Fantasy Football Today - FFT Express - 5 HARDEST Players to Rank for 2026 Fantasy Football! Nabers, McMillan, Henderson, & More! (07/31 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

Dave Richard breaks down the toughest players to rank for the 2026 fantasy football season, including Tetairoa McMillan, Malik Nabers, TreVeyon Henderson, Jadarian Price, and Carnell Tate. Find out what's making these players so difficult to value and where Dave is leaning before your fantasy draft.

The toughest players to rank, according to Dave Richard right now on FFT Express. Ready, Dave? Always ready. Although I have to admit this was a difficult topic for me. Because normally, I've got a lot of conviction on everybody. I've been working on this year's fantasy drafts for six months already. So finding players that I'm still having a tough time ranking, that's, this is a tough assignment that you gave me, Adam.

But I'll start off with a, a. gargantuan wide receiver who should be ranked much higher, but I'm holding him back because of his situation, and that's Tedaroa McMillan. Carolina's stud from last year, entering his second season, impressive athlete, there's no question about it.

Bryce Young just concerns me as far as a quarterback goes. I think Jalen Coker is starting to actually gain momentum as a quality in number two receiver there. And he could actually end up taking some work away. The run game could end up being pretty, good if Jonathan Brooks pans out, but the offensive line isn't great. Bryce hasn't been great. And so I kind of have Tedaroa McMillan buried in late round four into early round five.

I'm okay with him as a number two wide receiver in full PPR. But it makes me nervous because the talents there, the opportunities, a little questionable. I thought you were going to go with Malik neighbors now that he's back in camp and we have video of him running and cutting and all that. Yeah. Should we talk about that? because we didn't talk about that on on Thursday's show right I was trying to as we couldn't get it was a tight end preview but absolutely we should talk about that what did you think I thought it's very encouraging and while I'm I'm not with some people that watch those clips and go oh yeah

he's back to normal like he's close to it there were a couple of times where I had to take a couple extra steps in and out of his breaks but the fact that he's out there running around and it looks like he's at full speed I think it's highly encouraging so I moved him back up He was in round five at one point because I just wasn't sure when he was going to come back. Now he's in that round three range. And it depends on how ahead of it you want to be. If you want to call him a round two pick because he is one of those wide receivers that should be ticketed for eight plus targets per game. Massive upside could easily finish as the best wide receiver.

Yes, that is within the realm of possibilities. You can take them in round two right now. I would wait just a little bit, but a top 16 wide receiver overall, 100% yes at this point. Wow. Okay. Big, big change there. Who else was tough to rank for you? I still have a tough time with the Patriots running backs because I want to love Trayvion Henderson. And even if I get glowing reports about Trayvion Henderson and practice, which frankly so far, I haven't seen a lot of this year. We got those last year. It didn't make a bit of difference. He was struggled unless Ramandre Stevenson was out. When Ramadre Stevenson was out,

Travion had a good workload. He was awesome. Fantasy managers were glad to have him. But in all those other games, he and Remandre Stevenson took too much work away from each other. It was hard to count on either one of them on a week-to-week basis. But the one that you probably did if you had to pick between the two, it was Ramandre Stevenson.

And so if that continues this year, are we overdrafting Travion if he's a round six pick? And I don't even know what his ADP is. I would imagine it's somewhere in round five. You can look that up for me if you want to. Adam. But the dude is so talented, he's just not getting the opportunities. I've looked in the track record. Adam's holding up his hand for a five. That means he's in round five. I get it if you love your first four picks. If you want to splurge on Henderson in round five, I don't know if I

feel great about that at this point. And I don't think Remandre necessarily, he had a very good year, probably his best year ever. I think his fantasy numbers clearly waited by the last three weeks of the season, didn't even average 10 pbrior points before that, but all that matters is opportunity. And remandre still going to get a lot of it. We have not seen second year running backs do great things under Josh McDaniels. It might take a little while longer, and that's why I don't love taking Travion Henderson in round five. I have a rank that way as of now.

