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Fantasy drafts are popping up everywhere. We need to give you players that we're personally betting the house on this year to crush your fantasy football drafts. We're going to start with Chase Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Last year, there was a pretty clear trend with Chase Brown. When Joe Burrow was on the field, Chase Brown was much better. He was scoring 19.4 points per game with Joe Burrow in eight games. Now, really where you saw the upticks here, uh touchdowns for one, he's scored almost all of his touchdowns in games with Joe Burrow, which makes sense. The offense was more efficient at scoring touchdowns in general when Joe Burrow was on the field. Um, but also, you know, he was about the same in receiving yardage. He actually had more targets when Joe Burrow wasn't on the field. He had a ton more rushing attempts inside the five with Joe Burrow. Again, what the Bengals are getting to the red zone more often with Joe Burrow on the field. Obviously, they're scoring more touchdowns with Joe Burrow on the field obviously. But the main beneficiary of this in my opinion is Chase Brown, right? And you see that in a five-point per game gap of Chase Brown on the field with Joe Burrow and without Joe Burrow, right?
And so this year, you go into this NFL season and Joe Burrow is healthy. That's what we know. All available information that we have is that Joe Burrow is healthy. He obviously came back at the end of last year and played, which is why we have some of these splits. And while Joe Burrow is obviously going to be a concern in terms of injury every single fantasy football season, right now he's healthy. It's good news for Chase Brown, it's very good news for T. Higgins as well. But Chase Brown in terms of his price right now, I mean, this is a guy that's going to go at the one-two turn this year. And it's probably going to be a guy where if you're drafting at the end of the draft, so if you're drafting like anywhere from 9 to 12, uh I think that's where you're going to be drafting Chase Brown. His average uh average draft position right now is 17th. Uh this among all all platforms. And you see some platforms here where ESPN has them at 25. So you get them in the late second. Same thing with Sleeper 25, but then you see some draft platforms like the Flock uh Expert Consensus Rankings has them at 14, right? Yahoo and Underdog have them at 15 and 16. FFPC has them at 16. CBS has them at 13, right? And so there are some platforms where you see Chase Brown going at the one-two turn. I'm personally okay with it. I think that when you're drafting at the one-two turn here, you're drafting from a host of running backs and then a couple of uncertain wide receivers. But Genty, Achan, Saquon Hampton, and Chase Brown are all going there at the one-two turn in most platforms on most platforms. And you have Drake London sprinkled in there as well. And I personally don't have a problem with any of these running backs. But when I'm comparing these running backs of Las Vegas, Miami, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Cincinnati, Cincinnati projects to have the fifth highest scoring offense this year in the NFL. And if we're looking at teams on that list, that's the highest of any team. And the next team on that list is the Eagles and the Chargers at 12 and 13. And so the Bengals in terms of Vegas projected points for 2026 are projected to score 26 points a game. They're expected to be a high octane offense. And of all the running backs that I like in this range because as you're going to find out, we like taking running backs early in drafts and we don't like this late or we don't mind this late first as much as other people evidently because I see a lot of people ranking the late first this year as the worst picks to have in fantasy football. I'm personally not seeing it. You're going to see why as we get into more of our strategy videos. But what you can do in the late first is take Chase Brown here. And again, he's playing on the best offense of any of these running backs. And running backs go at a premium in your fantasy football drafts. Last year of his 11 touchdowns, six of those were rushing and five were receiving. So, what that says is the receiving skill set that he brings also gives you a high floor on a week-to-week basis. He's also a high ceiling player, too, right? I mean, even just looking at last year, like he didn't really start the season well. And again, part of that was because he didn't have Joe Burrow at the beginning of the year, but his his floor still was around 10 points, but with Joe Burrow from weeks like 8 to 18, and some of that was with Flaco, actually, his floor ended up being around around 15 points. And that was really when he started getting more receiving work and more consistent targets. So, with Chase Brown, again, you're just choosing from a lot of running backs here in the second round. And Chase Brown's playing in the best offense of all of them, and I think he has the highest floor of all of them as well, because he's demonstrated two years in a row now, he's going to score on 15-16 points a game. Uh, and with Joe Burrow, the ceiling is potentially higher than that. So, I think you're buying into Chase Brown knowing he's going to get all the work there with almost no competition there in that backfield in Cincinnati. By the way, his snap share last year at times was a little low. It went up in the middle of the season when you saw that production boost. He has almost no competition there. It's a great offense. Joe Burrow is healthy. Again, I think Chase Brown's going to crush this year. I think he's a super safe pick in the second round. And safety is really big when you're drafting first, second, and third round players in fantasy because if one of them doesn't hit, it could screw your fantasy football season. But Chase Brown's a guy I like there.
