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Should You Draft Or Fade Christian McCaffrey In 2026 Fantasy Football?
In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter, presented by UNest ...
One of the biggest annual storylines in fantasy football: Should you really trust Player X to stay healthy and be as good as they were last season coming off such a big workload?
There have been studies by learned fantasy football scholars over the years indicating that 370 touches is the breaking point for RBs. Playoff touches will sometimes be included, depending on whatever biased agenda the author is attempting to push.
On the one hand, I clearly despise the idea that an arbitrary number is the difference between an RB being fine vs. screwed for next season. By this logic, Bijan Robinson's 365 and 366 touches over the past two seasons make him good to go, and Jonathan Taylor (369 touches in 2025) is also safe! Nothing to see here!
On the other hand, I do have eyes, and Saquon Barkley didn't seem to carry the same juice in 2025 following his monstrous 2024 workload (482 touches, including postseason). It also just intuitively makes sense that a ridiculous number of touches takes something away from these alleged human beings.
To try to get a better feel for whether RBs do indeed tend to crash out following a high-usage season, I looked at the 30 instances of an RB getting 350-plus touches in a single season (including playoffs) from 2015-2024 and what they managed to achieve in their following campaign. Still an arbitrary number, but at least we have a bigger and more recent sample size that takes place in the last decade. Call me crazy, but I'm not sure if Eric Dickerson's numbers from the 1980s are overly relevant in the year 2026.
The results (you can see a full chart here):
- Only 4 of 30 (13.3%) high-touch backs exceeded their previous season's average PPR points per game.
- Not ideal, although this still produced 16.6 PPR points per game (pretty solid average (RB14.7) and median (RB12) position ranks. For reference, last season Chase Brown averaged 16.6 PPR points per game and finished as the RB7.
- Average yards per carry went from 4.7 to 4.1 (-0.6).
- Average games played the next season AFTER having 350-plus touches: 13.3. The median was 16 (including playoffs).
- It's tough to say age or career touch count is too much of an issue in terms of predicting near-term health, as 12 of the last 13 qualifiers (sorry CMC) played at least 13 games the next season.
It's tempting to hang our hat on that first bullet and conclude that a 13.3% hit rate of improvement isn't worth investing in. No running back has repeated as fantasy's overall PPR RB1 since Priest Holmes back in 2002-03 after all. Why not just fade Christian McCaffrey?
But yet, I can't do it.
Big workload numbers are probably something we should address on a case-by-case basis, instead of trying to find a definitive rule of thumb. Does David Johnson's dislocation of his wrist in Week 1 of 2017 really mean we shouldn't draft CMC in 2026?
What's actually worse: McCaffrey entering 2026 coming off 450 touches, or him entering 2025 coming off a season that was derailed by severe Achilles and PCL injuries?
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Just think, last summer, Fernando Mendoza was an afterthought in the college football landscape. A nondescript transfer to Indiana, all Mendoza did was lead the Hoosiers on an epic 16-0 run, completing 72% of his passes for 3,535 yards and 41 TDs on the way to winning the Heisman Trophy. He also threw in a gritty game-sealing TD run for the ages that locked down the first national championship for Indiana. All that before recently being the first pick in the NFL Draft of the Las Vegas Raiders. Everything seems to be going up for Mendoza and those who believed in him. A bright NFL future is in front of him.
UNest works the same way. You don't wait until your kid is 16 to start building their financial future. You start now, when time is your single greatest advantage. A tax-advantaged investment account that grows with your child, set up in under 10 minutes. The long game is always the smartest play, on the field and off it.
Three-Round Superflex Rookie Mock Draft
Jake Trowbridge here. You might be asking yourself, “Isn’t a one-man dynasty rookie mock draft just like … your dynasty rookie rankings?” And sure, if you wanna be a Simple Susan about it, I guess that’s technically true.
But where’s the pizazz in that?? Besides, this way I get to snipe myself, which is always fun. And no, that’s not a euphemism. Let’s get into it with some of the standout picks in my mock draft …
👀 1.02 - Makai Lemon | WR | PHI
Sure, you could draft Fernando Mendoza here because of positional scarcity. But that’s just playing scared! I’m not going to pass up my pre-draft WR1, who should be a focal point in the Eagles' new look offense.
I also acknowledge that I’m on an island with this opinion. But what can I say? I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel.
📈 1.07 - Jadarian Price | RB | SEA
This might be the best fit of the entire NFL draft. Price could get a horse-sized workload while Zach Charbonnet works his way back from injury. But even if he gets stuck in a messy split, no running back is better suited to squeeze fantasy points out of limited opportunities than the ultra-efficient Notre Dame product.
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There are two schools of thought on this 49ers pick:
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- Lynch and the organization have taken so much heat for the pick that they’re going to force Stribling down our throats whether he’s actually good or not.
The possibility of the latter makes him enticing.
😬 3.02 - Carson Beck | QB | ARI
This is Superflex, and we can’t turn a blind eye to any rookie QB with the potential to start games at some point this season (6, by our projections). Jacoby Brissett isn't exactly bulletproof, after all.
⚡️ 3.12 - Brenen Thompson | WR | LAC
Let’s end this with a bang. Mike McDaniel told everyone in the draft room he’d take his shirt off if the Chargers drafted this little speedster. And McDaniel doesn’t exactly reek of Thor’s workout routine. He’s going to try his best to make Thompson a thing.
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