The old adage goes that you can't win your draft with your first couple of picks, but you can certainly lose it. To put it in baseball terms, you want to try to hit doubles in the early goings and take swings for the fence a little later. Striking out on your first few picks is going to prove costly.
With that in mind, I've mapped out some of the best ways you can start your drafts based on which pick slot you draw. We'll dig into the likely players available to you in each of the first three rounds and how you can get a good foundation for a strong roster build.
I'll take some liberties with who may or may not be available, but will try to keep things as based in reality as possible.
Draft Board by ADP
Optimal Starts by Draft Slot
First Pick Slot
- Jahmyr Gibbs 1.1
- George Pickens 2.12
- Malik Nabers 3.1
This is a great year to have the 1.1 because you really have three viable options there between Gibbs, Bijan Robinson and Ja'Marr Chase. Consensus has solidified around Gibbs being the best of that elite tier, though, so we'll assume that the market is indeed correct.
Coming back around, you can double-tap receiver and get yourself back on pace at that position after the likely scenario of nine receivers coming off the board between your first two picks. What makes the Pickens/Nabers duo particularly interesting is that the Cowboys and Giants square off in Dallas in Week 17 in what should be one of the highest-scoring games of championship week. You also get the added bonus of having a premium piece of the Dallas offense, which will play all three of its fantasy playoff games indoors.
Nabers and Pickens are a great combo too because you get an elite target share projection with Nabers, who has very little competition, along with Pickens, who is one of the best spike week bets of anyone in the game. Pickens had five games with at least 22.5 0.5 PPR points last season.
With this start, you can also circle back and have solid RB2 options in the fourth round. It's not every year that picking 1.1 is a huge advantage. This year, it just might be.
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Second Pick Slot
- Bijan Robinson 1.2
- George Pickens or Malik Nabers 2.11
- Breece Hall 3.2
I'm cheating a little bit with listing Pickens or Nabers as your second pick from this slot, but if both are on the board for you in the second, it's really hard to pass on them entirely. Do you really want to be responsible for letting the Gibbs team also get the Pickens/Nabers combo? Come on.
Coming back around, I'm bullish on getting an RB-heavy start from this draft slot. I'd be jumping Hall ahead of ADP a bit, but I'd be good with that in this case. Hall is likely to get a career-high in carries, and I'm willing to bet on some touchdown luck breaking his way. His career high in rushing touchdowns is just five, which he's done twice on some abysmal offenses. If Geno Smith can be, say, the 20th best quarterback in the league this year, it'll be the best quarterback play Hall would have enjoyed in his pro career. The Jets also have one of the better offensive lines in football. Having a Bijan/Hall start to your RB room with Malik Nabers or George Pickens as your WR1 is a hot start to your draft.
The best 1.2 start in my portfolio so far is Robinson/Pickens/DeVonta Smith from mid-July, but I'll be seeking a Robinson/Pickens/Hall start from 1.2 the rest of summer.
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Third Pick Slot
- Ja'Marr Chase 1.3
- Drake London 2.10
- Zay Flowers 3.3
A zero RB start is easier to justify on a full PPR site like DraftKings, though it's not unreasonable to pursue it from the No. 3 spot on Underdog. Picking third gives you a variety of lanes to choose from. You could go more balanced with your start and go WR/RB/TE(McBride). There are some factors that stand out to me when it comes to the Chase/London/Flowers build, though:
- The No.1 fantasy receiver for 2026 (yeah, I said it)
- A player who could challenge for 30 percent of the targets in his offense
- Lamar Jackson's No.1 option
- A set table to game stack the Week 17 Ravens-Bengals game.
Those are good arrows to have in your quiver. From there, you can load up on that solid second tier of RBs like David Montgomery, Cam Skattebo, Bhayshul Tuten, Bucky Irving or Quinshon Judkins. That's not a bad fallback plan at RB if you can get two to go with the elite WR start. You'd also stand a good chance of landing Joe Burrow getting back to you in the sixth round.
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Fourth Pick Slot
- Puka Nacua 1.4
- Drake London 2.9
- Breece Hall 3.4
This start requires a little less ADP luck because the ideal 1.3 start from above would need a small ADP slide from London. Drafters rarely reach on London but he doesn't fall far, either. There's very little volatility in where he's taken from draft to draft. His ADP has been between 20.2 and 21.2 all draft season.
Back to this start, you're probably banking 215 catches from your first two picks while also making sure you have a bell cow running back. That not only gives you a good foundation, but it also gives you some freedom with your next cluster of picks. You're not playing catch-up at any one position like you would be with a zero RB start.
