0:00What's going on, man? Welcome back to the basement. I'm running and it goes without saying, but the early rounds of your fantasy football draft are the most
0:06important. Not only because you can get absolute studs like Christian McCaffrey or JSN or Jonathan Taylor last year, but you also could have sunk your ship
0:15before you even got started and drafted players like Ashton Jeanty, Saquon Barkley, Malik Nabers, Justin Jefferson, Bucky Irving. All of these players who
0:23completely derailed your fantasy football season. So, it is very important that we go through these early rounds with a fine-tooth comb and decide
0:32who are the players we are avoiding in the early rounds of drafts. And that's why today, I am going to give you these
0:38six busts you'll regret drafting inside of the first five rounds of your drafts this season. As always, if you enjoy, leave a like, subscribe if you're new.
0:46Now, of course, disclaimer up top.
0:47Players getting drafted in the early rounds are usually good players on good teams and they're there for a reason.
0:52But at a certain point, I can only keep on gassing up every single player, every single breakout candidate. At a certain
0:58point, I got to give you the players that I'm not really drafting. So, we are going to start here with Drake London as an avoid, of
1:05course. In the draft guide, you can see this exact view where you have my ranking. He's my 209 as the wide
1:11receiver eight. I am seven spots lower than consensus here, which is just an average of the Sleeper ADP, the ESPN default ranking that's already in the
1:19app that your league mates are drafting off of, and then the Yahoo expert consensus rankings that your league mates will be drafting off of.
1:26I am minimum three spots lower than everybody else. All of these sites have him as 206 or above, and the main issue
1:34for me is of course price. And that is going to be the theme of today's video because it's not that I hate players,
1:39right? Drake London, obviously an amazing player. It's the price. In that second round area, we keep talking about it, but once Jefferson and Lamb are off
1:46the board, I want to spam those running backs from Saquon Barkley, Chase Brown, Kenneth Walker, Amari and Hampton, Derrick Henry, Devon Achane. Until all of those
1:56guys are off the board, Drake London goes in a range where you are passing up on those running backs to take him and I
2:02just don't see him separating from the tier of Malik Nabers, Nico Collins, Chris Olave, all of these other talented receivers at the 2-3 turn. Now, when we
2:11look at Drake London, he is a high floor player. We did the legendary wide receiver research where we talked about the wide receivers with
2:1820 plus point per game upside. We found Drake London to be a high floor player.
2:22Even though his ceiling projection is 20.3, it was a very small jump from his 16.3 median projected points per game because he has a high target share in an
2:32offense that should pass the ball a bit, but they're not going to score a ton of points. And that's where I get squeamish
2:37on Drake London. When you are taking him at the 202 by consensus, he's going off the board 205 on Sleeper, 202 on ESPN,
2:45middle of the second on Yahoo, and it's just a little bit fragile. When we are drafting for floor with Drake London,
2:50we want a better situation than the Falcons offense, which has been been getting nothing but terrible reviews the entire summer. On the bottom here from
2:59Underdog NFL, Tu Tu's play has made it impossible to be named the starting quarterback. And really what we are clinging on to here
3:06with Drake London is a 10-game sample with Michael Penix, which is exciting.
3:10Don't get me wrong. This is from Pat Thorman here. 21.9 points per game in his 10-game sample with Michael Penix.
3:17But again, this is a very fragile bet. A guy you are spending a mid to early second-round pick on is a 10-game sample
3:23of a guy coming off an ACL that we aren't sure is good at football, that we aren't sure isn't going to get pulled
3:29for Tu at some point, or Tu is going to be in there and maybe bring this down to his average of 14 points per game he's
3:34had since 2024 without Michael Penix.
3:36You also have the third-string quarterback getting buzz and Jack Strand. There's just so much going on here. Also, the coach that has kind of
3:43unlocked Drake London was Zach Robinson, who's now in Tampa Bay, moving Drake London from an outside receiver to an inside-outside, Z slot, flanker type of
3:53focal point in the offense. Not that he's not going to be a focal point anymore, but it's something to note that
3:58he is getting a new play caller. The quarterback situation is rough. And then also, the team environment is rough.
