Early-Round Fantasy Football Avoids: Overvalued Draft Picks for Best Ball

July 28, 2026

Nick's 2026 fantasy football overvalued players and potential busts in the early rounds of best ball drafts. NFL players with inflated ADPs to avoid in fantasy football best ball drafts.

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Best ball drafts present a unique landscape where drafters don't necessarily need their early-round picks to carry the torch every week, whereas redraft formats are typically won and lost by finding that handful of league-winners that consistently produce. This piece will focus on tournament-style best ball events, as finding more established options in 50/50 formats is a different animal. We'll have our time to look at sleepers, values, and smash picks, but this is the time to identify who we're avoiding at their current draft-day cost.

The nitty-gritty is that these are players who I think will underperform their average draft position (ADP) and fail to bring you to the finish line. The baseline premise has the following principle baked in: Being overvalued does not mean the player is bad/undraftable. If they fall a round or two, especially in such early rounds, then the math changes! All ADP data used for this article is from best ball formats from Underdog ADP as of July 13, 2026.

De'Von Achane, Miami Dolphins

RB10, Underdog ADP: 17

The new-look Dolphins will force Achane and his fantasy managers to endure a switch at quarterback, coach, and scheme. Meme Mike McDaniel all you want, but the guy (generally) knows how to maximize his offense’s capabilities. Sadly, that still left much to be desired in 2025 after injuries and ineffective execution took hold.

Achane made his money by recovering his big-play ability en route to 1,350 rushing yards and eight scores on 238 carries. His 305 overall touches were roughly four times higher than anyone else on the team, with the PPR value coming in safer routes as Tua Tagovailoa couldn’t push downfield.

Tagovailoa and Quinn Ewers put together a low-risk 67.2% completion rate for a meager 180 passing yards per game. This led to Achane soaking up a team-high 67 receptions for 488 yards and three more scores. But Malik Willis is capable of scrambling rather than checking down.

Malik Willis making something out of nothing!

GBvsCHI on FOX/FOX Onehttps://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/FceXaFOxh7

— NFL (@NFL) December 21, 2025

And he showed a healthy appetite for going downfield with a 10.1 intended air yards per pass attempt on his 35 shots last year (8.4 on 155 career attempts). Tua sat at 6.7 last year.

Malik Willis to Romeo Doubs on the @Packers first offensive play 🔥

BALvsGB on @peacock
Also streaming on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/N2snDMTKEG

— NFL (@NFL) December 28, 2025

Does this speak more to Green Bay vs. Miami? The Dolphins don’t have Tyreek Hill or Jaylen Waddle anymore, so can any rookies step up? Perhaps Achane will eat in a horizontal offense. Except there’s the fact that Bobby Slowik is the new offensive coordinator.

Slowik is close to the anti-McDaniel, showing very little creativity when moving RBs around the formation and being more predictable when rushing on first and second downs. We can’t count on Achane lining up wide, or getting those immense dumpoffs on third-and-long with poorer playcall and Willis’ legs. Be careful here.

Trey McBride, Arizona Cardinals

TE2, Underdog ADP: 28

McBride went bananas for 169 targets, 126 catches, 1,239 yards, and a whopping 11 TDs after six total in his 49 NFL games. It’s even more dramatic when you consider he had one TD through five contests last year, so that’s 10 in his final 12 tilts. He was the apple of Jacoby Brissett’s eye (Michael Wilson was the other eye), and required copious garbage time to get there.

Clearly, folks are somewhat baking in that he can’t possibly run that hot again, or else we’d be discussing him in the first round. But is it enough? I’d say no, evidently. There are so many variables around what’s changing from 2025 to ‘26 that this still undersells the environment.

There’s the fact that you’ll be sad if Brissett winds up benched for Gardner Minshew II or Carson Beck. The team took Jeremiyah Love in the first round and signed Tyler Allgeier after their entire RB room hit the medical ward last year, leading to a league-high passing rate that sniffed 70%.

Every week it felt as though Brissett blew past 40 pass attempts with the team down double digits in the fourth, and McBride was at the center of it. The volume, the lofty TD%, and the inability to trust a rusher all coalesced into a magical season. He’s closer to Colston Loveland than Brock Bowers.

Nico Collins, Houston Texans

WR9, Underdog ADP: 22

Collins is currently between Drake London and George Pickens with a lofty second-round tag, but how much are you willing to buy into C.J. Stroud’s 2026 offense? The aforementioned Slowik can’t be the scapegoat, as Nick Caley heads into Year 2 as Houston’s OC with a widely panned offensive line still in place.

Mix Stroud’s regression with dirty, rushed pockets, and you get the lowly 59% catch rate that mirrors his first two seasons before the breakout, compared to 68.7% in ‘24 and 73.4% in ‘23. The average depth of target blew past his career 11.3 mark with a 12.7 tally last year, resulting in plenty of yards at a lower rate. Is that what Caley wants here? Can Stroud improve the deep ball without better protection?