I think it's a little too soon. It's way too soon. I don't even know the difference between him and let's say a guy like Blake Corum, who's going 55 picks later. They both could be league winners if the other guy in the backfield gets hurt. they're both going to have a role. Blake Corum is going to mix in more at the goal line based on what we saw last year.

I mean, Trayvion Henderson did almost none of that when Ramandre was healthy. I think you could argue, look, I get Trayvon Henderson's really talented, and they should have a good offense, and he should be good. If he gets the opportunity, he could be amazing. I think you could argue that Trayvon Henderson

is one of the worst values in fantasy right now as a top 50 pick. But you can also understand the bull case for it if somebody chose to make it, which is. Look how fast he is. Look at the explosive plays he made. All of his big,

runs last year, at least three of them, if not all four of them, came against eight in a box. Like, he definitely, he can take that step. It's just a matter of will he? And betting on that in round five, I can't do it. Round six and late round six at that would be the earliest. I would consider him now at this point. I just changed that in my rankings. See, now he's a little bit easier to rank.

He's not so tough to rank anymore. But you know, another running back that's getting tougher to rank. Take a break. A break, break, break. I was going to tell you after the break. Dave, tell me after the break, okay? Oh, yes. We'll be right back on FFT Express.

Laser. Okay, who's another running back? It's tough to rank. I'm struggling with Judarian Price, and it's because I know the opportunity has a chance to be there. I'm just not so sold on it being there. The highlights of him catching deep balls in training camp are fun. We know that he's probably a better talent than what the film showed last year,

mainly because there wasn't a ton of film on Jadarian Price to begin with. but it's just a matter of will that Seattle coaching staff give him the big workload? Are they going to give him 15 plus touches a game? You would think that common sense says yes, because his competition is so weak, but the coaching staff there didn't give Kenneth Walker that type of workload. They didn't give Zach Charbonnet, that type of workload either. They split between those two. Maybe the circumstances have changed, and if Price proves it in camp,

then he'll get it. That's something that we've talked about on the main show. I just don't know if that's going to happen yet. So for me, Jadarian Price is still somebody that I'm taking kind of around like round six, early round seven. It's definitely a cautious approach with him. Obviously, if things look good in preseason games and all that, he's going to shoot up. But his ADP will shoot up right along with it if that's the case. We need to get more information about Seattle just has no choice.

They've got to use Jadarian Price as their lead back. And then he's got to be able, this is another factor. He's got to be able to hang on to that role and a big role, 15 plus touches. per game role, even when Zach Charbonnet comes back. And there was a report saying that Charbonnet could be back in week one. Yeah, that makes me just as nervous about the coaching staff, not giving him work without Charbonnet there. So there are a lot of hurdles left for Judari and Price to clear before we take him in

early round six, late round five, that type of range. Give me one more guy you're having trouble ranking. Another rookie, Carnell Tate in Tennessee. And I think he's a talented wide receiver. He's not a perfect wide receiver. I've talked about it with some folks that he probably shouldn't have been taken in the top five, but because the draft was what it was last year, that's where Tennessee chose to take him and they were desperate to add some help at wide receiver.

Is he Malik Neighbors? No, but why do I bring it up? Because Malik Neighbors is a rookie, had some monster numbers in New York with Brian Daible as his play caller, and you've got to wonder if Daible's going to do something similar in Tennessee. It's a different situation. The quarterbacking is, I don't know, you might call it a wash. say it's a little bit worse with Cam Ward.

We've got to see how Cam Ward does in his second year. And it just makes me worried about rushing to get Tate when he might not have even six and a half targets per game. Remember, they still have Wondell Robinson. They've got some other peripheral pass catchers. They drafted two of them last year. They could take away from any type of huge target volume that Carnell Tate gets. And so I've got them in round six in full PPR.

And I'm not sure I really love that one either because I'm not sure the Titans are A going to be a team that scores a lot of points, or B is going to be a team that's going to funnel it all toward Tate. They might spread it around a little bit more, even worse, aim for the middle of the field more, and that's away from where Cardinal Tate's probably going to run most of these routes. Thank you very much to Dave Richard. We'll talk to you tomorrow on fantasy football today. See you later, everybody.