4:04This is a team that everybody is down on. The Jets, the Browns, the Dolphins, the Cardinals.
4:11The Falcons are at a spot where they're probably in that same range of bottom feeders. This is a team that has lost
4:16James Pierce for a certain amount of games. They've lost their edge rusher Jaylon Walker as well to a torn ACL.
4:21This is a team that could just completely get derailed on the entire season. So, I have him ranked next to the Olaves, the Neighbors, the Nico
4:30Collins types at the two-three turn. You have to pay up for Drake London, and I just can't get there. Uh after that, we
4:36will talk about Kyren Williams. Kyren Williams going off the board by consensus as the 3.07 as the RB15. He's my RB16, so I'm not even that far away.
4:45I just have him moved down behind the wide receivers in this range. He is the epitome of trying to hit a single with
4:53an early round pick. And something that a guy like Ben Gretch has coined being a small hit, big miss kind of pick. Where
4:59you have to think through when you are drafting a player in the third round, what do I win when I win, and what do I
5:05lose when I lose? He could sink your team in the third round. He could be the guy that you draft and you miss out on
5:10next year's JSN. Or, he could be the guy that ends up being the RB 10, 11, 12 as like a 15, 16 point per
5:20game scorer, and that's what you're looking at. It's just the trade-off isn't for me. This is where I believe the dead zone actually starts. We've
5:27done videos on this this off season talking about rounds four, five, and six running backs. Kyren's actually pushed up into the third round. He's a fourth
5:35round running back for me along with the other dead zone running backs this year with De'Andre Swift and Cam Akers and
5:40Travis Etienne and all of those players.
5:42I would have him closer to that tier.
5:44And it shows when we look at the projected points per game across Fantasy Life, ESPN, and Sharp Football Analysis showing that where he's getting drafted,
5:53it's Chris Olave, it's DeVonta Smith, it's Josh Jacobs. Who Josh Jacobs has his off-the-field issues, but 15.1 points per game in terms of projection
5:59is super strong. Kyren is the lowest projection on this entire list from the consensus ADP of 30th overall through 43rd overall, projected to score even
6:08less than Colston Loveland at tight end.
6:10You are taking him over really good receivers in Zay Flowers and Garrett Wilson and then over a lot of breakout candidates in Tank Dell, Marvin Mims,
6:19Emeka Egbuka, Ladd McConkey, Jaylen Waddle, the breakout in Colston Loveland. So, when we're talking 33rd overall, 31st overall, anything in that
6:28range, he just seems like a pick where you are taking him simply so that you feel good about who's in your RB2 spot, and that
6:35is the pitfall of the dead zone running back. And I know he's had back-to-back seasons now of 15.8 points per game and
6:4117 points per game, but if we look at his wins above replacement over expectation, so his price-adjusted impact on your team, you have 2024, he
6:49was a second-round pick, he gave you 0.4 wins above replacement over expectation, that's fine. And then last year, 0.3.
6:54But taking him in both of those years, you missed out on Jahmyr Gibbs in 2024, Derrick Henry in 2024, JSN in 2025, Trey
7:01McBride in 2025, James Cook in 2025. All of these players, you opted for the safe floor of Kyren Williams, and you missed
7:08out on the monster hits. Now, of course, yes, you also got to sidestep the catastrophic Marvin Harrison Jr. seasons in Chris Olave and Pacheco and Etienne,
7:16but that is the beauty of fantasy football. You swing for upside. I am not playing for fourth place. I am playing
7:21for first place. All of us only have a 8.3% chance of winning a 12-man league, and Kyren Williams is a great way to not
7:29swing for the fences in the early rounds where we know the league winners are hiding. And then you also have the Blake
7:36Corum situation where there is now a running back nipping at his heels. You went from 17 points per game to 15.8,
7:42and now the projections have him back down to 13.2 and it's also because of Blake Corum here. We have this from Sean
7:48McVay from Coach Speak Index. He's a stud and he's going to be a big factor in what we're going to do this year. And
7:53then you have the advanced stats from Scott Barrett here showing that he is second in EPA per snap, first in explosive play percentage last year,
8:00second in success rate last year behind only Kyren Williams. Don't get me wrong, Kyren Williams is good at the success rate running, but Blake Corum is going
8:06to be brought in to do a lot of the work when they don't need the steady second and three conversion from Kyren
8:12Williams. And then Blake Corum fifth in yards per carry last year. So Kyren Williams is going to get continually marginalized in this offense. There is
8:19no receiving upside for him. He is essentially a dead zone back. He is the number one guy on a good offense and
8:25that is fine, but it's not somebody I'm going to take in the third round over a lot of upside swings at other positions.