We have all of these players ranked accordingly over in the algorithm, which is available over on the site on the post page. If you haven't tried out the algorithm yet, it's going to help you with every single league setting combination, every single platform. It's going to give you custom rankings based on our rankings or your own custom rankings to help dominate your draft. It'll walk you through step by step which strategy you should take and which players at each part of the draft you should take based on who's going to make it back to you, who the best positional value is, and who fits your strategy the best. Again, it will hold your hand and help you win your fantasy football leagues. All while you can customize your own rankings in there. So, if you have differing opinions, go ahead and swap guys out. You can check it out. It's available with the season pass with code domain. You get the algorithm. You're going to get all the draft sheets on the site, the draft overlay tool on the site. You're going to get a trade calculator for fantasy football. You're going to get free personalized advice questions and Nathan and I. So, you can check that out. And again, it's $34. 34. You can go to Five Guys and get a burger for that. And you're getting this algorithm that we spent three months working on. I I mean, like I can get a burger, fries, and milkshake for 34 bucks. So, go check it out. Link below. Use code domain to unlock the algorithm.
I think people are getting a little bit too cute with Devon Achane saying that he's going to be, you know, a massive regression candidate and is going to be super disappointing this year or is at high risk of that happening. I I just don't think it's really that risky at all selecting Devon Achane anywhere from the early second round to the mid-second round in some formats. The only reason that Devon Achane is not going solidified in the first round consistently across the board this year is because Malik Willis has been added at the quarterback position and people are terrified of his rushing upside. Which by the way, if you're going to be scared of anyone in that offense taking away from Devon Achane, why would it be Malik Willis who has never shown in his entire career ever that he's capable of throwing the football? The The only thing that would take away from Devon Achane's production, which took away from his production ceiling, the first two years of his career was Tua Tagovailoa slinging it to Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek Hill. And the Miami Dolphins just did they literally cleared the house this year. They cleared the house over $100 million in dead cap. They got rid of everybody, every sort of offensive playmaker that they ever had on their team under the Mike McDaniel regime except for one guy and that was Devon Achane who they paid top dollar to at the running back position. And we really don't think that they're going to use Devon Achane at the level that they did in 2025. I'm not buying it. I I mean 17.3 points per game as a rookie, 17.6 points per game in 2024. Again, that was when the offense was notably better those first two years compared to 2025 when it was the worst that it ever had looked. And as that offense regressed, Devon Achane got better and more productive because he was the most reliable and the only consistently productive asset in that offense at the running back position, because of his consistent receiving upside, and because of the opportunities that they gave him on the ground that he capitalized on time and time again as a hyper-efficient runner on the ground. Like why are we afraid of Malik Willis taking away rushing touchdowns in the red zone when Devon Achane ranked 19th among running backs last season in red zone touches?
Can I just? He's not dependent on red zone touches. I mean the thing that the argument people are going to make is how often are they going to actually be in the red zone this year? The offense is projected to be literally horrible. And so How good were they last year getting into the Yeah. I mean that's true. It wasn't good. And when it comes to rushing attempts, people think that Mike McDaniel was some like hyper rushing attempt type of play caller. They ranked 24th in rushing offense last year when it came to attempts and yardage actually almost ended up being top 12 because Achane was so efficient. 21st in touchdowns on the ground. Again, Devon Achane is not known to be a touchdown machine. He gets his dues when it comes to his touchdowns. Again, like it's he he was top 10 in total touchdowns, which is very solid. It's nothing elite, but what raises his floor so much and what makes him so reliable and such a safe pick in my opinion is that receiving upside, which is top six in efficiency, receptions, receiving yards every single year. His opportunity and his presence on the field. He's always top six when it comes to how often he's on the field. He's on there on passing down sets and rushing sets because he's getting carries and he's getting receptions and dump downs. And oh, by the way, now that Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek Hill are gone out of this offense, there's no wide receiver for Malik Willis to throw the ball to. So, what do we think they're actually going to do? Like, do we think Malik Willis is really going to be that great of a quarterback that he's going to want to throw the ball more often to one of those wide receivers than who will ultimately end up most likely being the wide receiver one in that offense? And Devon Achane's target share last year in that offense in Miami with Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle was 19.8%. He's the easiest target by far, the most reliable target by far for Malik Willis to check the ball down to time and time and time again. And I am more than sold on his floor. He's demonstrated it for three straight years.
