Draft Strategy From The 1.01 In 2026 Fantasy Football: Jahmyr Gibbs, No Matter What

If you came to my house on board-game night, you’d think I lived with a bunch of lawyers. The level of attention paid to the rules is almost scholarly. Every move is subject to question. It doesn’t matter if we’re playing Ticket to Ride or Honey Buzz. The gospel (rule book), according to the creator (whoever made the game), shifts position each turn as someone thumbs through it. All in the name of finding a new path to claim victory and lord it over the rest of us.

Drafting fantasy football teams is no different. There’s no one way to construct a roster. We’re all bound by the same basic tenets once we’re in the lobby. But there are effective ways to manage the chaos. Approaches that can flip a bad situation into a positive one. But, like a rule book, we still need a guide to get us there.

I’ll be using our Draft Champion tool and historical data to walk through every starting position. Of course, the players are the focus, but their position and when to take them make all the difference. I’ll start with the 1.01. But first, let’s talk through a couple of overarching points.

Fantasy Football Draft Tips From The 1.01

Best Ball Ain’t Redraft

If you’re like me, you’ve been building teams all offseason. Or, at best, you’ve hopped into a best ball lobby or two to test the waters. There’s nothing wrong with putting some skin in the game. If I can stumble into winning a multi-person tournament while figuring out that Jaylen Waddle is (rightly) more expensive than Courtland Sutton, that’s just being efficient in my book. However, before you go running to your home redraft league with the same mental image of putting together a roster, you have to remember the difference in formats.

Blerd Tip: The chart above shows trend lines. Essentially, they’re approximations of an entire curve and give a general sense of a function’s behavior. So, no, best ball ADPs in the first round didn’t differ from redraft by almost 10 picks. But as the draft continued, the variation continued to pick up between the two formats.

Sure, we’ll play the early rounds the same, independent of the league settings. But think about the later rounds. We obsess about playoff correlations or stacking offenses as we’re not making any roster moves. Plus, trying to differentiate from the crowd will cause more swings at obscure players in best ball. Whereas in managed leagues, every bench slot matters. Using our fantasy football ADP tool, which delineates between site and structure, will highlight the differences and potentially show you where you can find an exploit or two.

When In Doubt, Take an RB or WR

Chaos will rule the draft room once the clock starts ticking. You’ll have a plan or, maybe, the concept of a plan, and that’ll change in an instant. Player names, team blurbs and training camp hype videos will start to swirl in your mind. But for the early rounds, building up the core positions is a must.

I parsed a sample of redraft leagues from 2025, and RBs and WRs accounted for 72.2% of the first six picks on winning rosters. Again, no shock at this finding. We start at least two RBs and WRs (or more, depending on roster requirements and FLEX needs) every week. QBs will give us the highest individual score, but our rushers and wideouts as a position are the core of the roster. So, as you’re angling for Joe Burrow early, waiting to take Jared Goff later has its merits.

Remember, It’s 2026. Not 2025

We (and I’m using the royal ‘we’ as I fall prey to it, too) tend to copy-paste much of the previous year’s production onto the next. As the WR3, Jaxon Smith-Njigba will, without a doubt, rack up another 1,500+ yards with Sam Darnold and no Klint Kubiak. TreVeyon Henderson (RB25) is the clear better bet over Rhamondre Stevenson (RB27) despite Stevenson handling 57.1% of the touches in the Super Bowl.

I’m not saying. I’m just saying.

Admittedly, I’m being subjective. In either case, though, history has shown us that we can’t expect the same level of production year over year.

Offenses change schemes. Players age. Defenses key in on their opponents’ strengths. It’s the push and pull of the NFL. Now, to be clear, identifying paths to opportunity that beget high-end results isn’t wrong. That’s the name of the game! But insisting a player will return value just because you saw it happen nine months ago will be a sure way to find yourself on the outside of the playoff hunt later.

Now, let’s draft!

Who Do You Select At 1.01 In 2026 Fantasy Football Drafts?

Luckily, in this case, we’ve got the 1.01. Well, I say lucky because our list of reasonable choices is small. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t make the final choice any easier. Using the draft assistant feature in our Draft Champion tool, we can see what our options are in a 12-team Yahoo league.

You know me. You’re not twisting my arm if you want to put the best WR in the league (I said what I said) on your roster. However, the RBs warrant consideration.

Yes, I know, I know. I just said we can’t copy-paste last year’s production onto the upcoming season. That logic would make Bijan Robinson (last year’s RB2) and Jahmyr Gibbs (RB3) no-brainers. So, OK, forget about the results. Let’s look at their opportunity when compared to past RBs who’ve finished inside the top-three RBs by season’s end.

Rushing Attempts: 243 (Gibbs), 287 (Robinson), 267.2 (Top-three PPR RBs 2015-2024)
Targets: 94, 103, 85.1
Total Touches: 337, 390, 352.3

While Gibbs was still splitting carries with David Montgomery, both the Lions’ RB1B and Robinson posted top-three marks in targets (which fuel fantasy scoring for rushers). And, coincidentally, Dwain has each runner at the top of projected looks for the season. So, it’s not the same as expecting the same results as last year. In this case, we can tell a story of a similar level of opportunity for both backs, giving them the green light for a 1.01 selection. Now, if you want to compare the two, you’re splitting hairs.

