Yes, I've written about this model multiple times this preseason. No, I'm not sorry. The SportsLine simulation that called Terry McLaurin's down year before it happened has released its 2026 busts and riskiest picks after simulating the new NFL season 10,000 times, and the risky-pick list is the part that actually matters for your draft.

My stance hasn't changed since my first writeup: the sim is a tiebreaker, not gospel. This thing is a hype-check machine. Its whole value is flagging guys going rounds above where 10,000 simulated seasons say they should go. Busts aren't necessarily bad players, they're bad prices.

And that's the framing you need, because the riskiest picks list tends to read like a who's-who of guys you actually like. Quarterbacks and tight ends drafted off one career-best season, receivers whose touchdown totals from last year would be awfully hard to repeat, running backs in committees being priced like workhorses. In my experience, regression quietly wrecks at least as many fantasy seasons as injuries do, maybe more. Whatever the exact split, the McLaurin situation last year is the cautionary tale: the model saw the down year coming, and a lot of drafters found out the hard way.

I keep preaching this but it bears repeating one more time before Week 1: fantasy football has a hype escalation problem. A guy pops for 12 weeks, the discourse machine runs with it, and suddenly he's being drafted two rounds ahead of his floor. Deb and I have been arguing about one of the names on this list for a week now. She's got the eyeballs take, I've got the spreadsheet take, and per usual Ray Delgado would tell me the eyeballs are winning lately. The man keeps receipts on me too.

The way to use this: cross-reference the riskiest picks against your draft board, then figure out WHY each name is flagged. If it's touchdown regression and the player still commands elite volume, you've got a discount on your hands, not a fade. If it's a collapsing touch share or an offense projected to take a step back, that's a genuine leak in the hull.

I'm logging every model-backed call from this preseason, and I'll publish my receipts midseason, right next to my own misses, because accountability only counts if it includes the ugly ones.

So, who'd the sim scare you off of? Drop your riskiest pick in the comments, and if it's a guy I drafted, please let me live in ignorance until at least October.