It’s starting to smell like fantasy football season, and the fantasy fallers are starting to tumble down the preseason rankings.
There seems to be a change in the air in the mornings after the recent storms in my part of West Virginia. (Word on note, please keep my fellow North Central West Virginians in your thoughts as those storms were part of the flooding that was shown on the national news in the towns of Weston and Buckhannon.)
With the change of the summer into the fall, the change of preseason rankings are starting to happen already.
Let’s take a look at three players who have seen their early ADP take a dip.
Fantasy Fallers
De’Von Achane, Miami
The new Dolphins coaching staff have emphasized De’Von Achane is going to be the focal point of the offense.
However, this offense is not the same. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa moved on to Atlanta, wide receiver Jaylen Waddle was traded to Denver and WR Tyreek Hill was not re-signed as he recovers from a knee injury.
Despite the emphasis on Achane, I, and many others prognosticators, believe he will be hard pressed to duplicate his lofty first-round fantasy RB status.
Achane has averaged 1,444.7 total yards, 11.7 touchdowns and 57.3 catches a season in his three years with the Dolphins.
And this was surrounded by Waddle and Hill.
This year’s passing game will be led by new QB Malik Willis and WRs Malik Washington and TE Greg Dulcich. Those three names do not put fear in the NFL defensive coordinator’s game plans.
Achane is currently 7th in our Blitz RB rankings, but with the likes of LA Chargers’ Omarion Hampton and Kansas City’s Kenneth Walker III lurking behind him, Achane could fall even farther down the overall draft board.
Alec Pierce, Indianapolis
The Colts may have paid Alec Pierce to be a No. 1 WR, but he has never put up the stats to make fantasy managers gush over him in that role.
On most draft boards, he’s still going off as a WR3 after a 1,000-year yard season on 47 catches with 6 TDs in 2025.
He had ankle surgery in late March and it was expected to be 4-6 month timeline on rehab. He was placed in the PUP list on Monday before training camp even started. The six-month timeline has his return early into the regular season, something most teams don’t want to see from their expected No. 1 WR.
He is currently ranked 36th in our Blitz WR rankings.
Chuba Hubbard, Carolina
Chuba Hubbard’s drop in the rankings is a pretty obvious one – third-year RB Jonathon Brooks.
Reports continue to come out the Panthers training camp that Brooks looks good in his first camp after missing his first two thanks to back-to-back knee surgeries.
Brooks was drafted in the second round of the 2024 NFL Draft out of the University of Texas, but he tore his ACL during his final year at Texas. He was limited to three games late in his rookie season before tearing his same ACL again to miss all of the 2025 season.
And Hubbard has never been a RB to tear off long TD runs as he’s a more ground-and-pound type of RB. Brooks provides that home run threat the Panthers will need after Rico Dowdle left in free agency in the offseason.
Hubbard is currently 28th on our Blitz RB rankings, while Brooks is 39th.
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