All right, so I'm going to talk about DeAndre Swift next. And the thing about like betting on DeAndre Swift is with as much, you know, perceived ups and downs that DeAndre Swift has had in his entire career, and there's certainly been ups and downs with me owning DeAndre Swift, the dude's averaged 12 and a half or more points per game in fantasy football. Every year he's been in the NFL all six years and has played 13 or more games all six years. In the past three years since he was on Philly, he actually has played 16, 17, and 16 games. So, he's consistently scoring flex-level production and consistently on the field the last couple of years. This is one of the most consistent fantasy scoring running backs. Not consistently elite by any means, but consistently flexible that you've been able to find. And the thing about the fourth and fifth round in fantasy football drafts is this is where a lot of misses happens. I don't know if you saw Nathan draft Caleb Johnson last year, but those are some I don't know if you saw Danny draft Travis Hunter in in the fifth round. I don't know if you saw some of the guys were going in the fifth, fourth, and fifth round last year in fantasy football drafts.
I think more than half of them last year did not hit. If I'm remembering correctly, I I think it was an absolute freaking minefield of guys that all busted. It's legitimately awful. It's such an easy range because really what it is, you're looking at like the combination of guys here. Uh it's guys who get a lot of hype but haven't proven themselves. There's a lot of quarterbacks in that range this year. It's old guys that are on their way down. We don't know what to do with them. It's guys in new situations. And then occasionally you have the the DeAndre Swifts where same situation, same top 10 projected offense this year according to Vegas lines, right? And again, exact same backfield. And Kyle Manungai did take away from him a little bit closer to the end of the year. But with that being said, it wasn't anything that wasn't preventing DeAndre Swift from getting to that 12 points per game uh threshold that we like to see. And again, that's good production. If you're getting consistently 12 points a game out of DeAndre Swift this year, which I think you will, I think you have to be okay with that. And from weeks 8 to 18 when you're looking at Swift compared to Manungai, 13.2 fantasy points per game for Swift compared to 10 for Manungai. And again, he still led Manungai in every category. And was the running back 19 in that span? And you can continue to kind of play with this and you can say, okay, uh, weeks 10 through 18 when Manungai was even more involved. 13 versus 9.7. Again, you're talking about that consistent 12 to 15 points per game from DeAndre Swift that I think you're going to see again this year. I personally think that the Ben Johnson offense in Chicago is going to look better this year. I think Caleb Williams is going to look good. And while Luther Burton's getting a lot of hype and people hate Romo Dunce and Coulson Lovelin's getting a lot of hype and Caleb Williams gets a lot of hype, which I love Caleb for this year for fantasy football, DeAndre Swift is the guy that I think's flying under the radar because people are overestimating the impact that Kan Young is going to have on DeAndre Swift's fantasy production this year. when in reality, DeAndre Swift has been one of the more consistent running back producers in the middle range. Again, this is like a consistent running back, too, in the past six years in the NFL. And so, again, I'm trying not to miss on my fourth and fifth round pick this year in fantasy football. DeAndre Swift is a guy you draft to not miss on your pick in fantasy football. He's going around a bunch of guys right now in ADP. All of them have extremely big questions in that range. And again, that's going to be every year, right? You're talking about guys like Cam Scataboo coming off of an injury. Tap McMillan. Is Bryce Young going to be able to support him? Luther Burton, does he score fantasy points? Because we've not ever seen that yet. Does Dvonte Adams fall off a cliff? Does Terry McLaren get back to form? What after last year being a little bit slower? Does Garrett Wilson overcome the Jets situation? Does Mike Evans transfer his skill all to San Francisco and be productive there? Does David Montgomery get enough snap share in Houston? Right? I could go on and on and on. And when you look at at Swift, and the biggest question with Swift is, does Manungai take enough of his workload for it to matter? In my opinion, even when Manungai is being filtered into that offense, DeAndre Swift is still scoring at a clip that you have to flex. And so, again, I'm trying not to miss on my fourth or fifth round pick this year, this is the guy that I like. I like DeAndre Swift in this range.
