This article identifies five fantasy football busts to fade in the 2026 NFL season. No matter whether it's redraft or best ball strategy you're considering, these five players are likely too expensive to justify at current cost.
The players are listed from most expensive to least.
Javonte Williams, RB, DAL (35.5 Underdog, 33.88 NFFC)
Williams is a valuable fantasy asset for the 2026 season as the clear RB1 in what should be at least a decent Dallas offense, making him a good bet to repeat for double-digit rushing touchdowns this year after running for 11 touchdowns in his Dallas debut. He's still too expensive at ADP.
Williams' 2025 season was the result of his own talent – all 1,201 yards and 11 touchdowns he accrued on the ground were sooner attributable to Williams' merit than anything like luck – yet it's reasonable to suggest that Williams was still somewhat lucky in 2025. Williams had bad luck in most of his prior NFL seasons, mostly due to his season-ending knee injury from 2022, but just as we can observe that Williams was unlucky before 2025 we can acknowledge that things turned favorable in his first season with the Cowboys in ways that might or might not persist.
Williams played 767 snaps in 16 games in 2025, missing Week 18 with a neck injury. Even with the missed game in Week 18, Williams' snap count registered as the 10th-highest team snap share among running backs. For Williams' per-game fantasy production to prove durable from year to year he would ideally have more pass-catching production with his snaps in this era of PPR scoring, but instead Williams is sooner run-dependent in a Dallas offense that didn't feature many targets for the running backs in 2025. Because Williams is valued for his blitz pickup, he's sometimes denied favorable after-the-catch setups that other running backs might see with fewer blitz pickup responsibilities.
If Williams needed the 10th-best snap share league-wide to finish with 1,201 yards and 11 touchdowns rushing then he would ideally have more pass-catching production to show for it than the 35 receptions for 137 yards and two touchdowns he had on 51 targets. Snap counts can be fickle, especially due to injury reasons, so we'd like a running back to produce better than 1,338 yards from scrimmage and 35 receptions on 776 snaps.
Even with Williams missing Week 18, no other Dallas running back exceeded 155 snaps in 2025 (Malik Davis). That's a low figure for any team, and if it changes in Dallas' case in 2026 it would seem somewhat likely to occur at the expense of Williams.
Carnell Tate, WR, TEN (59.7 Underdog, 65.84 NFFC)
Tate is likely a standout talent who's a good bet to become a veritable NFL WR1 during his time with the Titans. The issue with his current ADP is it requires him to immediately be one of the NFL's better starting wideouts to return value.
Wideouts nearby Tate in the ADP include Christian Watson, DJ Moore, Marvin Harrison, Brian Thomas and Parker Washington. Free-agent pickup Wan'Dale Robinson is likely to lead the Titans in targets in 2026, so it's asking a lot of Tate to keep up with those veterans when Tate won't turn 22 until January.
The expectations of the current ADP are particularly demanding of Tate given the difficulties of Cam Ward's rookie year. Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll may very well be one of the better playcallers in the league, and even so it's hard to get overly excited about the second-leading pass catcher in an offense where the quarterback completed 59.8 percent of his passes at 5.9 yards per attempt the prior year.
Chuba Hubbard, RB, CAR (71.6 Underdog, 69.96 NFFC)
Perhaps it's a little harsh to list Hubbard here – he's a decent player and relatively cheap for a starting running back – but it's hard to believe Hubbard will hold off former second-round pick Jonathon Brooks forever.
By all accounts, Brooks is doing well in his recovery from the second of the two ACL tears, the most recent occurring Dec. 8 of 2024. As much as Brooks' durability projection has taken a decisive hit in light of those two injuries, both of which occurred to the same ACL, Brooks likely has the talent to put heat on Hubbard for usage if Brooks' health cooperates in 2026.
We already saw last year that Hubbard, good as he might be, is not quite good enough to hold off even a player like Rico Dowdle if forced to play at less than 100 percent. If Brooks' health finally cooperates then he should prove a similar or better caliber than Dowdle.
