Fantasy Football Today - FFT Express - 5 TOUGHEST Players to Rank in 2026: TreVeyon Henderson, DJ Moore, Alec Pierce & More (07/03 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

Dave Richard takes on five of the toughest players to rank for the 2026 fantasy football season. Adam tees up each name as Dave breaks down where he stands on TreVeyon Henderson, DJ Moore, Alec Pierce, Jaxson Dart, and more. Find out who's rising, who's falling, and where these difficult draft decisions should land on your cheat sheet before your fantasy football draft.

Five players who are tough to rank. Not for me. I could probably do it easily. But for Dave, super tough to rank right now on FFT Express. All right, Dave. Let's see what's bugging you in terms of rankings. When I think about players that are tough to rank, I think about players that you can easily make a huge upside case for

and a really low downside for. And the first name that comes to my mind is Trevion Henderson. We saw last year when he had those three games without Remandre Stevenson, he was performing like a top five fantasy running back. He was outstanding. And we know that that's part of his ceiling is just to be this unbelievably hyper-efficient three-down running back. But we also know that Remandre Stevenson isn't going away.

And all the other games that he had with Remandre Stevenson, he was rarely good. And so how do you balance that? Do you lean more toward, all right, he's probably not going to be as good. He's not going to have as much work as Remandre is there? or do you lean into the track record of Ramandre Stevenson, which is he's a solid running back and he had a great finish to 2025. That's not really who he is, whereas Trevion Anderson in his second season could really take off. And we're kind of getting Henderson at a discount compared to last year.

We were over the moon for Henderson last year. It did not work out. But if you're getting him in round five, yeah, there's room for downside there. But man, if he can just wrestle away more of the touches from Ramandre Stevenson, even if it means splitting near the goal line, we're talking about a guy that's going to be a must start in fantasy leagues. I have a tough time balancing that. So for now, he is what I said he is, which is a round five pick. RB 22 for Dave, 23 for Heath, 28th for Jamie.

And I completely agree. Really hard to rank. And I haven't drafted him because I'm just not comfortable. I'm still not comfortable in round five with Henderson. I'm not even sure he's the best Patriots running back to draft. Sure. It's tough call. I like going for him when I really love my first four picks.

And I just get steals with my first four picks. And he's sitting there in round five. That's especially when I like him. One player I've got behind Trayvon Henderson is DJ Moore. And this is another player that you could look at and say, all right, is he declining because he didn't have that good of a year in Chicago? And how could he have been this bad in Chicago

when the bear's offense was so much better than it's been in the past? And now he's going to Buffalo. And we know that he knows that the offense. he'll know what to do in this offense. He's got a great quarterback in Josh Allen, but it's still an offense that isn't going to throw a lot. There's a lot of questions. There's a ton of volatility with where his season could go.

And because of that, I'm kind of couching him. He's a borderline number two fantasy wide receiver, certainly more of a low-end guy. I go back and forth between him and Parker Washington and full PPR. I do have him ahead of Parker Washington at this point, but he's another player that's right in that late round five range for me. But it's not like Trayvion Henderson, where I go, wow, he's got the upside to just be an amazing fantasy wide out.

He's somebody who I think can be an okay number two wide receiver with a floor of being an okay number three wide receiver. That's why I'm looking at him as someone to settle for in that late round five range. Yeah, I don't really struggle ranking DJ Moore, maybe within a range of two or three wide receivers. But I kind of feel like with DJ Moore, it's like you have to ask yourself, all right, who are the exciting, mostly you? young high upside wide receivers that could be league winners and then who is the group that I'm pretty nervous about and then DJ Moore should be right in between them.

I do think he has a lot of upside. I think you're right. I mean, he's got an upside and a downside kind of guy, but I think he should definitely lead the Buffalo Bills and targets. Sure. That's a good thing. So, you know, is that though? Yeah.

We've had the one guy who's done it, it's been Stefan Diggs. he did it four years in a row. He averaged nine targets per game. I don't know if DJ Moore is commanding even eight targets per game. Seven to eight, I'd say. You know, maybe 25 targets or something like that. And from Josh Allen, who always throws,

almost always throws 30 or more touchdowns and throws for a decent amount of yards. Usually, I think that's a round five pick, which is where you have him. I go earlier in round five, but all, you know, all as well, that ends well, I guess. All right, we'll take a break is get three more after this on FFT Express.

So far, Travion Henderson and DJ Moore, tough to rank for Dave. Who else? You see the highlights from Alec Pierce, and you know what he's capable of doing as a downfield receiver. Do the Colts take the step with him and try and get him much more involved as a short and intermediate range receiver?

He's big, he's physical. He can win on those slants, catch the ball, and lean forward for first downs. They can use him that way, kind of the same way that they used Michael Pittman for a good chunk of Pittman's career. I wasn't a fan of Pittman in Indianapolis because that was the only way they were using him. If Pierce is used that way and he's still used downfield and he sucks up a big chunk of the 111 targets that Michael Pittman's leaving behind,

we're drafting him way too late. I've got him as a round six pick. He's got upside to be a top 15 type of fantasy wide receiver, but he's also got the downside to be a low end number three wide receiver. Last year was the only time he's really been great for fantasy. and even then overall 12.2 ppr points per game and 11.4 ppr points per game in 10 games with Daniel Jones. He really started to take off toward the end of the year. And when I say take off, he was just catching more of those downfield throws and catching more touchdowns.