A Nacua/London/Hall opening would give you the freedom to go for Colston Loveland (TE3) in the fourth round or another running back while setting yourself up for a quality WR3 (Mike Evans, Davante Adams, Jameson Williams) in the fifth.
This is very much a "trying to get on base" start vs. a swing-for-the-fences start. You'd have to like the OBP projection with a Nacua/London/Hall trio out of the gate. Sorry for more baseball analogies.
Fifth Pick Slot
- Jaxon Smith-Njigba or Amon-Ra St. Brown 1.5
- Brock Bowers 2.8
- Breece Hall or Chris Olave 3.5
JSN and ARSB are neck-and-neck to me in the rankings this season. Smith-Njigba's 2025 season was unbelievable. It also might not be repeatable. Meanwhile, St. Brown has a 30 percent target share of an offense that leads the league in implied points per game and has the easiest schedule in the NFL. Those contextual details make St. Brown almost as good a pick as JSN. We don't love jumping ADP too much in the first round but if I have enough JSN shares, I don't mind getting started with the Sun God at the fifth pick.
Next up would be Bowers. I mentioned ADP volatility with London earlier. Bowers is the opposite. There will be drafts where he goes near the end of the second round. There will also be drafts where Bowers is gone by the 15th pick. If you have the 19th pick and Bowers is still available, just go ahead and make the click.
I've said my piece on Hall at this point, and view him as a steal at 3.5 or later. Olave, meanwhile, has dropped a little bit this summer with DeVonta Smith rising, Rashee Rice going back to his original ADP and Malik Nabers sling-shotting into the late second amid positive health news.
I'm happy to start scooping up Olave at this stage, though. The Saints have an ascending offense, Olave's role is extremely locked in, and he's in his prime. There's an added contextual bonus in that the Saints have arguably the most fantasy-friendly playoff schedule (@ TB, vs ARI, @ ATL) in the league.
For what it's worth, you'll also sometimes see De'Von Achane fall to the end of the second. If Bowers is gone but Achane is there, I like the value there.
Sixth Pick
- Jonathan Taylor or Amon-Ra St. Brown 1.6
- Derrick Henry 2.7
- Zay Flowers or Emeka Egbuka 3.6
Jonathan Taylor's ADP being close to 8.0 is wild for a 0.5 PPR site like Underdog. How many running backs can you pencil in for 300-plus carries with explosive efficiency? Not many, and definitely not Christian McCaffrey. Taylor is too cheap on UD and I don't mind making the slight reach at 1.6 if I want to start with a running back.
Henry at 2.7 takes a little bit of luck but it happens frequently enough to be actionable for this article. This would be a total bully RB start, which has become a little trendier this year than the recent WR-heavy starts that dominated the earlier part of this decade. Even in a new offense, there's no doubt that Henry will be among the most high-volume running backs in football this year. The depth behind him is almost non-existent, and he's not really showing any signs of slowing down with 5.2 YPC on 307 carries last season.
Taking Flowers after Henry would be a way of getting access to a huge slice of the fantasy production for an offense that oddsmakers project to score the second-most points this year. That seems good, in my opinion. Sure, every Henry touchdown is a touchdown that Flowers isn't scoring and vice versa, but how much does that matter if Baltimore is one of the best fantasy environments in the NFL this season.
Seventh Pick
- Amon-Ra St. Brown or Jonathan Taylor 1.7
- Brock Bowers 2.6
- Emeka Egbuka 3.7
Picking in the middle is a little funky this year. I've highlighted some of my favorite mid-first-round options and usually try to stick to St. Brown or Taylor when I draw one of those slots. I don't pull CeeDee Lamb or Justin Jefferson up ahead of ADP very often.
A Taylor-Bowers duo to start is powerful. You have the potential to get the top player at both RB and TE if things break right. In the third round, you're positioned to take a swing on the best Year 2 breakout candidate in Egbuka, who should be the top option in a strong passing game.
You'll have good balance taking the Taylor route in particular, with elite options at RB/WR/TE, which gives you the option to go in any direction in rounds 4-6.
Carnell Tate would fit well on this team in the fifth and give you key pieces to both sides of the Week 16 Raiders-Titans game come playoff time.
Eighth Pick
- CeeDee Lamb or Jonathan Taylor 1.8
- Chase Brown 2.5
- Kyren Williams 3.8
This one lines up nicely without any need to deviate from ADP. You're getting key pieces to three of the best offenses in the NFL. You're set up really well at running back and will have some nice options for your WR2 in the fourth round, whether it's Garrett Wilson, Jaylen Waddle or Tetairoa McMillan.