This is not about Collins’ talent, as the man still posted 71 catches on 120 targets for 1,117 yards and six scores over 15 games. However, this makes all five seasons with 15 or fewer games played, and a career-high of eight TDs.

He also benefited from Joe Mixon’s absence neutering the ground game, something that David Montgomery should stabilize, and the lack of a clear No. 2 receiver vying for competition. Woody Marks remains a capable receiving threat out of the backfield as well.

Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel now have a year under their belts, with Higgins looking like a strong bet to at least garner red-zone looks. Tank Dell may not be a fantasy force after his serious leg injury, yet having him and Xavier Hutchinson in the rotation is better than the likes of Braxton Berrios and Justin Watson.

The team is still very likely to play as far as the defense can take them, which doesn’t paint the ceiling picture of double-digit TDs that most WRs in this range boast. London nabbed nine scores in ‘24 and managed seven in 12 games on last year’s sad Falcs, and had only missed one game in his first three seasons prior to ‘25, for instance. I’m sidestepping Collins at ADP.

Tetairoa McMillan, Carolina Panthers

WR19, Underdog ADP: 39

McMillan’s ADP is rooted in his potential, but then you’re stuck rooting for a Bryce Young breakout to a moderate degree, and that feels mispriced here. Guys like Mike Evans, Terry McLaurin, Jaylen Waddle, and Davante Adams should not be 6-12 picks behind Tet due to their own talents, sure, but also the caliber of their respective offenses/QBs.

We’re not certain how playcalling is going to fall between head coach Dave Canales and new offensive coordinator Brad Idzik, but it appears that Canales wants more focus elsewhere during the game. So, we’ve got Canales, Bryce, and a bit of a mystery box in Idzik.

Working for Tet’s bull case is how Carolina added little competition around him. Chris Brazzell II is a third-round pick who could push Xavier Legette, though a healthy campaign from Jalen Coker (and Jonathon Brooks) is more relevant.

McMillan saw at least eight targets in five of the six games that Coker missed on the IR to open the year, only topping that four times in the 12 games alongside Coker (including playoffs).

You remember that playoff game? When Coker exploded for a 9-134-1 line on 12 targets against Tet’s 5-81-0 (7 tgts). Pretty nifty to see what happens when it’s all on the line, albeit in a one-game sample where it isn’t as though TMac disappeared. But Young’s passing pie isn't that big, so sharing can hurt disproportionately. Remember, it’s the price, not just the player.

Quinshon Judkins, Cleveland Browns

RB24, Underdog ADP: 54

For as good as Jared Verse is, this defense could absolutely fall apart without Myles Garrett wreaking havoc on the edge. His superstar form covered up a multitude of sins in the secondary, which could lead to seriously jagged scoreboards that take Judkins off the field in favor of Dylan Sampson.

There’s also the small matter of Judkins having to hold up for the year after suffering a dislocated ankle and fractured fibula in Week 16. He must do so behind one of the worst projected offensive lines in the game with zero passing threat under center to force defenses back. I'll look elsewhere.

Bhayshul Tuten, Jacksonville Jaguars

RB25, Underdog ADP: 55

I like Tuten, and I love the Jaguars’ upside as a whole, but this feels like your avenue to profit has been trimmed away compared to the springtime cost.

The Jags brought in Chris Rodriguez Jr. on a two-year, $10 million deal to reunite with Liam Coen, who was CRod's offensive coordinator at the University of Kentucky during the rusher's best collegiate campaign.

clip from a 2023 interview of Liam Coen talking about Chris Rodriguez Jr. (who earned All-SEC honors at Kentucky in 2021 under Coen)

“[Rodriguez] just doesn’t get tackled.” pic.twitter.com/0HkFy86pT2

— Gus Logue (@gus_logue) March 11, 2026

Rodriguez's strong running style is an effective between-the-tackles, short-yardage model, but he's quicker than a plodder. The half-PPR format has me leaning away from Tuten with how well Rodriguez could fit as the goal-line option. And LeQuint Allen getting passing work only siphons a bit more.

DJ Moore, Buffalo Bills

WR27, Underdog ADP: 56

Can Josh Allen finally get a No. 1 WR off the ground? Is Moore still capable of greatness after failing to pop under Ben Johnson’s engineering? The passing touchdown equity must battle with Josh Allen and James Cook III on the ground, as well as a healthy year from Dalton Kincaid.

Many levels of questioning are valid to present for the 29-year-old WR, and he's going to be pushed up because everyone who will have already selected Allen will be antsy to lock in the top stack partner. One must be careful of early/mid-round ADP inflation in those situations with an early QB pick.

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