A projection model is making the rounds with its 2026 bust list, and before you roll your eyes at another algorithm telling you who not to draft, consider the receipts. This is the model that called Terry McLaurin's tough season, and that kind of hit earns some benefit of the doubt. The full breakdown is over at MSN, and I went through it with my own draft board open.

Why the McLaurin call matters: he went into that season with a reputation, the model faded him anyway, and the season went badly enough that the fade became the model's calling card. I don't have the model's internal reasoning in front of me and I'm not going to pretend I do, but the result is what built the credibility. When a projection system puts its flag on a big name and gets it right, the next list deserves a serious look.

So what does the model hunt for generally? Without claiming to speak for its exact criteria, the players who end up on bust lists tend to share a profile: guys being drafted off a career-best season where the underlying numbers suggest the career-best was the outlier, not the new baseline. That's the pattern worth internalizing whether or not you take every name as gospel. If a guy's price is entirely one season of his own resume, I start asking questions.

I'm not going to reprint the entire list, you should click through for that, but I do want to talk process. Because this is where I side with the model over the room: the fantasy industry has a hype escalation problem. A player has one good half-season, the breakout content machine gets three months to marinate on it, and by August he's being drafted well ahead of where his production actually says he belongs. My colleague Ray Delgado rides me about trusting spreadsheets over eyeballs, and I'll admit the eyeballs win sometimes too. The spreadsheet's job is to catch the overdrafted guy before your league mates' hype content does.

The counterargument, and it's a fair one, is that models are built on historical comps and players aren't comps. Someone breaks out for real every season and the bust list makes you look silly for passing on him. That's true. My answer is that you don't have to avoid these players entirely, you just have to refuse to pay the hype tax. If a model bust slides multiple rounds past his average draft position because everyone read the same article you did, the risk profile changes completely, and draft capital decides most of these bets anyway.

My own philosophy lines up with this stuff, and I'll own it. I've said before that drafting off the same consensus board as everyone else is how you end up 7-7 and complaining about luck in December. A bust list is the other half of that same approach. Zig where the market zags, but do it because the numbers told you to, not because you're being a contrarian for the sport of it.

My plan is straightforward. Before every draft, I cross-reference the bust list against current ADP, and any flagged player I'm only taking at a real discount. Discipline over vibes. I track all of this through the season, hits and misses both, so check back in December when we find out whether the model McLaurin'd anybody else.

Who's the one player you're drafting this year that you already know you'll regret? I want names for the accountability file.