.
When we're paying a premium price for Jefferson, we're counting on elite fantasy production. That's where our concerns begin, particularly because Kyler Murray is now the quarterback.
Jefferson has only reached double-digit receiving touchdowns twice in six seasons, and his career high is only ten total touchdowns. Even during his incredible 2022 season, when he led the NFL with 1,809 receiving yards and won Offensive Player of the Year, Jefferson scored only eight touchdowns. In 2025, Jefferson scored only two touchdowns.
We already don't believe Kyler Murray consistently elevates the fantasy production of the players around him. Now we're being asked to draft Jefferson as though the quarterback situation doesn't matter. We don't buy it.
We're being asked to pay for the best-case version of this offense, but fantasy football isn't about identifying which players can have elite seasons. It's about determining which players are most likely to return value at their draft price.
At Jefferson's current cost, we'd rather let someone else bet on the bounce-back.
👉 FTO Take: We don't hate Justin Jefferson. We hate paying an elite WR price for a player whose quarterback situation we don't trust. Jefferson is good enough to overcome bad QB play, but we're not convinced he's good enough to consistently produce at his current ADP with Kyler Murray throwing him the football.
Rashee Rice — WR, Kansas City Chiefs Target Pick: 40
Legal issues. Injury recovery. Risk.
There are a lot of ways this can go wrong.
Rice is an incredibly talented football player. If he gets his head on straight, stays healthy, and returns to something close to his previous level of efficiency, he has the talent to finish as a top-five fantasy wide receiver.
That's exactly why Rice is a difficult player to rank. His ceiling is enormous, but so is the range of outcomes. We're not saying Rice can't return first-round value. We're saying there are safer players we can take at this point in the draft.
👉 FTO Take: The upside is undeniable. But we're not interested in paying for the absolute ceiling when there are much safer ways to build our WR room in this range.
Kenneth Walker III — RB, Kansas City Chiefs Target Pick: 30
Kenneth Walker is a perfect example of why we don't want to evaluate fantasy players based solely on talent. We like Walker the football player. We don't like Walker the fantasy draft pick.
Walker has played four NFL seasons and has only eclipsed 1,000 rushing yards twice. He finished with 1,050 yards as a rookie and 1,027 yards in 2025, but he has failed to reach that mark in his other two seasons.
More importantly, Walker has never scored double-digit touchdowns in a season.
That's a pretty important statistic when we're talking about a running back being drafted as though he's already established himself as a high-end fantasy option.
The receiving numbers aren't particularly encouraging either. Walker has caught just 133 passes on 167 targets for 1,005 yards and two receiving touchdowns across his four seasons. That's an average of fewer than 34 targets per season. He has never eclipsed 300 receiving yards in a season.
In 2025, despite playing all 17 games, Walker finished with 1,027 rushing yards, five rushing touchdowns, 31 receptions, 282 receiving yards and zero receiving touchdowns. That's 1,309 total yards and five total touchdowns over 17 games.
Walker is being drafted like a player who has proven production, but we've had four seasons of evidence telling us that high-end outcomes should not be considered a given.
👉FTO Take: We like Kenneth Walker the player. We don't like Kenneth Walker the price. At his current ADP, we'll let someone else bet on the breakout.
TreVeyon Henderson — RB, New England Patriots Target Pick: 85
For the record, we had already identified Henderson as a bust before this week's injury uncertainty made the situation even murkier.
The biggest issue is workload. Henderson is being drafted ahead of Rhamondre Stevenson in many fantasy drafts despite Stevenson remaining ahead of him on the depth chart. That creates a valuation problem for us. We're being asked to pay for a role that hasn't been established yet.
There's also the pass-protection concern. If Henderson isn't trusted in obvious passing situations, his path to a true three-down workload becomes much more difficult.
Henderson has plenty of upside, but we're much more comfortable letting someone else pay for the upside while we wait and draft Stevenson.
👉 FTO Take: Henderson has the talent to become a starting running back, but it is unlikely that he takes that leap in 2026. With Stevenson still ahead of him on the depth chart, we're comfortable letting someone else bet on Henderson.
🧠 Final Thoughts
The biggest takeaway from this list should be that sleepers and busts are relative to ADP.
We're not predicting that every sleeper will finish as a league-winner. We're not predicting that every bust will have a bad season. We're identifying players whose expected production doesn't match where the market is currently drafting them.
👉 Remember: We're not trying to predict exactly what happens. We're trying to find the places where the market is wrong — and capitalize on them.
*For more fantasy football content (and other sports too), be sure to follow us on our X account @FTO_picks!
Explore The Lab.