I like Rashee Rice a lot again this year as well. It ended up paying off especially if you invested in him mid-season last year when people were starting to freak out and you know couldn't afford to hold him because they needed wins right now and then if you were able to just uh hold on to Rice until he came back after his six-game suspension you were feeling really good and lo and behold he was super productive as expected 18.8 on eight points per game when he came back onto the field. The biggest question obviously we can everybody is going to talk about the off-field stuff. We're going to be talking about in-season production. He's got to stay healthy. I think that honestly is the biggest concern with Rashee Rice and I want to note that right off the bat. Um I I do expect Rashee Rice to be the focal point in that offense again this season despite the offensive coordinator change. And if anything, I think this is actually gonna make how we feel about Rashee Rice this season even more comfortable now that Eric Bieniemy is the one calling the plays again. Look, Eric Bieniemy might not be what he was in Kansas City as a play caller from 2018 to 2022. Um, which was consistently he was no worse than uh top six in total yards um offensively. And when you're looking at his passing offensive grades every single year for attempts ninth, 15th, 3rd, second, and fifth, he was actually first in passing attempts in Washington in 2023, that year, if you remember that too. Bieniemy is known for being a guy that loves to throw the football. And it was very notable how much Kansas City's offense changed when they went from Bieniemy in 2022 to Matt Nagy in 2023. And Matt Nagy, of course, in classic Matt Nagy fashion, um, wasn't super shabby when it came to his efficiency, despite being like top seven in passing attempts in 2024 and 2025. He was middle of the pack in total yards. It just was not very pretty. Patrick Mahomes didn't look very comfortable in that offensive system, and they seemed very like very limited in in who they were able to get the ball to personnel-wise, and it just it wasn't working out well. You bring back Bieniemy, you try to get that old spark that you used to have with him when it came to how explosive that offense was able to be. Um, and people will sometimes attribute that to Xavier Worthy and what he might do this season. I'm just going to stick to my guns and say Travis Kelce is going to be as solid as he usually is. And Rashee Rice is going to eat again. Rashee Rice last season coming off of a suspension and an injury, mind you, a season-ending injury, mind you, in 2024. Um, was still in eight games 11th in yards after the catch and first in designated target share, first in red zone target share in eight games among wide receivers in the NFL. Rashee Rice is very limited in the routes that he is able to run. He runs digs, slants, screens, and that's about it. and he is so efficient with those routes that he runs because they just hyperfeed him with those targets. Worthy is your field stretcher. Um Taekwon Thornton can be your field stretcher. Travis Kelce is a guy that everybody has to respect on the field because he's always going to get his own. And by the time you get inside the 20 with Rashee Rice, he's a guy that you give the ball to when you're throwing the football. And obviously Kenneth Walker is now going to be in that conversation as well when it comes to red zone opportunities on the ground. They are going to run the ball more once they get into the red zone this year. But I think again adding Kenneth Walker, as much as I have questions about Walker and his production this season, I definitely don't have questions about how much it's going to make the offense more versatile because Walker is so much more explosive of a runner and so much more of a difference maker than Pacheco and Kareem Hunt have been for the last couple of years. And again, when you add a consistently effective run game, which Walker has offered for Seattle for the last four years, despite his lack of consistency producing, um, that opens up the field for hyperproductive wide receivers in the same offense. You saw in those offenses with Kenneth Walker, Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf, JSN were super duper productive and they played all over the field. You know, you had DK lining up on the outside. You had Tyler Lockett running out of the slot. You had JSN doing both this past season. And it kind of just started clicking on all cylinders, especially towards the end of the year. Patrick Mahomes got a lot of his production last year from running the football. That ain't happening again this year. He's going to have to stay back in the pocket. They're going to have to protect him a lot, and he's going to have to get rid of the ball quickly because they don't want him to get hurt again. And he cannot go down again with another season-ending injury if they want to have another legitimate season and another legitimate shot at a Super Bowl. And uh that's going to be, you know, getting the ball to Rashee Rice as much as possible when he is your short to intermediate game target.
