We’re inching closer to the season with more preseason games to analyze and roster moves to dissect. All of those affect your fantasy football draft plans, including the players below who are rising and falling on draft boards.
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Fantasy Football Players Trending Up & Down
Players Trending Up
Jacory Croskey-Merritt (RB — WAS) | ADP: RB58
As soon as there were reports of the Washington Commanders shopping incumbent starting running back Brian Robinson Jr., Jacory Croskey-Merritt’s stock shot up, and just in time for fantasy drafts. The 2025 seventh-round pick started the off-season fifth on the Commanders’ depth chart but quickly jumped ahead of veterans Chris Rodriguez and Jeremy McNichols, before pushing Robinson to the point where, apparently, the Commanders are comfortable enough to shop their leading rusher from a year ago.
Croskey-Merritt certainly has the physical tools, thanks to an impressive combine performance. But what held teams back was his spotty college career. He played three seasons at small school Alabama State before transferring to New Mexico for a season, then transferring again to Arizona. However, due to some sketchy eligibility rules involving a jersey number, he played just one game in his last college season, which prevented pro teams from scouting anything. Fast forward to before the draft and the combine, and Croskey-Merritt’s physical gifts showed up enough to get him drafted in the seventh round. He’s been impressing since then, with the drumbeat slowly growing to a potential starting job.
Should he beat our Robinson, Austin Ekeler, et al., he’ll have one of the best running back jobs in the league, playing alongside second-year stud Jayden Daniels. If Robinson, who was very average last season — finishing with less than 800 rushing yards — can finish as a top-30 fantasy running back, there’s no reason Croskey-Merritt can’t take the position up a notch for Washington and be a starting running back in your league.
Caleb Williams (QB — CHI) | ADP: QB15
Caleb Williams had a very different rookie season than most people expected. The number-one-overall pick and Heisman Winner was not only one of the most polished quarterbacks to enter the league in recent memory, but he was entering a team that was built to win now. Typically, a team picking first in the draft was super bad the year before — thus the high pick. But the Bears received the top pick thanks to a fortuitous trade with the Panthers the year before and used it on Williams despite finishing the previous season 7-10.
So the expectations for Williams and the team were sky high, relative to previous top picks. And while Williams had a solid statistical season, especially for a rookie quarterback, with over 3,500 yards and 20 touchdowns, the Bears actually regressed to 5-12. The sad part was that the Bears started out 4-2 until their last-second loss to Washington and second-overall pick Jayden Daniels, which kicked off a 10-game losing streak.
The disappointing season led to a purge in the Bears’ coaching staff, and former Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson was named the new head coach. That, coupled with an entire offseason to prepare, has put Williams in a hopeful situation again.
And the preseason is only adding to that hope. In Monday’s preseason game, Williams completed six of his 10 attempts for 107 yards and a touchdown. If he can continue to improve, he’ll improve upon his top-15 fantasy finish from a year ago.
Players Trending Down
Michael Pittman Jr. (WR — IND)/ Josh Downs (WR — IND) | ADP: WR50/WR52
As if the fantasy fortunes for Colts receivers Michael Pittman and Josh Downs weren’t bad enough, it’s about to get worse after the news that Daniel Jones was named Indianapolis’ starting quarterback. Jones was competing with former top-five pick Anthony Richardson to lead the offense and, apparently, showed enough in training camp and preseason to separate himself. Colts Head Coach Shane Steichen went as far as to say that Jones will be the starter for the year. Yikes.
It’s a curious decision for the Colts since Jones doesn’t exactly have the resume of a winner. He made the playoffs with his former team, the Giants, exactly once and has a career 24-44-1 record as a starter. The fantasy stats are worse — he’s never thrown for more than 3,200 yards or 24 touchdowns in a single season and has just 70 passing touchdowns in 70 career games.
For the Colts’ receivers, the choice between Jones and Richardson was a choice for the lesser of two evils; but at least with Richardson, there was still the potential that he could figure the game out in year three. Both Downs and Pittman had over 800 yards last season with Richardson and Joe Flacco under center. Jones didn’t have an 800-yard receiver on his team until his last season with the Giants, as Pro Bowl rookie Malik Nabers totaled over 1,200.
It’s not as if the Colts’ receivers were going to be big values in the later rounds, but this news removes all doubt.
Kenneth Walker III (RB — SEA) | ADP: RB17
It’s never a good sign when a player’s statistics decline in every season of their professional career. But that’s what has happened to Seattle running back Kenneth Walker III since entering the league three years ago. Walker totaled 1,050 rushing yards and nine touchdowns in his rookie season. Those numbers dipped to 905 rushing yards and eight touchdowns (plus one receiving) in his second year, then down to 573 yards and seven touchdowns (plus another receiving touchdown) last season. Granted, Walker missed six games because of injury last season, which also hasn’t helped his fantasy prospects.
It’s a shame, too, as the reports all off-season have indicated that Seattle is looking to run the ball more, which meant Walker could have been in line for the biggest workload of his career. Of course, they’ve also reported that Walker’s backup, Zach Charbonnet, has been seeing more carries to the point that we could be seeing a timeshare. Walker has also been hurt again, which has allowed Charbonnet to impress the new coaching staff, who have no allegiance to any running back. In short, there are several things going against Walker being a starter for your fantasy team.
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