Liz Loza lists several household names she plans to avoid in upcoming fantasy drafts, writing that brand loyalty can lead to overpaying and that these veterans are not players she will add “without a coupon code.”
On Joe Burrow, Loza acknowledges his elite pocket play, accuracy and composure but points to a recurring availability issue. Burrow has finished 10th or better in fantasy points per game three times in his past five seasons, yet he has only three campaigns with more than 10 games played and three with 10 or fewer, a split Loza attributes to a mix of aggressive play and poor protection.
Loza notes the Bengals’ offensive line returns all five starters but adds that the group posted a 57.6% pass-block win rate (28th) last season and grades out as a bottom-five unit entering 2026. She also highlights Burrow’s limited rushing impact — 330 yards over the past three seasons and just 3% of his fantasy production coming via the ground — and cites that 12 quarterbacks in 2025 exceeded 340 rushing yards and that 12 of last year’s top 15 producers at the position got more than 16% of their points on the ground. Burrow was the fifth quarterback off the board with a 56.9 ADP, Loza writes.
Christian McCaffrey is listed as Loza’s biggest fade at running back despite his 2025 rebound. Loza recalls McCaffrey headlining her “red flag” list for 2025 and then delivering 24.5 fantasy points per game to finish as the RB1 that season. Still, she points to his 413 touches last year and invokes the commonly cited 370-touch threshold as a warning sign for diminished efficiency and production the following year.
Loza uses Saquon Barkley as a precedent: Barkley led the position with 22.2 fantasy points per game in 2024 while logging 482 total touches (including the playoffs), entered 2025 with a 3.6 ADP and then finished the year as RB14, compiling just four runs of 20-plus yards and averaging 4.5 yards per touch (RB41). Loza notes parallels between Barkley’s workload-driven decline and the risk she sees with McCaffrey.