There's an added benefit of Lamb's Cowboys and Williams' Rams facing off in Week 15. It's August, but if things go according to plan, that will be the highest-scoring game of that week. Having big pieces of that game will help your chances of advancing.
Brown and Williams are two running backs I've targeted when I go with a receiver in the first round. Both are in elite offenses that are going to score a ton of points. With Brown, there's really no competition for snaps/carries/targets out of the backfield. Cincinnati's second RB doesn't even get drafted most of the time.
Williams doesn't have as clear of a runway, and as much as I've faded him over the years, I concede that the setup is so good for the Rams backfield this year. The defense is going to be so good that there might not be as many track meets as we've seen in L.A. in recent years. It will also likely set the Rams' offense up with good field position, teeing up Williams and Blake Corum in scoring range.
Ninth Pick
Slight variation on the previous start. I'm pretty set on CeeDee Lamb being a better pick than Justin Jefferson in this range for team context and playoff schedule reasons, hence why I'm going CeeDee whether I have the eighth or ninth pick a lot of the time.
The Brown-Higgins combo is similar to what I was getting at with the Henry-Flowers combo you can target with a mid-round slot. You're getting major parts of an offense that could go completely nuts this season. You'd be justified in grabbing Joe Burrow in the sixth without having to jump ADP too much, too.
This start would point you toward attacking RB in the fourth round, and there isn't a clean fit at that exact spot so you'd have to reach a little bit to get guys who have fallen like Josh Jacobs or Travis Etienne. Instead, you could end up with a bully receiver start that also has Waddle/Wilson/McMillan, and then hope you get lucky with how the RB options fall to you in the fifth.
10th Pick
- James Cook 1.10
- Kenneth Walker 2.3
- Ladd McConkey 3.10
Cook is like a more expensive version of Chase Brown in that he's a bet on environment/market share more than pure talent. He's coming off a huge workload with over 300 carries that helped him win the rushing title, so there's a little concern about him holding up to that volume again. Even so, the red zone opportunities and touchdowns should be ample.
Walker is not someone I drafted a ton when he was in Seattle but I love the upside in Kansas City. There's a clear runway to a career high in usage in what should be an upper-tier offense — 250 carries and 50 catches is on the table for Walker. I'd take him anywhere in the second round, though the reality is that it's hard to get him before this draft slot, especially with Omarion Hampton sliding a bit.
McConkey gives you the top target in what should be a much-improved offense now that Mike McDaniel is calling the shots. We just need that offensive line to stay reasonably healthy and McConkey should cook like he did as a rookie.
I like the Walker/McConkey duo in particular because the Chiefs and Chargers meet in Week 17 at SoFi, so there should be plenty of fireworks in a game that will likely have playoff and divisional implications.
11th Pick
- Kenneth Walker 1.11
- Omarion Hampton 2.2
- Jaylen Waddle or Ladd McConkey 3.11
This one's spicy. It gets you the starting running backs from a high-scoring Week 17 game in a dome (correlation bros, I know it's better to have pass-catchers in bring-back stacks. Relax). Rounding it out, you get the WR1 (Waddle) in an offense that led the league in pass attempts last year.
People are starting to get worried about Hampton as a second-round pick. I'm not one of them. As much as I like Keaton Mitchell, I'm not sure he's a real threat to lead the backfield. I also don't buy the Kimani Vidal hype that's starting to formulate. I particularly like Hampton's setup come playoff time. The 49ers game in Week 15 is at home and should have points aplenty. Going to Miami in Week 16 is a smash spot. Then you have the Week 17 showdown with the Chiefs at home.
With this 1-2 start, you could justify going with McConkey alongside Hampton, or you could step outside that box and target Waddle before grabbing another difference-maker at WR in the fourth.
12th Pick
- James Cook 1.12
- De'Von Achane 2.1
- Josh Allen 3.12
This one is all about Week 17. You're getting the three main characters from the Bills-Dolphins game down in Miami in championship week. You get such concentrated doses of the fantasy production from both teams, where Cook and Allen should combine for 25-plus rushing touchdowns while also getting Achane, who will have to do it all for the Dolphins.
It's a bit risky putting all your eggs in that basket with your first three picks, but scared money don't make money in best ball. You have to stick your neck out sometimes and the board falls in a way where if you make it to Week 17 and have these guys available, you could have massive leverage.
