There are players you know you want to draft, players you know you want to avoid, and then the in-between. Most of those players you feel lukewarm enough about to just pass on them unless they fall significantly past their ADP. There are a few, though, who are compelling enough to make you wonder if you should be targeting them. And then when you look at them a different way, they make you wonder if you should be avoiding them.
In short, you would rather someone else take them so you don't have to agonize about them while you are on the clock.
This is the All-Rolaids Team
Players you are relieved to see go off the board ahead of you.
Saquon Barkley (Footballguys Consensus ADP: RB2, #3 overall)
Barkley is coming off a season with 482 total touches, tied for the 10th most in a combined regular season/postseason in NFL history. The good news is that Terrell Davis is #1 on that list, and he was even better in 1998 (The fifth most touches by a running back in one RS+).
The bad news is that most of the other backs experienced a drop-off in year N+1, and the wheels came off for Davis in 1999. It's reasonable to believe that fading Barkley is a mere question of math and physiology. Barkley is also one of the rarest physical specimens we've ever seen at running back (backwards hurdle anyone?), and he's running behind one of the best lines in the league. It's possible that confluence will be the most operative in this equation, and Barkley will repeat his RB1 by a good margin this season.
It's still tempting to take Jahmyr Gibbs or CeeDee Lamb over him, and most are taking Bijan Robinson over him, even though Barkley was about 4-5 points per game better last year, depending on your format. Is the fantasy community overreacting to Barkley's workload, or are they onto something? If you are drafting 3rd or 4th, you'll need to have clarity on this question.
Christian McCaffrey (Footballguys Consensus ADP: RB4, #7 overall)
After McCaffrey double-tendonly torpedoed fantasy hopes in 2024, you have to feel hesitation to go back to him in the first round again. Somehow, McCaffrey has been the only 49ers back to stay healthy this year in camp as the team has been bitten by the injury bug again.
Either the universe is giving us a huge thumbs up or leading us into a cruelly humorous reenactment of Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the football. The 49ers offense is set up to rely heavily on McCaffrey, Ricky Pearsall, and George Kittle early in the season. There's an argument to take McCaffrey #1 overall in drafts, but you might also feel like a sucker right after you do it. "You can't win your draft in the first round, but you can lose it" is not true, so even though it will make me anxious, I'm feeling more and more inclined to go after McCaffrey in my final drafts.
_png)