8:32And same deal with Javonte Williams.
8:34I've gotten this question a bunch of why I'm low on Javonte Williams. So I thought this would be a good forum to
8:39talk about it. He is my 40th ranked player. I am seven spots lower than consensus here. And again, you can see I
8:44have him RB 15 like the rest of these sites and platforms. It is just the idea of the dead zone running back. I want
8:51the other positions in this range. Even though he is somebody when we look at the projections, 14.3 is damn good, right? Obviously Zay Flowers over him.
9:01Then Garrett Wilson, but he meaningfully out projects Tutu Atwell, McMillan, Tee Higgins, Emeka Egbuka, Ladd McConkey, Colston Loveland, all of these players,
9:08but he doesn't have the same upside as them. This is somebody that is just simply the lead back on the Cowboys,
9:13which is great.
9:15But that's what he was last year and he tapped out at 15 points per game on a team that had a ton of trips into the
9:20red zone, a ton of trips inside the 10, and then also didn't have CeeDee Lamb fully healthy and didn't have this
9:24offense humming in a way that it usually does through the air. If CeeDee Lamb reverts back to his usual self and we
9:30see all of this offense flow through the air between the two receivers, between Ryan Flournoy, between Jake Ferguson, Javonte Williams is an afterthought. And
9:40the biggest issue I have with Javonte Williams is the receiving upside. We need receiving upside to get to that next level, to break through the ceiling
9:46of 15 points per game, and I just don't think it can happen. This is really good research from J. J. Zachariason in the
9:512025 off season talking through your yards per route run, and then your rate of outproducing your expected points per game at your
10:00draft slot. And if you had less than a 0.7 yards per route run, 7.7% of the time, you would exceed your draft price
10:07by two plus points per game 7.7% of the time, exceed by four plus, and then 0% of the time exceed by six plus. So, when
10:13we're talking about ceiling and trying to hit a home run in the third round, it is very unlikely for Javonte Williams
10:18given that he was a guy who had a 0.4 yards per route run last year among all receivers, including wide receivers,
10:25including Aryan Smith, a waste of an NFL roster spot on my Jets, a rookie receiver who ran routes to do cardio.
10:33Javonte Williams among all qualified receivers had the lowest yards per target. On an efficiency basis, he was a zero in the passing game. I think
10:41they're going to get Jaden Blue more involved in the passing game, even Hunter Luepke. And then again, they have so many receiving weapons that Javonte
10:48is not going to be featured in the passing game, and he becomes a between-the-tackles grinder on a good offense, which is a good archetype, but
10:54not one I want to be targeting in the third round. Especially in running back-hungry home leagues, and when I know I can get other running backs
11:02later. At the 4-5 turn, you can get D'Andre Swift. This is a great tweet from David here showing that from weeks
11:071 through 17, Javonte was at 15.2 points per game, Swift at 14.9 points per game.
