LAR · RB
Kyren Williams Fantasy Outlook 2026: The Draft Room Keeps Discounting Him
Williams has finished as a top-10 back three years running and the market still makes you wait until the fourth round. Our board has him 15 spots earlier.
Why the draft room keeps fading a proven backfield workhorse
Our board ranks Kyren Williams 28 overall with 220.0 implied PPR points. ESPN ranks him 38. The draft room does not take him until 42.8.
That is a gap of about 15 picks between our projection and where you can actually get him, which in practice means roughly two rounds of free value. Our value model grades it one of the largest surpluses on the board and puts his fair pick at 23.
Gaps that wide usually mean somebody is wrong in an obvious way. This one is more interesting, because the disagreement is not about what Williams does. Everybody agrees on what he does. The disagreement is about how much it is worth.
A back with no receiving role has a lower ceiling, and that is already in the projection. Discounting him another two rounds charges him for the same flaw twice.
What he has actually done, three years running
He finished as the ninth-best running back in fantasy last season with 263.3 points, on 1,252 rushing yards and 13 total touchdowns. That was his third consecutive season above 1,350 scrimmage yards with double-digit scores.
The market underestimated him again in the process. Sportsbooks posted him at 1,000.5 rushing yards and he ran for 1,252. They had him near 26 receptions and 176 receiving yards; he caught 36 for 281. The only line he did not clear was rushing touchdowns, where he finished 10 against a 10.5 number.
He did it on 4.8 yards per carry while handling 56% of his team's rushing attempts, in an offense that scores enough to keep producing goal-line work.