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John's top candidates for the number 1 overall pick in 2026 fantasy football drafts. These are his top-5 projected players to draft for 2026 fantasy football.
The 2025 fantasy football season is over for most fantasy football managers. To make a long story short -- if you had one of the top-5 running backs, you were far more likely to make it to the fantasy championship than if you didn't.
2025 marked yet another season in which the top RBs were far more valuable than the top WRs. The opportunity cost of not having an elite starting running back was absolutely huge and often left fantasy teams crippled, exiting in the first round of the postseason, or not making the playoffs at all.
It seems that fantasy as a whole is moving in the direction of running backs being even more valuable than they usually are, after multiple seasons of early round receivers being a viable strategy. So, will this be a year that running backs are the top candidates for the No. 1 overall pick? Let's dive in.
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Bijan Robinson, RB, Atlanta Falcons
Robinson is the perfect fantasy prospect, with a few asterisks. He was a top-10 pick in his NFL Draft class, and while his rookie season was a bit rocky, he finished as the RB3 overall in 2024, with 20.1 PPR fantasy points per game. He's the centerpiece of his offense and is heavily used in both the run and pass game.
He's lived up to his predraft hype and has handled a massive workload on a (mostly) competent offense. In 17 games in 2024, he had 1,887 yards from scrimmage and 15 total touchdowns. This season, he's racked up a ridiculous 2,255 total yards and 11 touchdowns in 16 games.
BIJAN ROBINSON. 93 YARDS.
ESPN | NFL+ pic.twitter.com/fRjPbmd2kv
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) December 30, 2025
Robinson's heroic performance in the fantasy football championships of most leagues in Week 17, in which he scored 39.9 PPR fantasy points, showed off yet again his nearly limitless ceiling. He's developed positively as a player, and though there are questions about Atlanta's offense in 2026, he's not one of them.
The Falcons will have to contend with quarterback Michael Penix Jr.'s newest knee injury. We might see QB Kirk Cousins start in his place for a while, and the passing offense being shaky when Penix returns. That probably won't matter much, as Robinson's talent and volume are both huge.
Bijan Robinson can't be stopped!
LARvsATL on ESPN/ABC
Stream on @NFLPlus and ESPN App pic.twitter.com/TcRloxbHZF— NFL (@NFL) December 30, 2025
Robinson's ability to change direction on a dime and leave defenders grasping for air is reminiscent of Walter Payton's skill set to the same effect. It's hard to argue that Robinson shouldn't be the No. 1 overall pick in all 1QB leagues, considering he's just 23 years old right now.
More huge seasons moving forward from him feel inevitable. Atlanta still has solid offensive line play, and wide receiver Drake London looked to be breaking out in a big way before he got injured, so the passing game should be good enough that defenses can't focus all their attention on shutting down Robinson.
Christian McCaffrey, RB, San Francisco 49ers
Despite Robinson's greatness, he wasn't the best running back in the NFL for fantasy football in 2025. That title belongs to McCaffrey, who returned to his workhorse role for the 49ers and immediately put up massive numbers.
Though his rushing average is down quite a bit from previous seasons, that didn't really matter. He made up for that and more with his elite receiving usage and production. He averaged just under 3.9 yards per carry, but through 17 weeks of NFL action, he's caught 96 passes for 890 yards and seven touchdowns.
That means, as a running back, he averages over 14.1 PPR fantasy points per game. That's ridiculous production from a running back, and would rank him as the WR7 in total PPR points with 227. That's not a joke. He's that good.
CMC has his 15th touchdown of the season!
SFvsIND on ESPN
Stream on @NFLPlus and ESPN App pic.twitter.com/EJeF926T4T— NFL (@NFL) December 23, 2025
McCaffrey has made an absolute killing running horizontally breaking routes against linebackers. He's nearly automatic at doing so, and is also excellent after the catch, which has led the 49ers to throw him dump-offs and screen passes at a high rate.
Defenses have never adjusted to this, either. And San Francisco has had one of the best offenses in the NFL, so McCaffrey's 1,179 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns are a natural result. A fantasy manager willing to pick CMC at the top of their draft would be bold, though -- he's missed a lot of games in his career due to major injuries.
