Fantasy Football Week 1 Fades & Busts: Terry McLaurin, Christian Watson among players to consider avoiding

Welcome to the first of many weekly columns spotlighting the fantasy football fades of the week! I am your host, Matt Okada, and I'll be bringing you half a dozen potential busts each and every Friday, from now until the fantasy playoffs.

As a note, just because a player earns a "fade" or "bust" designation doesn't automatically mean they should be benched — it depends on the rest of your roster or the options on your waiver wire. But you can expect them to fall short of expectations (when I get them right). I include a "What to Do" section for every player to help with that.

Without further ado, here is my list for Week 1 of the 2025 season.

This week, the Chiefs and their fans got the good news that Patrick Mahomes is expected to start Monday night ... but that's not necessarily good news for his fantasy managers. It'll be his first game since his major knee injury back in September ... and it comes against the Denver Broncos.

Mahomes has played Denver four times in the three seasons since Vance Joseph took over as defensive coordinator. Mahomes hasn't hit 18 fantasy points in any of those four outings and has averaged just 13.2 PPG in total, with three TD passes, four interceptions, 64 QB pressures and 12 sacks. He finished outside the top 10 quarterbacks in fantasy each of the last three times that he faced his division rival ... and all of this history comes before tearing multiple knee ligaments, having surgery and rehabbing for just nine months. Mahomes will almost certainly be less than 100% this weekend, and that's a recipe for concern against one of the most dangerous defenses in the league. When healthy and taking on a middle-of-the-road opponent, Mahomes is excellent for fantasy — but on Monday, I'd consider him well outside QB1 range.

What to do ❓ Unless you're in a 2QB league, there are almost certainly streaming options worth playing over Mahomes. Guys like Jared Goff, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray are easy decisions, and even Tyler Shough and Bo Nix (in the same game) would be preferred. Don't be surprised if he finishes closer to QB20 than QB10 (or certainly QB1).

I've been touting Tuten as one of the biggest bust candidates in all of fantasy this offseason, so it should not come as a surprise to see him crack this column in Week 1 against Cleveland. As it seems much of the fantasy community is finally starting to realize, Tuten was crowned as the RB1 in Jacksonville far too quickly after Travis Etienne Jr.'s departure. Tuten is a fourth-round pick who was hit-or-miss as a rookie, and the Jaguars immediately signed Chris Rodriguez Jr. to compete with Tuten back in March. Notably, Rodriguez was better than Tuten in a number of deeper metrics in 2025, including rush yards before and after contact per carry and explosive run rate (which is supposed to be Tuten's strength).

Then, reports out of training camp repeatedly suggested that the backfield would be more of a committee, with Rodriguez allegedly favored in short yardage, goal-line and two-minute situations.

Despite all of this, Tuten continued to be one of the darlings of the fantasy draft community up until maybe the past week or so, when Rodriguez was listed as a co-starter on the official depth chart, and the reality began to finally set in. I'd nearly guarantee that Tuten will not see the 17 touches per game that Etienne shouldered last season, and I'd frankly be less surprised to see that number end up in the single digits. Rodriguez will also be a major threat to vulture touchdowns all season long and will be my preferred play in games Jacksonville is heavily favored ... like it is against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.

Tuten will have good games in 2026, and there might even be several you can start him for with confidence, but not in Week 1.

What to do ❓ You likely drafted Tuten as a low-end RB2, so here's hoping you have an alternate to play in the RB2 slot or in your FLEX. If you can, try to bench him for at least this first week to get a sense for the snap and touch distribution in Duval. Names worth playing ahead of him include Jaylen Warren, Tony Pollard, Bucky Irving and possibly even MarShawn Lloyd (though I don't love playing him either).

If you had RJ Harvey down the stretch last season, loved his fantasy output and drafted him again in 2026, hoping for an encore ... you might want to temper expectations. Yes, the second-round pick out of UCF was a top-20 running back from Week 11 on last year, with double-digit touches in every outing and six total touchdowns. But that also coincided with the season-ending injury to J.K. Dobbins, which opened a door for Harvey that had been tightly shut the first 10 weeks. Prior to Dobbins' departure, Harvey had averaged just 8.7 fantasy points per game and seen more than seven carries just once. In fact, his already iffy fantasy output was inflated by four receiving touchdowns across a six-week stretch — Harvey scored just once through the air after taking over as the starter in Week 11.