So I think I'm actually, as I talk it out, I think I'm being a little more cautious on Pierce. And that means that I kind of sort of know where to rank him. But he's another one of those guys that just has such a high ceiling and such a bad floor. number one in yards per target among wide receivers with 50 or more targets, two straight seasons. Number one in yards per catch. If the ADOC goes down, it becomes a different player, you can expect that to change. A lot of times the, certainly yards per catch guys are the guys who get thrown the ball down field. Makes sense, right?

They catch the ball. It goes for 20 or more yards. Alec Pierce had seven or more targets in five games. He reached 80 yards in all five games. Definitely a difficult play. player will be asking him to do something he's never done before. Who's next? We talk a lot about players where the biggest downside argument you can make for them is,

well, he could get hurt. And we talked about some of those players on Thursday's episode of Fantasy Football Day. Mike Evans comes to mind. AJ Brown comes to mind. Christian McCaffrey comes to mind. And Jackson Dart comes to mind as well because we saw it last year how many times he left games because of concussion protocol. He plays very aggressively.

He's willing to run with the football. and that's probably the biggest downside case for him is that he could get hurt. The other downside case for him is that he might not have the kind of Malik Neighbors talent receiver, i.e. Malik Neighbors is his rookie year until 2027. But even then last year, he was averaging 19.4 fantasy points per game and six point without Malik Neighbors on the field for almost the entirety of his time on the field. We know that he's got some good upside. I don't love that about 40% of his fantasy points came

from rushing. If he loses any of that, then he's not going to be as good. But he's yet another player, humongous upside. Because if he does keep running and he does throw well, he's going to be amazing. And if he gets hurt or if he just doesn't run as much, you're going to wish you had to draft him as a top 12 quarterback. Jackson Dart was the number you gave 19.14 overall. If you, if you just take the 11 games where he played 20 or more dropbacks, 20 or more, that's it. He average 24.7. Yeah, so right. So that, okay,

that would be his 12 starts minus the one game against Minnesota, where he scored zero fantasy points on 13 pass attempts. You want to look at that game. 12 starts, Jackson Dart average 22.6 fantasy points per game, which is really good.

I actually would say the giants in general are the toughest team to rank right now. You've got an unproven quarterback who gets hurt a lot. You've got an unproven running back who gets hurt a lot, and is coming off a major injury. You've got a wide receiver that we don't know if he's going to be ready for week one. There's a lot of moving pieces with the Giants right now. And a new coach and new coordinator.

You just took the words right out of my mouth. You've got John Harbaugh, whose entire track record has been playing conservatively on offense, leaning into the run game. That's not great for Jackson Dart. And a new offensive coordinator and a new offensive brain trust that really doesn't make you feel excited about any of the players in New York. It's Matt Nagy. It's Greg Roman.

It's Brian Call. A lot of guys that when they've had the play sheet in their hands, they usually struggle. Okay. Last one. What do we got? There's so many names on this list, Adam. Who do I want to end with? I kind of want to end with a boom.

So let's end with Tedaroa McMillan, who talent-wise is a unicorn. He's gigantic and he's quick. He can just change directions in a jiff. He's got good hands, but he's on a team with a quarterback that's really dicey. the offensive line I've got question marks about, especially with the Kwanu, their left tackle, potentially missing the entire year ahead. They've got Jalen Koker who's okay.

He'll take away some targets. I don't really think that Chris Braswell does what the Panthers think he will do, at least not as a rookie. And so I wonder if there's going to be a huge second year leap for Tedoroa McMillan or if it's going to be just more of the same. And last year, it was just okay for Tedoro and McMillan in fantasy. He had some big games. He was very up and down.

but the bottom line is the average 12.4 ppr points per game on 7.2 targets per game. So he was getting a lot of targets, just not doing a ton with them. For him to take that next step, he's either going to need 10 targets per game or he's going to really have to develop some efficiency and rhythm with an improved Bryce Young. And I'm just not sure I can buy into that. Okay. Wide receiver 23 per game last year for McMillan and a bad year for wide receivers. He's going earlier than that in average draft position.

Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree with this call. He's really tough. He also was on pace for 136 targets in his first 12 games and 88 targets in his last five games. And that was with Jalen Coker. I don't really, that's the one I don't really buy. I really don't think Jailen Coker is going to be what holds him back.

But not only that, they do want to run the ball. I don't know if they'll be able to do it as much as they want, but they want to run the ball. All right. Thanks to Dave Richard for his, five players who are very tough to rank. Do you have any thoughts? Leave some in the comments.

We'd appreciate it. Enjoy your Fourth of July weekend, everybody. Talk to you on Monday on Fantasy Football today.