11:12He is the lead back on a Chicago Bears offense that also will score a lot of points, also has a good offensive line,
11:18and also has his backup running back in Kyle Monangai banged up right now. So, you're paying a premium for this safety
11:24in your RB2 spot, and then in the third round, it's just too rich for me. We did the dead zone running back research the
11:28other day. If any of you guys are curious, I ran Kyren Williams and Javonte Williams through the score. They qualified, right? They were
11:36both projected for 15 plus touches, both inside of a top 15 offense, but they don't hit the receiving upside we're looking for. They don't hit the previous
11:42year yards per route run we're looking for. And for that, they both come in at scores of four and four less than Travis
11:49Etienne and De'Andre Swift. That's of course not the full equation. I have them ranked ahead of Etienne and ahead of Swift, but this outlines their lack
11:57of upside when it comes to trying to break out of the dead zone. So, both of these running backs I don't plan on
12:02drafting a ton of unless if they fall to me in a wide receiver hungry league.
12:07Then we have Rashee Rice, another guy I've gotten a lot of questions on this year. Trust me, I get the upside. This
12:13is somebody where usually I would be all in on Rashee Rice. Since the bye week of his rookie year, he averages 17.6 points per game over a
12:2119 game sample, which in any given season would be like a top six wide receiver in points per game. And you're
12:27drafting him wide receiver 11 by consensus. I am five spots lower at the 31st ranked player for me. This is somebody going in the
12:35late second or the early third in a lot of places. On ESPN, he's the 16th ranked player, and I just don't plan on
12:41drafting a lot of Rashee Rice. I have Breece Hall ranked ahead. I have Jeremiah Love ranked ahead. I have Zay Flowers ranked ahead. I have DeVante
12:47Smith ranked ahead. And because of these four, I'm very rarely, if ever, going to draft Rashee Rice. Now, there's a couple
12:54of reasons why this is. First, it's the knee injury. We have some Zane Denany here. It looks like Rashee Rice is
12:58laboring in terms of change of direction still in one-on-one drills, mentioned starting and stopping and coming out of breaks. Take this kind of helps confirm
13:05that the video of Rashee Rice had an awkward gait might actually be real.
13:08Then we have a Twitter fantasy football doctor injury analyst, Jeff Mueller.
13:13Make sense, doesn't look 100% like himself here, but this is the best I've seen him move in all of the camp videos
13:18so far. I'm concerned on his YAC regressing in 2026, at least the early part. So, he doesn't look like himself.
13:23Mueller is a little bit optimistic that he could eventually return to himself, but that's always a question mark. And the reason why his yak ability matters
13:29is because that's all he has. He is a 5.1 career aDOT player, which is just absurd. Even Deebo in his prime was like
13:37an 8-yard aDOT player. This is a scam.
13:39He is essentially Wan'Dale Robinson attached to the Chiefs, and he's only been able to be efficient on the back of 8.1 yards after catch per reception, an
13:46absurd number which I just don't want to bet on coming off of injury. And then I also have some real questions about if
13:53they're going to continue to run their offense through Rashee Rice. We have over the last 3 years, this Chiefs offense has been underperforming.
14:00They've been a defensive-led unit, and it has been disappointing every single year. And this is a stat from Scott Barrett showing that when Rashee Rice is
14:07not on the field, they have been a top-six offense. With him on the field, they have been 14th. It is just not
14:15an advantageous way to run offense to spam a I'm not going to say average-level receiver, but Rashee Rice is going ahead
14:23of players that he's not better than. Garrett Wilson is a better in-real-life wide receiver than him. Rashee Rice is getting drafted off of a role. And when
14:31we get drafted off of a role, it's really difficult at receiver because at running back, I get it. Javonte Williams and Kyren Williams, two guys I don't
14:38think are very talented at running back, but their backups probably aren't better than him. I am scared about Blake Corum, don't get me wrong here, but they are
14:46the top of their depth chart. They're going to get used. That's how running back works. Only one can be on the field
14:50at a time. At wide receiver, it's different. You need to run your route, you need to get open, you need to get
14:54targeted, and you need to catch that ball. There are so many more factors when it comes to receivers, and it's why
14:59stuff like route share matters so much for guys like Jaylen Reed and Josh Downs because you have to get on the field,
15:05and then once you're on the field, you have to get targeted.
15:08It is just a more nuanced equation here.