Our Utilization Report can at least give us a one-year snapshot of the two. And, sure, Robinson graded out ahead of Gibbs. But let’s spin things forward for the Falcons. They’ll have Tommy Rees as their new OC with Kevin Stefanski in the driver’s seat. Plus, one of Tua Tagovailoa or Michael Penix under center.

Meanwhile, Detroit at least has continuity at QB as Drew Petzing comes in to call plays. For future pieces in this series, I’d branch out into a multiverse of different rosters we could build. But since we only have one position to consider, let’s go with Sonic as our leadoff man.

The Rest of the Early Rounds From The 1.01

Here’s where the divergence in strategy will likely come.

Screenshot 2026-07-14 at 9.10.03 AM.png — The above screenshot shows Rounds 1 through 3 for Teams 1-9 in Draft Champion; Teams 10-12 are cut off.

The (seemingly) slow and painful wait for 22 picks to occur at least gives us time to consider a build path. As Kevin Garnett said, anything is possible. And normally, I’d keep to my nice and tidy WRs and RBs build. But if you’re looking to grab a QB and forget about the position, there’s a guy worth considering here.

Passing Success Rate Rank (min. 320 dropbacks): 7th (2025), 11th (2024), 4th (2023)
Rushing Att. Rank: 1st, 4th, 4th

Mobile QBs still command the early rounds, but Josh Allen is in a tier of his own. Over the last three seasons, Allen’s 71 attempts from inside the 10-yard line rank second amongst all QBs (Jalen Hurts up top at 81). The next closest? Justin Fields with 34. In that same time span, no other passer has had more games with three or more passing TDs than Allen (24). Lamar Jackson is closing in at 18.

The two top TEs are already off the board. Combined with the fact you’ve got back-to-back picks, walking away with a QB and WR at the 2/3 turn has its merits. But be prepared to lower your expectations on who will be available at 48th overall.

Notable RBs Drafted: Javonte Williams (3.04), Breece Hall (3.08), David Montgomery (4.04)
Notable WRs Drafted: Chris Olave (3.06), Jaylen Waddle (4.08), Zay Flowers (4.10)

The Draft Assistant has Luther Burden, Ladd McConkey and Malik Nabers as my preferred picks. My WR2 will be outside of our top 20. The same will be the case for whoever I can snag at RB. Meanwhile, both Jayden Daniels and Jalen Hurts, both hybrid passers, are still on the board. This situation highlights the trade-offs when building your team. Choosing to make a position strong while letting another become weaker. Again, it’s not a wrong or bad approach. But now, not just any receiver will do. Even worse, we can’t even rely on projections as a tie-breaker.

Clearly, this is Dwain’s fault. However, since we are in need of at least two WRs, and we have an anchor RB from the first round, taking both receivers to vault us into the middle rounds (with one pick left to go) would lessen the need to prioritize the position later.

Mid-Round Pitfalls When Drafting From The 1.01 In Fantasy Football

The middle rounds are for filling out our roster. And, no, not so that you have a certain number of RBs or WRs. Their archetype is what matters here. Or, said another way, their usage and athletic profile that could vault them into top-24 consideration should be our focus. Here’s an example from the sixth-seventh round wrap.

Again, I’m comfortable with leaning on Gibbs to be one of my top scorers each week. Otherwise, I’d have grabbed another RB in the early rounds. So, outside of Detroit’s bye week, I need an RB2 with targets and/or touchdowns in their weekly range of outcomes. Even though both Stevenson and Warren have backfields to share, they profile as players who can contribute in the passing game and short-yardage rushing attack.

Stevenson: 10% (target share), 66% (short-yardage snap rate), 55% (i5 rushing rate)
Warren: 8%, 53%, 58%

Compare those two to RJ Harvey, who went off the board at 7.03. His usage flared with J.K. Dobbins nursing an injury, and the Broncos used a Day 2 pick on a rusher with pass-catching chops. Their situations make them more valuable not just for their cost, but for my specific build.

Building a Championship Roster From The 1.01 In Fantasy Football

OK, so I take back what I said about Dwain earlier.

The Draft Champion will pit you against our best analysts to see how alike you are to their style of drafting. While Kendall and I (Freedman, too) need to have a serious discussion, that’s not the main area to view once you’ve completed the mock.

Remember earlier when I talked about how often teams were drafting certain positions? The positional breakdown gives you a glimpse into whether you’re following the same guidelines. For our draft from the 1.01, Josh Allen was the only non-core pick-up in the early rounds. In other words, we invested in the right areas at the optimal phase of the draft and got a top QB. And by looking for specific archetypes in the middle rounds, we “won” the draft based on the projected standings.

But as I said in the intro, this game has rules but multiple paths to winning. And the draft is just one (vital) part of it. Regardless, the tools we have in place here will show you how to navigate any situation to wind up in a similar position. Let’s do all of this from 1.02 next time.

Players Mentioned in this Article

JahmyrGibbs
RBDET
PPG
19.2
Proj
320.9

Published Jul 14, 2026, 11:15 AM ETUpdated Jul 14, 2026, 11:17 AM ET