If you have read much of the fantasy football content at The Athletic (and of course you have, for you are a connoisseur), then you know that during the season I write a weekly column here — “Drops.”

It’s a weekly look at the players who are dead weight, dragging fantasy managers into the murky depths of Davey Jones’ Locker. That column will return in 2026 —the “why” escapes me as well if it makes you feel any better, but apparently there’s a market for snark meets marginally competent fantasy football analysis.

In any event, this year I have decided to get a head start on being wrong (it’s never too early to swing wildly at pitches like Mark Reynolds in 2009) by highlighting some draft-day drops. These aren’t players who should be let go — these guys should never be rostered in the first place, at least not at cost.

So, as you prepare for the biggest day on the fantasy calendar, keep these players in mind. Because if you draft these season-sinkers in 2026, you’ll wind up On Stranger Tides — and Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Those last two Pirates of the Caribbean movies had writing almost as bad as, well, this.

Almost.

QB: Josh Allen, Buffalo (ADP: 27)

To be clear, Allen is one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL and a valuable fantasy asset. He was the highest-scoring fantasy quarterback in 2025 and has finished in that spot three times over the past five seasons.

But taking the first quarterback on draft day is almost always a terrible idea — and taking Allen at his ADP, over two full rounds ahead of the No. 2 quarterback (Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson) is just lunacy.

For Allen to return value in 2026, he doesn’t just have to finish as the top signal-caller in fantasy points again — he has to obliterate the competition ala Jackson in 2019 or Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes the year before. That’s not likely from a quarterback whose last 4,000-yard season came in 2023. Allen’s last 30-touchdown season throwing the ball was 2022. If his gaudy rushing numbers drop, look out.

Let someone else break the seal at quarterback. The value on draft day lies toward the back of fantasy QB1 territory with players like Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence and Dak Prescott of the Cowboys.

RB1: Christian McCaffrey, San Francisco (ADP: 6)

This writer has beaten this drum so much this summer that Peter Criss sent me a cease-and-desist letter. But Criss also chose “The Catman” for his KISS persona, so he can pound sand.

I shall not be deterred!

McCaffrey was fantasy’s highest-scoring running back last year by a wide margin — the third time in his career the 30-year-old has surpassed 2,000 total yards in a season. But he isn’t going to sniff those numbers this season.

McCaffrey’s 413 regular-season touches were the most of his career, and the most touches a running back has amassed in at least a decade. He’s well past the age where running backs start to decline. Backs who top 2,000 total yards in a season usually experience a substantial decline in production the next year.

The first two times that McCaffrey topped 2,000 yards, his legs fell off the following years. Thirteen missed games in 2020. Thirteen missed games in 2024.

He’s fantasy football’s biggest bust in 2026 — full stop.

RB2: Bucky Irving, Tampa Bay (ADP: 50)

Two years ago, Irving was quite the find for the Buccaneers and fantasy managers — the fourth-round rookie who topped 1,500 total yards, averaged over 5 yards per carry and finished the year as a top-15 running back in PPR points.

The problem is that it isn’t 2024 anymore. And 2025 happened.

During that 2024 campaign, Irving was sixth in the league in yards per carry (5.4) and fourth in the league in yards after contact per attempt (2.7) — ahead of Jonathan Taylor in both categories. Last year, Irving missed seven games with a shoulder injury that required offseason surgery and was dead last among qualifying backs in yards per carry (3.4) and 43rd in YAC/A (1.6). Irving also had exactly as many carries inside the 5-yard line in 2025 as I did.

Now, the Buccaneers have added Kenneth Gainwell as a replacement for Rachaad White. Youngster Sean Tucker lurks as a goal-line vulture after seven scores on the ground last year.

Gainwell will out-point Irving in 2026. Watch.

WR1: Rashee Rice, Kansas City (ADP: 26)

Seriously, folks, what are we doing here?

Rice has shown flashes of elite fantasy upside in the past. Over the past two years, the 26-year-old averaged 6.4 catches, 71.6 receiving yards and .67 touchdowns per game — numbers that would land Rice a 109/1,217/11 stat line and fifth-place fantasy finish in PPR points. He’s far and away the best wideout on Kansas City’s roster.

But in what universe can we reasonably expect Rice to play a full season?

Between a combination of injuries and a six-game personal conduct suspension, Rice has played all of 12 games over that two-year span. He has missed time in all three professional seasons — an average of almost eight DNPs a year. This offseason, Rice has already spent a month in jail for a probation violation and had a cleanup procedure on his surgically-repaired knee.

Rice is wildly talented. Injury prone. And flatly refuses to get out of his own way.

Oh, and Mahomes is coming off an ACL tear.  It feels like that’s worth mentioning.

WR2: Tee Higgins, Cincinnati (ADP: 37)

This is rather becoming an annual thing with Higgins.

To be clear, Higgins is a very good wide receiver — one of the best “Robin” receivers in the league. The 27-year-old has hauled in 21 touchdown passes over the past two years, ranking as the WR14 in PPR points in 2025 and WR17 two years ago.

But, at cost, there’s no upside with Higgins. His ceiling is where he’s being drafted on average. Higgins has missed time in all six of his professional seasons and has never caught 75 passes in a season, posted 1,100 receiving yards in a season or been targeted more than 110 times in a season.

Barring an injury to Ja’Marr Chase, there isn’t going to be some massive spike in Higgins’ production. When the Batmobile rolls out of the Batcave, Chase is most assuredly driving.

Overpaying for a low-ceiling sidekick isn’t winning any championships.

WR3: Mike Evans, San Francisco (ADP: 58)

There was time not that long ago when I was actually in on Evans in his first season with the 49ers. Sadly, that day has passed.

The optimistic view with Evans is to write off last year’s down season to injury. But you name the stat — yards per reception, receptions per game, receiving yards per game, PPR yards per game — and Evans was already headed toward the worst season of his career before the injury.

There’s also the matter of Evans’ age. He’ll be 33 years old when the 2026 season begins. Per ESPN’s Mike Clay, only two age-33 wide receivers (Julian Edelman and Larry Fitzgerald) have cracked the top-25 fantasy receivers in the past 10 years, and that duo averaged 104.5 receptions in those seasons.

The last time Evans had even 80 catches in a season was back in 2018.

TE: Harold Fannin, Cleveland (ADP: 80)

Fannin was a thunderbolt for fantasy managers last year — the late-round pick or waiver-wire add who came from nowhere to lead the Browns in every receiving category as a rookie on the way to finishing sixth in PPR points among tight ends.

And yet, despite all that success in his first NFL season, fantasy managers should want no part of Fannin at ADP this year. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nol. Sifir. Null.

It’s not Fannin. It’s the vortex of suck in Cleveland from which no hope, joy or fantasy upside can ever hope to escape.

The Browns just spent two picks in the top-40 overall in the 2026 draft on wide receivers in KC Concepcion and Denzel Boston. There’s a new coaching staff and offense. And for reasons that can be best explained with the highly technical term “Because Cleveland,” the Browns will probably be rolling out Deshaun Watson under center against the Jaguars in Week 1.

Fannin won’t get 107 targets again, and even if he does, a depressing percentage of them will either be over his head or at his feet.

Fannin isn’t a top-10 fantasy TE option in 2026.

Gary Davenport is a two-time Fantasy Sports Writers Association Football Writer of the Year. Follow Gary on X at @IDPGodfather.