Fantasy football is back.
Thank god.
The last six months has probably been the best stretch of my life. Bachelor parties, weddings, watching mad Harlan Coben shows with Sam and Chesse, Captain Alex, and uhhhh the New York Knicks winning the NBA Championship. And through all that I’ve been thinking about fantasy. How can I go back to back in my dynasty league? How can I go back to back in Sam’s family’s league? How can I convince Charles to not raise our league dues to $1,000.00?
I love this stuff.
I started watching The Americans tonight. I’m about one episode in and so far I’ve learned that the Russians are apparently everywhere, Keri Russell cannot be trusted and the defense of the American homeland requires constant vigilance.
It got me thinking about what I could do to help.
There are brave men and women across this country working every day to protect America from our enemies, both foreign and domestic. Unfortunately, I’m not brave or smart or strong or handsome enough to work in intelligence or counterintelligence. I certainly would divulge classified information within 30 seconds of an interrogator looking at me.
But we all have to contribute in the only way we know how.
Mine is writing about fantasy football.
So while others protect our nuclear secrets and hunt foreign intelligence operatives, I will be doing my part by telling you which running back to select in the first round of your fantasy draft.
I’ve looked at rankings. I’ve looked at ADP. I’ve looked at depth charts. I’ve stared at my phone while lying in bed at 3:30 am after waking up to pee but unable to go back to sleep due to The Horrors. I’ve thought about football while doing things where it’s completely inappropriate to think about football like being the best helper at TJ Maxx or The Kitchen.
After conducting this extensive research I have reached two conclusions about the 2026 fantasy football first round:
Jahmyr Gibbs is going to be awesome.
Christian McCaffrey is going to ruin someone’s life and it won’t be mine.
Let’s get into it.
THE MAN: JAHMYR GIBBS
Jahmyr Gibbs is currently the near consensus first overall pick in fantasy football.
Usually this is where I would get cute. Ohhhhh everyone likes Gibbs? Well I don’t. Give me someone ranked ninth. I’m smarter than you. I watch football differently.
No.
Sometimes the obvious answer is the obvious answer because it is the answer.
Jahmyr Gibbs is fucking ridiculous.
I traded an absurd pick package for him in my dynasty league last summer. I’m going to be cooked in that league someday. Well, that someday wasn’t last year as Gibbs propelled me to victory. Trade: won. Thanks for playing, Dennis.
Last year Gibbs rushed for 1,223 yards, caught 77 passes and scored 18 total touchdowns. This came after scoring 20 touchdowns the year before.
Twenty. Then eighteen.
The guy has scored 38 touchdowns in two years. I don’t think I’ve done anything 38 times in the last two years besides throwing millions in the air at my table at 11.
And now David Montgomery is gone.
Interesting!
For years Montgomery was the one annoying thing standing between Gibbs and complete fantasy football nuclear warfare. Gibbs would rip off a 43-yard run, catch six passes and personally cure a disease and then the Lions would get to the three-yard line and Dan Campbell would send Montgomery in.
Dan Campbell you wench.
Not anymore.
Montgomery is gone. Gibbs is still here. The Detroit offense is still loaded. And Gibbs is 24 years old.
What exactly are we worried about?
The answer, because this is fantasy football, is obviously catastrophic injury. He could get tackled strangely in Week 2 and none of this matters. That’s the beautiful part of spending hundreds of hours preparing for a game where your season can end because someone’s ankle got stuck underneath a 310-pound defensive tackle.
But we can’t predict that.
What we can predict is touches. And Gibbs is about to get a shit ton of them.
He’s also one of those rare fantasy players where 14 points somehow feels disappointing. You check your lineup at 2:47 and see Gibbs has 13.8.
What the fuck, Gibbs?
Then you remember there are eleven minutes left in the third quarter. By 3:15 he has 27.
Thank you, Jahmyr. I never doubted you.
There is an argument for Bijan Robinson at 1.01. A very good argument. Bijan had 2,298 yards from scrimmage last season, which is an absolutely preposterous number. If you draft him first I am not going to call the police.
Ja’Marr Chase is Ja’Marr Chase. Puka Nacua apparently catches every football thrown within the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area when he isn’t hanging with Hitler Youth Kick streamers.
There are options.
But Gibbs is my guy. I have the first pick in one league and I’m taking him.
Fantasy football is supposed to be fun. Having Jahmyr Gibbs is fun. Trust me. Watching your running back get 19 carries for 71 yards is not fun. That’s accounting.
I want explosions. I want a screen pass to become a 64-yard touchdown. I want to look at ESPN and see a little red “RZ” next to Detroit and immediately call 11 to get my table ready.
Give me Gibbs.
THE MAN WHO WILL DESTROY YOU: CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY
Before I continue I want to make something clear.
I like Christian McCaffrey.
We’ve been through a lot together. I wrote about him when he got traded to San Francisco in 2022. At the time Christian was moving across the country and I was growing a mustache. Two young men facing uncertain futures. Etc etc etc.
We survived.
Four years later we meet again.
Unfortunately, I am now here to slander him.
This hurts me more than it hurts him, primarily because Christian McCaffrey has absolutely no idea who I am.
CMC is still going in the first round of fantasy drafts. I understand why. Of course I understand why. When Christian McCaffrey is healthy, he’s Christian fucking McCaffrey. He catches passes. He gets goal-line work. He scores touchdowns. Kyle Shanahan would let him carry the ball 47 times in a preseason game if someone didn’t physically restrain him / he wasn’t taking Drivers Ed.