15:12So, when we start drafting for role at wide receiver, it gets really scary because I just don't see them building the entire offense out of someone who
15:22isn't reliable off the field, someone who has had now two knee surgeries over the last two seasons. And then also they
15:28go out there and they hand pick Kenneth Walker in free agency and they call him a franchise altering player here from
15:34Pete Sweeney quoted by Josh Norris, who I think they are going to build a lot of that screen game usage out of from Ryan
15:41Heath here showing that Rashee Rice's 6.5 fantasy points per game on screens last year were nearly double the next closest receiver. Again, it is an
15:50unsustainable role in an offense that shouldn't be incentivized to keep on using him as their focal point. They are better when they don't and he just has
16:01not proved to be this guy at a reliable level for this team. So I can't get there.
16:07There's a chance he burns me in this offense attached to Patrick Mahomes. I I just don't think that they can go back
16:12to running the Rashee Rice PPR scam for the fourth year in a row when their offense hasn't looked right since 2022.
16:20Then the fifth player to avoid in the early rounds of your fantasy football draft is David Montgomery. We talked about him in the
16:26dead zone running back video. He is my 511 is my RB 25. I'm only two spots lower than consensus, but across the
16:33board he is the RB 23 by consensus, 21 by sleeper, 23 by ESPN, 22 by Yahoo. I have him below all those guys and
16:40because of that I won't be drafting him much at all. I have D'Onta Foreman ahead. I have Khalil Herbert ahead and
16:45because of that I'll be taking those running backs before I ever really get down to David Montgomery on my rankings and that's
16:52because this is a 29-year-old between the tackles grinder on the Texans and that's just a really tough sell to me because I
17:00say between the tackles grinder because there was some optimism he would be the bellcow. I don't think that that's on the table anymore as Roschon Johnson has
17:07looked really good this offseason. This is from Zane Dinani again showing that they have been used nearly evenly throughout camp. Now Roschon Johnson
17:14isn't a spectacularly talented running back, but he is a running back that is better than Dare Ogunbowale, and he is somebody that
17:22in his sophomore season of college had 80 plus receptions. He is a very skilled receiving back that could limit things, right? He's not only going to be a
17:31LeQuint Allen or Dare Ogunbowale where he comes on the field to pass block. He could come on the field and be featured
17:36in the passing game, and then all of a sudden if you are limiting the receiving ceiling of David Montgomery, we are
17:41again talking about the between the tackles grinder on the Texans who have the 27th ranked offensive line by Establish the Run. And then today, they
17:49lost one of their best offensive lineman, Braden Smith, getting carted off the field. So, the offensive line is worse.
17:54This is a team that is projected outside the top 15 in points scored. He's going to get his receiving upside capped by
17:59Woody Marks, and then he's also been steadily declining every year. Yes, Jahmyr Gibbs has been breaking out and getting better, but it went from
18:05somebody that made it so hard to feature Jahmyr Gibbs because David Montgomery was so good. He was the RB 15 Gibbs
18:12rookie year. Gibbs sophomore year, he was the RB 16. And then last year, he was the RB 32 at 9.8 points per game,
18:19completely getting outshined by Jahmyr Gibbs. Now, he's age 29. He's not a special talent. I just can't see David Montgomery crushing his ADP. He might be
18:29hitting a single, but this is isn't what I'm looking for inside of the top six rounds when the league winners are
18:34hiding in these areas. Then the last player we'll talk about is Ashton Jeanty, the man of the hour, and this is
18:40what it boils down to. I loved Ashton Jeanty early on in the season, then we kind of peeled back the curtain and was
18:44like, okay, he's kind of a volume-based player in a bad offense, similar to a Devon Achane or a Breece Hall.
18:50And then of course, he gets the ankle injury. And yes, yesterday we did the top 60 overall rankings video. Put on the tin foil hat.
18:59I have since moved him up from 27th overall to 20th overall, but I'm still lower than consensus, only four spots.
19:03But why I have him as an avoid here is these sites are going to be so slow to update for Jeanty. This is from Kyle
19:10M_FF.
19:12These are the only real changes ESPN has made in its rankings over the last 10 days. They actually moved Achane up.