Look, we're Colts fans. Everybody knows that we featured Josh Downs on a sneaky picks video recently, but I think it's worth noting that we have Josh Downs ranked lower than every other single person on the site. And so I think we're as realistic with the Colts and their weapons this year as anyone. And I my personal opinion watching this offense every week all the time for the past 20 years of my life is that this year Tyler Warren is the best Colt to own. I think that Tyler Warren is set up to crush this year. When you're looking, this is pretty easy. I think you can put this one together very simply. I'm going to frame it to you like this. In 13 games with Daniel Jones last year, he averaged 12.4 points per game. That was sixth in points per game. When you're looking at the total number of points in that 13-game span, he was the tight end two with Daniel Jones, right? A 21% target share, six and a half targets per game. And that's all while not scoring a lot of touchdowns. Total last year with Daniel Jones, he scored four touchdowns in 13 games and scored zero without him. So he had four total touchdowns last year and was still with Daniel Jones the tight end two. Without Daniel Jones, he was the tight end 24 in points per game and 21 total points. Right? His targets remain the same. But what happened? His receptions went down. His receiving yards plummeted without Daniel Jones, which makes sense given that they had Riley Leonard and Uncle Phil in there. Shout out Uncle Phil, by the way. Uh, his yards per target got cut in half. So, his utilization because of the handicap that they had at quarterback, his utilization, and how and how he was being schemed up, it completely fell off the face of the earth. He was a short target. He was getting the same amount of targets. He was not used in the red zone because they weren't getting there as much and the Colts were a dumpster fire in the last half of last year. Now, this year, Daniel Jones is going to start week one. He is. He's working out. He's practicing. He's going to start week one. And And while I don't think Daniel Jones is going to be um, you know, full strength Daniel Jones right away, you don't have Michael Pittman there. And I And people want to say, "Well, Michael Pittman's not that big of a loss." Well, Michael Pittman from a production standpoint is that big of a loss because Shane Steichen is not is not going to uh shy away from throwing the ball regardless of what the health of Daniel Jones is. And so when you're talking about a guy who had 111 targets last year and had seven receiving touchdowns last year and had a 20% target share and I don't necessarily just I don't necessarily think this is, you know, vacated volume fallacy. I think vacated volume fallacy would be saying, "Okay, Josh is going to be the wide receiver 18 like Michael Pittman was last year just because those targets are gone." I think Alec Pierce gets one to two more targets a game. I think Tyler Warren gets one to two more targets a game. And what a tight end can do with one to two more targets a game when they're coming off of their first year in the NFL. They have a year under their belt. They have their healthy quarterback which they performed much better with and there's 111 more opportunities in that offense or somewhere around there. Obviously the Colts might throw the ball a little less this year. What do you think Tyler Warren's going to do? I think he gets more targets and on a per-target basis he was extremely efficient last year from a fantasy perspective. So all of that leads to us looking at his current price in fantasy football and I am notably anti-tight end most of the time in fantasy football. But when you've got Cole Kmet going at pick number 40. So you got him going uh in the third round, right? Or actually the three-four turn really on most platforms. You've got Cole Kmet going there and then you scroll down and you see Tyler Warren and we have Tyler Warren ranked pretty high. Tyler Warren's going in the fifth round. I would much rather at price have Tyler Warren. I have Cole Kmet ranked ahead of Tyler Warren, but Tyler Warren to me is the guy that can be a top three tight end this year pretty easily and he's being drafted in the fifth round. That's typically the kind of range you like and I'm not a big tight end guy. And personally, I don't know how much Tyler Warren I'll draft because I don't like taking tight ends early, but I do know this. I will absolutely take tight end early this year over quarterback early. I will not touch a quarterback in the top eight rounds this year. Pro top seven. There's no way. And I will be willing because of that to take tight end a little bit earlier. And Tyler Warren's my favorite value. He's my favorite pick at price. And again, that's at the it's in the fifth round. I think Tyler Warren's gonna average, I've been saying all along, 13 to 15 points per game this year. And that's going to be huge for your tight end spot when you're getting him in the fifth round. I also think again, he's a guy that's going the fifth round that is, in my opinion, pretty high floor. As long as he's healthy, which he's been fairly durable throughout his entire career, I think he's going to return on value pretty well. Again, stupid Colts fan opinion here, but my personal Colts fan opinion is that Tyler Warren is the best player, uh, I should say pass-catching player, not including Jonathan Taylor to own in the Indianapolis Colts this year, especially at price. I think Tyler Warren is going to have a good year and I think his price is a little bit cheaper than some people who are projecting, you know, McBride, Bowers, all great and love, all great tight ends. Warren's cheaper. I like the cheap guys, and I'll take Warren here in the fifth round.