But I have one question.
How many times are we going to do this?
Let’s start with four hundred and thirteen.
That’s how many times Christian McCaffrey touched a football during the 2025 regular season. 311 carries. 102 catches. He led the entire NFL in touches.
Then San Francisco played two playoff games.
By the time his season actually ended, Christian McCaffrey had touched a football 450 times.
Four hundred and fifty!
I don’t even like touching things that many times. Aside from the door handle at 11.
And now we’re supposed to take this man with one of the first seven picks in a fantasy football draft as he enters his age-30 season.
Thirty!
Do you know who else is 30?
Me.
I turned 30 eight days ago and I feel like I’ve developed a bunch of fucked up physical conditions like King Tut or King Charles II of Spain and I don’t even do shit.
Christian McCaffrey is getting tackled by NFL linebackers.
His age and last year’s workload should scare you.
In 2019, McCaffrey had 403 regular-season touches. It was one of the great fantasy seasons ever. He was incredible.
The next year he played three games.
The year after that he played seven.
Then he eventually got healthy, went to San Francisco and became a machine again. In 2023, including the playoffs, he accumulated another 400-plus-touch season.
The following year?
Four games.
FOUR.
I hired a private investigator to look into whether history repeats itself and he got back to me with a single word:
“Obviously.”
Now he’s coming off 450 touches.
I’m sure it’s fine.
It’s probably fine.
Everything is fine.
And it’s not just the mileage. McCaffrey averaged 3.9 yards per carry last year. His career average is comfortably north of that. He was still an incredible fantasy player because he caught 102 passes, accumulated more than 2,100 yards from scrimmage and scored 17 touchdowns.
But 3.9?
I don’t love 3.9.
3.9 whispers things to me late at night.
The burst, she is fading.
Then, right on cue, August arrives and McCaffrey starts missing practice with what the 49ers described as “tightness.”
Tightness!
I don’t care that McCaffrey says it was planned. I don’t care that the 49ers say they’re managing his workload. I don’t care if Kyle Shanahan personally comes to my apartment, tucks me into bed and tells me Christian feels fantastic. And if he did I hope he ubered to my crib.
I have heard this shit before.
“Tightness” is the scariest word in the English language most of the time.
You know what isn’t scary?
Broken leg.
That’s information.
Broken leg means he’s not playing. I can plan around a broken leg.
Tightness means I get to spend the next six days refreshing Twitter while some beat reporter named Matt tells me Christian was “working off to the side.”
What does that mean?
What side? Left side? Strong side? Ahhhh!
Then Friday comes.
Limited.
Saturday comes.
Questionable.
Sunday morning arrives and I’m standing in the middle of the uptown farmers market searching “McCaffrey warmup” on twitter while I block a ten seater stroller from getting to the Pasta Club line and accidentally (purposely) ignore fifteen people asking to touch my dog.
I’ve seen this film before and I didn’t like the ending.
Anyone who read the old blog knows David Johnson once scored negative points for me and I have still not fully recovered. Every time a running back gets two carries, disappears into the blue medical tent and is subsequently described as “questionable to return,” I scream.
I refuse to willingly sign up for this.
And here’s the worst part.
Christian McCaffrey could absolutely finish as the RB1.
That’s what makes this terrifying.
Nobody drafts a bust thinking they’re drafting a bust. That’s not how busts work. Trust me, I’ve experienced a bust or two.
Nobody walked out of the Titanic ticket office saying, “Nice, I can’t wait to drown.”
They thought they were going to New York. They thought they were the kings of the world.
That’s Christian McCaffrey.
The ship is beautiful. The food is apparently fantastic. Everyone says it’s unsinkable.
I’m staying on land.
There are simply too many players in this range who don’t require me to spend every Sunday studying the anatomy of the human calf.
Of course Gibbs, Bijan, Chase and Puka will go before CMC. I’m taking JSN, Amon-Ra, J Tay, Lamb etc over him.
Young people!
Healthy people!
People whose Achilles tendons I don’t think about while trying to fall asleep!
Could I regret this?
One hundred percent.
There is a very realistic scenario where Christian McCaffrey scores 27 points in Week 1 and I immediately delete this article. By Week 3 I’ll claim I never wrote it.
Fake news.
Russian disinformation.
But today, August 30, I am planting my flag.
THE OFFICIAL VERDICT
Gibbs is the one.
Don’t overthink it.
He’s young. He’s explosive. He’s on a great offense. His primary competition for touches is gone. He’s already been one of the best fantasy players on earth while sharing the backfield.
Now we get to see what happens when you take the restrictor plate off.
Jahmyr Gibbs by a billion.
And if I’m sitting in the middle of the first round and Christian McCaffrey is staring at me, I’m going to remember all the good times. I’m going to remember 2019. I’m going to remember 2023. I’m going to remember that glorious stretch where putting CMC in your lineup was basically entering a cheat code.
Then I’m going to respectfully select someone else.
Maybe I’ll be wrong.
Maybe Christian has one more monster season in him. Maybe he plays 17 games, scores 20 touchdowns and personally smelts championship trophies for everyone who drafts him.
If that happens, I’ll admit I was wrong like any good American. Through 2.5 episodes of The Americans I know this.
There are enemies of this country both foreign and domestic.
I intend to remain vigilant. If you see something, say something. That’s what I’m doing now. I am doing my part.
This is fantasy football.
We are so fucking back.
Must Be Sunday 