Jahmyr Gibbs, RB, Detroit Lions
Gibbs' ceiling is technically the highest of any running back in the league. He scored 55.4 PPR fantasy points in Week 12 against the New York Giants, which was the highest score of any fantasy player in any game this season. He's been more inconsistent than the other players on this list, though.
Gibbs had four games with just single-digit PPR fantasy points this year. That's as many as the other three running backs on this list combined. He was vulnerable to poor overall performances by the Detroit Lions offense, largely caused by the low quality of the offensive line play.
JAHMYR SCORES IMMEDIATELY.
NYGvsDET on FOX/FOX Onehttps://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/HzyzjRsr4d
— NFL (@NFL) November 23, 2025
When the Lions are beating the ever-loving tar out of an opposing team, though, Gibbs can rack up monster yardage. His receiving production isn't quite on the level of McCaffrey's or Robinson's, though, which limits his consistency. Free points from receptions on high-completion passes remain massive for RB production.
Still, even if Gibbs doesn't go No. 1 overall in your fantasy league next year, it's hard to see him falling out of the top three. If Detroit makes offensive line improvements, he could finish as the RB1 overall, and it wouldn't be particularly surprising.
Puka Nacua, WR, Los Angeles Rams
Running back is the most important position to draft early in the NFL. Last season, the Zero RB plan worked out quite miserably, unless you got both Dallas Cowboys running back Javonte Williams and Jacksonville Jaguars RB Travis Etienne Jr.
Still, none of them finished as a top-5 running back, and the share of wins above replacement of those top RBs was huge. And we saw Arizona Cardinals WR Michael Wilson become one of the best receivers in fantasy football after the injury to Marvin Harrison Jr. (heel). Wilson was a waiver pickup.
Puka Nacua TD.
This was a great catch, but it was unfortunately called back for holding 😂 pic.twitter.com/NDPsmBplwR
— SM Highlights (@SMHighlights1) December 30, 2025
Nacua, the league's best contested-catch specialist and perhaps the greatest WR I've ever seen at the catch point, can make an argument for being the No. 1 overall pick. Even in PPR leagues, he's not the top-scoring player and is significantly behind the best running backs.
Perhaps if he can put together another fully healthy season with WR Davante Adams (hamstring) still playing well enough to draw away a lot of coverage attention, he can realize his full potential. A 2,000-yard receiving season with 150 or more receptions and 14 touchdowns is not impossible, as long as QB Matthew Stafford plays for another season.
But there probably won't be many leagues in which he's taken over the top RBs.
Jonathan Taylor, RB, Indianapolis Colts
With the Colts offensive line playing well and a big quarterback upgrade from Anthony Richardson Sr. to Daniel Jones (Achilles), Taylor finally played reminiscent of his 2021 RB1 overall season. Though Jones was injured late in the season, Taylor absolutely exploded and was the RB1 overall at points this year.
With 1,924 yards from scrimmage and 20 total touchdowns on the season heading into Week 18, it's hard to nitpick his game. The one thing we'd like to see more of is receiving volume. He was only targeted 53 times this season. That said, he's not a particularly great route runner. His receiving usage is largely limited to checkdowns.
JONATHAN TAYLOR FROM BERLIN TO INDIANAPOLIS
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) November 9, 2025
Taylor has the ideal size and elite speed for a running back. He's 5-foot-10 and 226 pounds, yet reached 22.38 miles per hour on one of his touchdown runs this season, which was the fastest ball-carrier speed of any player in the NFL this year. This makes him a big-play machine.
Taylor, like McCaffrey, would be picked a bit higher if he weren't so injury-prone throughout his career. Though he turned in a fully healthy season this year, players often do so, then miss significant time the next season. Some players are indeed more prone to injuries than others -- it's just not possible to predict when they'll actually get hurt.
In non-PPR or half-PPR leagues, there's an argument to take Taylor No. 1 overall, as he's second in the NFL in rushing yards, and his 18 rushing touchdowns lead the league. In PPR leagues, there are reasonable arguments to take Robinson, Gibbs, and McCaffrey ahead of him.
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