A lot of you guys are going to come out of the first two rounds of your draft and you're either going to have no running backs or only one running back and you're looking straight down the pipeline in round three and you're like, man, I have to draft a running back. There are only a few running backs available in the third round that you really have a chance of taking a shot on and that is Breece Hall, Josh Jacobs, and Aaron Jones right now, according to Consensus ADP across multiple platforms going back to back to back in the middle of the third round. And if you want to take a shot on a guy in that range who is just oh so reliable every single year, I would probably be taking the shot on Josh Jacobs. If I were you, I think that he has the best floor-ceiling combo um of those three guys where Breece has shown his floor so low in a terrible offense. It's not his fault. The offense is just horrible. And then Aaron Jones whose ceiling is kind of capped because Puka and Adams are so productive and Stafford just throws the ball like crazy. Um Josh Jacobs is the motor of Green Bay's offense and has been for the last two years and it is the reason that Green Bay has been as effective as they have been with Matt LaFleur calling the plays. Josh Jacobs to me the only reason he's even in this conversation with these running backs this year is because of the legal stuff that happened this offseason and his regression towards the end of last year. It is worth noting that regression obviously with Jacobs toward the end of last season. I do want to add though with that regression after the bye week also came a lot of injury struggles. He did maintain production that had like games of 17 and 23 points in weeks 14 and 15 but 13, 16, and 17 he had 10, four, and one point like in the playoffs he really really let you down. He was so banged up and his snap share was so low at that point in time because they were just trying to survive through the playoffs and get him to the playoffs semi-healthy when he could make a big difference there. They were definitely limiting his snaps and his opportunities. The best thing about Josh Jacobs, and this has been the calling card for Jacobs since he came into the league, is the opportunities that he gets in the red zone and the goal line touches that he gets. 15 goal line carries last year, 57 total red zone touches, which was top 10 among running backs in the NFL. People will really want to hyperfocus in on how his efficiency was so poor. Four yards per carry. The true yards per carry was even worse at 3.8. Josh Jacobs throughout his entire career has never been known to be a hyper-efficient running back and he's never been a guy that's been known to get a ton of rushing production on the ground. He's usually flirting with like a 1,000 yards on the ground with a decent amount of attempts. The two years that were his best for 2022 and 2024 was 1,600 and 1300 yards, but he's usually just around the thousand-yard mark if he even breaks that mark. But the touchdowns that he gets year in and year out are just so reliable constantly. And if we've learned anything from a from a Matt LaFleur offense and from what they've done year in and year out in the front office with who they've signed and who they've let walk under Jordan Love now at quarterback, like this is going to be the same looking offense this year. Christian Watson and Jayden Reed are the two top wide receivers with Tucker Kraft coming off of an ACL tear. Like this offense ain't going to look any different. And you know what they're going to do when they get inside the 20 is they're going to give the ball to Josh Jacobs like they do every single time they get there. This this is how they win games. This is how they get to the playoffs and this is how they're always in the mix and that's not going to change this year. I'm not betting on a Josh Jacobs hyper-regression season. I I think really last year was the one that was kind of a bummer just because of the injury towards the end of the year. But if that didn't happen, we'd be having a whole different conversation with Jacobs and probably not in the same conversation as Aaron and Breece Hall.
So those are the guys this year we're going to bet a lot of our fantasy football drafts on and of course hopefully we gave you a good case as why you should too. Drop a like on the video if you enjoyed this content. And again, if you play fantasy football, make sure you hit subscribe. It's free, it's easy, it helps us out, it helps us continue to put videos out as well. So, we really appreciate that. Thanks guys for watching. We'll see you soon.