Fantasy Football Do Not Draft List!: Justin Herbert And A Stud At Each Position Who You Should Avoid

Drafting your fantasy football team is all about assessing value and maximizing it through your draft. So there really isn't a player you should never draft under any circumstance. However, there are some players we have ranked so low below ADP that there is no chance we would ever get them. This is our 2026 Do Not Draft List.

Do Not Draft List

QB Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers

There is a large portion of the fantasy community that is inexplicably overly high on Herbert this season, despite the Chargers clearly building their team to pound the ball and play tough defense. We have seen him being ranked as high as the QB5 this season, while I have him ranked as the QB16.

Herbert has not thrown for 4,000 yards or topped 26 touchdown passes since 2022. He continues to disappoint fantasy owners, and they just keep coming out for more. Los Angeles is going to have a better defense this year and a healthy Omarion Hampton. The passing volume is not going to improve.

RB Christian McCaffrey, San Francisco 49ers

McCaffrey is generally ranked and being drafted as the RB3 across the board. I have him ranked as the RB12. Obviously, we know he has the upside to be the top fantasy running back in the league, but there are far too many red flags for us to invest in him this season.

CMC enters 2026 as an oft-injured running back on the wrong side of 30, coming off the largest workload of his career with 311 carries and 102 receptions. He also saw a steep drop in efficiency with his yards per carry dropping from 5.4 in 2023 to 3.9 after missing almost all of 2024. Those are too many warning signs for us to ignore. We can't draft him where he's being selected.

WR Garrett Wilson, New York Jets

We want nothing to do with the Jets offense. Going from Tyrod Taylor to Geno Smith is a lateral move, and the team adding a bunch of weapons just means more players dividing up the same small pie.

Now instead of Wilson being hyper-targeted on a terrible offense, he'll be splitting targets on a bad offense with Omar Cooper Jr, Adonai Mitchell, Kenyon Sadiq, Mason Taylor, and Breece Hall. Good luck with that as they divide up Smith's 3,200 passing yards.

TE Kyle Pitts, Atlanta Falcons

There are six tight ends this season that we believe have the talent and upside to be the T1 overall. Unfortunately, Pitts is the seventh man. If we miss out on our top six tight ends, we aren't panicking and grabbing Pitts; we'll wait on the position and grab another tight end multiple rounds later.

While Pitts' fantasy finish looks great, it was heavily skewed by his 11-catch, 166-yard, and three-touchdown performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in December. He also saw a significant boost in volume when Drake London got injured. We can't bank on London suffering another injury this season.

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