19:17They only moved Jahmyr Gibbs down two spots. Essentially what I'm getting at here is Sleeper and ESPN are so slow to
19:23update their rankings that I don't think at any point in time Achane is going to get to the 20th overall pick on Sleeper
19:30ESPN. So when you go to your home league draft and everyone's drafting off of those rankings, someone's going to take Achane over one of the round two running
19:38backs, whether that is Saquon, Chase Brown, Kenneth Walker, Devon Achane, Raheem Mostert, Derrick Henry. Maybe I'm forgetting somebody as well, but all of
19:47those running backs have to go in front of him and I think in most leagues he is going to go ahead of them, right? He's
19:52the RB8 on ESPN, the RB8 on Sleeper.
19:56He should be the RB12. There should be 11 running backs that have to go off the board ahead of him, then Achane makes
20:01sense. When we talk about draft strategy in the three and four spot, right? You take Puka Nacua, you take Ja'Marr Chase
20:06and all of a sudden you're like, "Man, I'm boxing to a zero RB build." Achane makes sense there where you can get a
20:12bell cow running back that was once upon a time going 1.09, 1.10 in a lot of high stakes leagues and you can now pair
20:18Achane with your Ja'Marr Chase, with your Puka Nacua and feel really good about your RB1 on those teams, but him being the
20:26RB12 behind all of the other round two running backs is by design. This is still somebody I am worried about. I've
20:31cooled off the tinfoil hat theory that he's going to go on IR, but they're still being very shady about this. Clint
20:37Kubiak didn't want to go into any details on the injury and just said that he's on the mend. That's all we've
20:42gotten here. De'Von Achane said that there is an average of three weeks. Week one is to be determined. That is suggests weeks one to three return dip
20:52and touches for three weeks. So that means the worst case scenario, this could be a guy who makes his debut of
20:57the season in week three and then isn't up to his normal workload until week seven.
21:03That's a big risk. Now that's obviously the doomsday scenario, but taking Achane over Derrick Henry or Amari Hampton or Kenneth Walker or any of the locked and
21:15loaded top 12 running backs just doesn't make any sense to me. And on ESPN and Sleeper, there's a very good chance that
21:21somebody in your league makes that decision and I just can't get there. I need all of those running backs to get
21:28wiped out before I'm even thinking about Achane and then I Achane and then I kind of see it, right? Of course, year two
21:32running back is going to get all the volume in the world, but drafting a player who's already banged up this early in your draft is a really
21:40tough decision and I have him 20th overall because I still have Brock Bowers and A.J. Brown ranked over him.
21:45It just comes down to did I draft a wide receiver first? If I did Puka or Ja'Marr Chase, I'll take him in round two. If
21:51not, I'll let somebody else take him and then I'll think about it in round three, but that's going to do it for us today.
21:58If you have a draft coming up, make sure to check out the basementdraftguide.com.
22:02That is where I have my tiered top 200.
22:03You can see all of the rankings we went over in this video, all of my avoids, my targets, my sleepers. And then this
22:10screenshot here where I have my rankings versus consensus, Sleeper, whatever you're drafting on, that is the ADP edge tool. I've gotten that question before
22:18of do I have the matrix of the high stakes ADP versus Sleeper and all of that? That's on the draft guide, the ADP
22:24edge tool. Make sure you check it out along with the ability to sync to your Sleeper draft live, the flex check tool,
22:30my player notes, everything you could possibly want and more is on the basementdraftguide.com. You can find it in the description and the comment
22:37section down below along with the Patreon where this is my draft day product. If you want my Underdog rankings, my weekly rankings, rest of
22:44season rankings, waiver wire article, dynasty rankings, all of that, that is on the Patreon, patreon.com/ronstewart.
22:50When you sign up on the Patreon, you get the draft guide for half off. When you sign up annually on the Patreon, you get
22:55the draft guide for free, but you're already on the Patreon or the draft guide or you can't support there.
23:02Leave a like if you enjoyed. Subscribe if you're new and I'll see you guys in the next one.
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