4 Players Trending Up & Down (2026 Fantasy Football)

Training camp and two weeks of NFL preseason have given us a lot of information to help us determine which players are trending up or trending down as we get closer to the fantasy football season.

Each week has its share of fantasy football news and player usage that either confirms our thoughts on average draft position (ADP) or makes players move up and down draft boards. This column will look at a few examples of players who are already making major moves in the expert consensus rankings (ECR) over the last few weeks.

Fantasy Football Players Trending Up & Down

Here is a glance at players who are trending in the right and wrong direction as we move into the third week of preseason games.

Fantasy Football Players Trending Down

Chuba Hubbard (RB – CAR) | ECR: RB34

Unless you’ve been in hiding and haven’t seen the emergence of Jonathon Brooks or the Chuba Hubbard injury news, you know he is going to be a fixture on all “trending down” lists.

Hubbard suffered a hamstring injury during a one-on-one drill and was ruled week-to-week by head coach Dave Canales. The Panthers remain optimistic he can be ready for Week 1, but the injury has already cost him valuable preseason reps and opened the door for Brooks to establish himself with the first team.

Brooks has taken advantage of that opportunity. The Panthers gave him the start against Buffalo with Hubbard sidelined, and he played four of the nine snaps taken by the first-team offense, carrying the ball three times for five yards and catching a pass for nine yards.

Not great production, but he continued to work with the starters while Hubbard remained sidelined, and he scored a touchdown against Jacksonville in the Panthers’ second preseason game. Brooks’ return is highly anticipated after he missed all of 2025 after suffering his second ACL tear, and managers know Brooks can be explosive when healthy.

Hubbard’s 2025 season was also much less effective than his 2024 breakout season, so it’s not like he has a lock on the job. After rushing for 1,195 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2024, he managed only 511 yards and one touchdown on 134 carries in 2025.

If healthy, he should still have a substantial role. Carolina hasn’t declared Brooks the starter and had planned to give both backs first-team work, but Brooks’ encouraging camp, combined with Hubbard’s hamstring injury, makes a true committee backfield much more realistic than it appeared a month or so ago.

That makes Hubbard a clear trending-down player, and we’re starting to see him fall dangerously close to not even being in the RB3 range.

Courtland Sutton (WR – DEN) | ECR: WR36

I don’t think anything is wrong with Courtland Sutton or that he has become an ineffective wide receiver, but the circumstances around him have changed so much, and so many others on his team are ascending, that Sutton has to be labeled as a player who is trending down.

Sutton is still a starter and had a productive 2025 season, finishing with 74 catches for 1,017 yards and seven touchdowns. He also opened the 2026 preseason with three catches for 60 yards, so there is nothing alarming about his individual performance, even as he crosses over into his 30s.

The problem is what has happened around him. Denver added Jaylen Waddle, who has looked explosive since joining the team. The Broncos also have a legitimate competition developing behind Sutton and Waddle, with Pat Bryant emerging as the favorite for the No. 3 WR role over Marvin Mims and Troy Franklin. Denver’s own camp reports have highlighted Bryant, and he has been praised repeatedly by coaches and teammates.

That could leave Sutton as more of a mid-range WR3 than the solid WR2 fantasy managers might have envisioned entering the offseason. He is still going to play plenty, and he’s too important to Denver’s offense for him to fall off the radar, but the target share battle has gotten more crowded.

As of now, Sutton is ranked and being drafted more like a WR3 as Denver looks to highlight other pieces on offense.

Fantasy Football Players Trending Up

Jadarian Price (RB – SEA) | ECR: RB26

The news that Jadarian Price won’t play in the final two preseason games for the Seattle Seahawks should make your fantasy radar go on full alert. Given the state of their running back room, it seems they want to put Price in bubble wrap before the season, as they plan to use the rookie running back heavily. The path to early-season volume has recently become much clearer.

The Seahawks selected Price in the first round, and he has consistently been involved with the first-team offense throughout training camp. He even received the first rep in Seattle’s first full-team scrimmage and has been working alongside George Holani with the starters.

Seattle has also made a point of getting Price involved as a receiver. Head coach Mike Macdonald specifically noted that Price has caught a lot of passes and that the team is finding multiple ways to use him out of the backfield.

The biggest reason for this upward trend, of course, is Zach Charbonnet‘s status. The veteran running back is still on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list while recovering from his knee injury.

That leaves Price and Holani as the most important backs in the competition. Price did miss time in camp with lower-body soreness, but he returned to padded practice and was again running with the starting offense. Seattle has since decided not to risk him for the remainder of the preseason to spare his body some pounding.

Price doesn’t need to become a workhorse immediately to pay off his fantasy cost. If Charbonnet isn’t ready for the beginning of the season, Price should have a real shot to lead this backfield in touches. For a rookie with first-round draft capital, pass-catching ability and a high early-season workload, Price’s stock is moving up.

George Kittle (TE – SF) | ECR: TE9

George Kittle’s stock has taken a major jump simply because he’s back on the field and looks like he will be ready for Week 1. Kittle was activated from the PUP list on Sunday after tearing his Achilles in January, and he practiced for the first time since the injury.

That is an enormous development in just eight months, but Kittle’s progress has been steady. Kittle now has a very good chance of being available for San Francisco’s Week 1 game against the Rams in Australia.

We aren’t completely out of the woods yet, even though it’s looking better. Kittle is coming back from one of the more significant injuries a football player can suffer, and the 49ers are unlikely to throw him into a full-time workload.

Jake Tonges, who has been working as San Francisco’s primary tight end while Kittle has been out, should still have a role as Kittle gets his conditioning back. Tonges played 18 snaps in the 49ers’ recent preseason victory, which underscores how shows how the 49ers will play him even if Kittle is healthy.

Kittle played only 11 games last season but produced 57 receptions for 628 yards and seven touchdowns. Even if you get something close to that in 2026, he is a steal at his TE9 fantasy football ADP.

If the 49ers can get him anywhere close to his normal workload, Kittle remains one of the few tight ends capable of creating a significant weekly advantage. The activation doesn’t push aside the injury risk, but it is about as positive a development as fantasy managers could have hoped for at this point in August. This breaking news on Sunday certainly has him trending up.