We are entering the final weekend of fantasy football draft season with the NFL regular season kicking off next Wednesday.
Making the right choices in the early rounds is essential in building a winning fantasy team, and below, I dive into two early-round players that I believe could be disappointments this season.
2026 Fantasy Football RB Busts
RB Ashton Jeanty, Las Vegas Raiders
After being selected No. 6 overall by the Raiders, Jeanty was a late first-round to early second-round pick for most fantasy drafts last summer. He once again is going this early drafts this season. Jeanty played in all 17 games and finished as the No.11 scoring running back last season, and while this was a strong campaign, it was disappointing relative to where he was going in drafts and many of his metrics were underwhelming.
Jeanty averaged a modest 3.7 YPC, which ranked 50th of the 65 backs who saw 50+ carries. Jeanty did rank eighth in YAC (815), but he ranked just 16th in rushes of 10+ yards (24) and he only scored five touchdowns on the ground, despite seeing 34 red zone carries.
Jeanty was just PFF’s 41st-highest graded rusher among backs. Jeanty did display strong skills as receiver, though, catching 55 passes for 346 yards and five touchdowns, while commanding a target on 18% of his routes.
Fantasy wise, Jeanty averaged 14.9 FPTS per game, but he failed to crack double figures in 7-of-17 games. Among backs, Jeanty ranked 19th in FPTS per snap (0.33) and just 41st in FPTS per touch (0.79).
Jeanty did play for the league’s worst offense, as the Raiders ranked dead-last in points per game (14.2), and they’ll likely improve with Klint Kubiak as their new HC in 2026. But by how much? Yes, Kubiak just was the OC for the Super Bowl Champion Seahawks, but the Raiders are still one of the weakest offensive groups in the league that will have a 38-year-old Kirk Cousins under center for Week 1. Cousins ranked 34th of 45 quarterbacks in passer rating last season and he averaged just 6.4 YPA.
Brock Bowers is healthy again, which helps the offense as a whole, but the tight end being 100% certainly could hurt Jeanty’s target share. Lastly, Jeanty just suffered a sprained ankle on August 23, and while the team is optimistic he’ll be ready for Week 1, nothing is confirmed yet, and that doesn’t mean Jeanty will see a full workload right out the gate.
Don’t get me wrong, Jeanty could have a strong season, but spending a first-round or early second-round pick on him feels aggressive.
RB Kyren Williams, Los Angeles Rams
Williams is the lead back for the Super Bowl favored Rams — they carry +500 odds to win the championship on DraftKings Sportsbook — and he finished as the No. 9 scoring running back for fantasy football last season.
Williams is going around the turn between the second and third rounds in most drafts, so what’s not to like about him? Well, first off, Williams was heavily reliant on touchdowns last season. The back scored 13 times and those touchdowns accounted for 33% of his FPTS.
Williams feels due for some negative regression in this department, and more importantly, the presence of Blake Corum looms large. The 2024 third-round pick out of Michigan started to see more and more work behind Williams as last season progressed, and Corum playing a bigger role this season feels inevitable.
Before the Rams’ bye in Week 8, Williams out carried Courm 107-41. However, their workloads were much closer following the bye, with Williams out-carrying Corum 152-104 the rest of the season. This trend continued in the playoffs, as Williams had 44 rushing attempts to Corum’s 26 in Los Angeles’ three postseason games.
Corum was the slightly better rusher, averaging 5.1 YPC between the regular and postseason, compared to 4.7 YPC for Williams, and the Rams making this a two-man committee all season is the smart move for this offense.
This backfield should begin as a 60/40 split in favor of Williams, but it ending as 50/50 split is definitely in play. Williams finishing outside the top 15 in FPTS among backs is a possibility, and his current ADP of 28.1 on Yahoo! is just too expensive for me.