Brooks might be especially threatening to Hubbard as a receiver. Hubbard is trusted in blitz pickup yet only occasionally makes an impact as a receiver, whereas Brooks projected as one of the league's best eventual pass catchers at running back. If Hubbard is reduced to a pure rushing specialist in the Panthers offense then Brooks might prove the better deal at ADP (106.7 Underdog, 137.16 NFFC) while working in as a pass catcher and/or big-play specialist.
Kyle Monangai, RB, CHI (92.0 Underdog, 90.49 NFFC)
Monangai costs just enough that he probably needs to be in your starting lineup to justify the pick, yet he lacks both the floor and ceiling to warrant a weekly starting spot.
The issue with Monangai is that he has so far been a liability on passing downs, which has reduced him to an off-the-bench rushing specialist. Monangai's 30 targets last year resulted in just 18 receptions for 164 yards -- an unacceptable 60.0 percent catch rate at 5.5 yards per target. By contrast, D'Andre Swift turned 48 targets into 34 receptions for 299 yards (70.8 percent catch rate, 6.2 yards per target).
Good as Monangai fits rotating with Swift, the two are very different players and Monangai can't do all the things Swift can. Whereas Swift will be central to the Bears' game plan regardless of the flow of a given game, Monangai will need a run-viable script just to push for double-digit fantasy points. If the Bears have abandoned the run then they've probably abandoned Monangai, too.
Similarly, Monangai's lack of pass-catching ability limits his handcuff appeal. If Swift were to miss time there would probably be more carries for Monangai, sure, but Monangai's passing-down struggles were bad enough last year that you need to worry about some random free agent or practice-squad pickup jumping ahead of him for passing down snaps in the event of a Swift absence.
Rachaad White, RB, WAS (113.1 Underdog, 115.77 NFFC)
Even if new offensive coordinator David Blough has a different vision than incumbent coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, the Commanders would likely be smart to conduct a run-heavy offense as long as Jayden Daniels is starter. To maximize Daniels' own rushing abilities and to force the defense to respect that threat you want to establish a supplementary ground game that plays off of the threat posed by Daniels, and vice versa.
Jacory Croskey-Merritt is a pretty good example of how to empower Daniels from the running back position. The defense is susceptible to Croskey-Merritt's big-play ability in large part because it spreads the run defense thin when accounting to the off-tackle threat Daniels poses as a runner.
Rachaad White is probably not an example of a good fit for the ideal Daniels offense. White has consistently struggled to run between the tackles at the NFL level, averaging a weak 3.9 yards per carry over 677 attempts.
White's best trait is by far his pass catching, which is admittedly a weak part of Croskey-Merritt's game. The problem is if you're conducting the run-heavy offense that best suits Daniels then you're generally not implementing the formational structures that favor targets at the running back position.
The 2025 Commanders offense had room for Austin Ekeler as a pass catcher, but (A) that was only for roughly 30 snaps per game, (B) Ekeler's per-snap target rate decreased significantly from what it was with the Chargers, and (C) Ekeler is a much better receiver than White. If the Commanders plan to more or less replace Ekeler with White then they'll probably be disappointed.
Whatever else the case, 30 snaps per game probably isn't enough for White to provide mainstream fantasy utility in the Washington offense. As a runner White can't make big plays and doesn't project for goal-line work. Meanwhile, he's unlikely to see more than four targets in any given 30-snap sample, even if Washington is throwing the ball often that week.
Even a 30-snap sort of workload is far from assured for White. Croskey-Merritt, Kaytron Allen and Jeremy McNichols are all likely better as pure runners, and McNichols might be able to match White as a receiver. White's one-year, $2 million contract is one befitting a backup, so it's not like it would be politically problematic to just leave White on the bench most of the year.
To me it's bonkers that White goes ahead of Croskey-Merritt (122.1 Underdog, 131.6 NFFC). White is too plodding as a runner to make a fantasy impact with his rushing workload, and his pass-catching workload has likely been overestimated by the public.
