When preparing for your fantasy football drafts, knowing which players to target and which to avoid is important. The amount of information available can be overwhelming, so a great way to condense the data and determine players to draft and others to leave for your leaguemates is to use our expert consensus fantasy football rankings compared to fantasy football average draft position (ADP). In this way, you can identify players the experts are willing to reach for at ADP and others they are not drafting until much later than average. Let’s dive into a few players our fantasy football experts avoid in drafts.
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2026 Fantasy Football Draft Advice
Here are players our experts avoid in fantasy football drafts.
D.K. Metcalf (PIT)
I don’t see the upside with D.K. Metcalf this season. I faded him last year, and that worked out well, so we’re back on the “Fade D.K.” train again for 2026. Last year, Metcalf was the WR21 in fantasy points per game, but his deeper analytics and weekly scoring finishes paint a less rosy picture. Last year, in his 15 games played, he finished outside the top 36 wide receivers in weekly scoring seven times. Among 109 qualifying receivers, he was 25th in yards per route run, 26th in red zone targets, and 37th in first downs per route run (per Fantasy Points Data). In a league where 16 teams utilized two high on at least 50.1% of their defensive snaps, Metcalf’s splits against single and two high are also worrisome. Among 109 qualifying receivers, Metcalf was 41st in yards per route run against two high (19th vs. single high). This massive split against the two coverages isn’t new for Metcalf. It has been a stain on his analytical profile for the past few seasons. I’ll happily draft other players around Metcalf’s ADP all summer rather than selecting the Pittsburgh pseudo-alpha.
Check out all of DBro’s top fantasy football draft picks to target
Rashee Rice (KC)
It’s easy to understand the appeal of Rashee Rice in fantasy football. Over the last two years, he’s averaged 6.4 catches and 71.6 receiving yards per game, with eight touchdowns in 12 regular-season games.
Rice has terrible personal judgment. He was involved in a high-speed street-racing incident in Dallas in 2024 that caused a multi-car crash, resulting in injuries. He pleaded guilty to third-degree felony charges of collision involving serious bodily injury and racing on a highway causing bodily injury.
In May, Rice violated the terms of his probation by testing positive for marijuana and was ordered to serve 30 days in jail. He recently had cleanup surgery on his knee and had to do his rehab in a Texas jail.
There were drafts in which I took the discount on Rice last year, when everyone knew he would have to serve a six-game suspension at the start of the season. He had a late-sixth-round ADP, and I got him cheaper than that in a couple of home leagues.
Now, Rice has an ADP of WR12 (30th overall). I’m fleeing at that price.
Check out all of Fitz’s top fantasy football draft picks to target
Davante Adams (LAR)
The FantasyPros ECR is pricing Davante Adams as a low-end fantasy football WR2. But last year was actually a red-flag season disguised as an elite one; he posted a career-low catch rate of 53%, his YAC per reception hit a career low, and the bulk of his production was TD-dependent with 15 scores (three coming in a game without Puka Nacua). That kind of touchdown volume is notoriously hard to replicate year over year.
Even though Matthew Stafford is back under center in LA, he may not force-feed Adams in the end zone as he did in 2025 en route to an MVP award (career-high 7.7% TD rate will almost certainly come down). It was comically obvious that was how the Rams wanted to approach the red zone. But in 2026, they might lean more on their running backs to ensure their QB is healthy for a Super Bowl. Let’s face it: the Rams QB is a major health risk at his age (38) with his history of back injuries. On top of that, Adams is no spring chicken (33) and dealt with a lower-body tissue injury in 2025 that sidelined him; at his age, that’s not something you just brush off.
When you look at the totality of Adam’s optics, the age, the injury, the TD regression risk, the declining efficiency numbers- it’s easy to recognize that Adams is far more likely to fall off than to replicate what he did last year. Obviously, the pro argument is that he has an elite-level ceiling if Nacua misses time. But the fantasy football ROI has not always been kind to those paying the premium for the more expensive real-life WR2s in the draft room.
Check out all of Erickson’s top fantasy football draft picks to target
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