And, of course, Dobbins is back and healthy for the start of the 2026 season, after signing a two-year, $16 million contract with the Broncos in March. Unsurprisingly, the unofficial depth chart lists Dobbins as the starter over Harvey, and we haven't even mentioned the added presence of exciting rookie Jonah Coleman, who made my All-Sleeper Team a week ago. And to top it all off, Denver is facing the Chiefs defense in Kansas City — never a friendly proposition — and has a bottom-eight lower implied total on the week (20.5). Harvey was just okay in two games against Kansas City as the lead back last year, averaging 11.3 points per game in half-PPR. Now the No. 2 (at best) in a potentially three-headed backfield, I'd expect less from the second-year back on Monday night.

What to do ❓ Sit Harvey if at all possible. It should be plenty doable outside of very deep leagues, as you can honestly pivot to either Panthers back, either Vikings back, either Commanders back, Chris Rodriguez Jr., Tyler Allgeier and others ahead of Harvey.

If this was Week 1 of the 2025 season, after the year Terry McLaurin had in 2024, this would sound patently absurd. He scored 13 touchdowns and was the WR6 overall two years ago ... but he scored just three touchdowns, missed seven games and was just the WR35 in points per game last year. Considering he scored 4-5 in each of the prior four seasons, we can pretty clearly pinpoint 2024 as the outlier. Additionally, McLaurin saw clear WR1 targets in each of those seasons, because he had basically no legitimate competition for targets at the position — unless you're a big Curtis Samuel truther.

Now, McLaurin finally has a legitimate volume receiver alongside him in Stefon Diggs, who Washington signed late this offseason on a one-year deal. I firmly disagree with those who say Diggs is "washed" — particularly after he logged an 83.3% catch rate, 11.9 yards per reception and 2.4 yards per route run with New England last year. For the first time in his career, I think McLaurin will be more of a 1B, particularly serving as the downfield threat and field-stretcher to Diggs' possession role underneath. With Washington's highly-suspect offensive line, I much prefer the latter role for fantasy purposes, particularly for consistency's sake.

And even if McLaurin has flash games, or is good all year, he opens with a matchup against the Eagles, who allowed just six touchdowns to wideouts last season, tied with the Broncos for fewest in the league. Philly was particularly tough against outside wide receivers in 2025, where McLaurin will likely line up the vast majority of the time.

What to do ❓ For me, McLaurin is outside WR2 range and probably just outside FLEX range as well, in typically sized leagues. He could always hit that one big play to make his day, but if he doesn't, you may be stuck with a four-catch, 50-yard stat line and wish you'd gone with any number of guys on your bench.

Speaking of field-stretchers who need to hit that one big play to matter for fantasy ... I have never been a particularly big fan of Christian Watson. In the 14 career games that Watson has found paydirt, he's averaged 18.1 fantasy points per game and had some extremely high highs. But in the other 34 games of his career, Watson has never seen more than eight targets or more than six catches, has fallen short of double-digit fantasy points 29 times and has averaged 5.4 points per game. In the 30 games he has not caught a touchdown or a reception of 50+ yards, he's averaged 4.6 fantasy points per game.

Across four seasons in total, Watson has one game with double-digit targets and zero games with eight or more catches. Just to contextualize Watson's consistent lack of volume, here's a fun list of guys over that span who do have games with eight or more catches: former teammate Romeo Doubs (three such games), Russell Gage (two), K.J. Osborn (two), Devaughn Vele (two), as well as Gunner Olszewski, Ray-Ray McCloud, Richie James, Isaiah Hodgins, Quez Watkins and Ryan Flournoy (among others).

Could Watson hit that one play against the Vikings? Maybe. There's probably something like a one-in-three chance. But if he doesn't? You're looking at a busted week. And to make matters worse, Minnesota allowed the fewest fantasy points to wideouts last year. Even with Doubs and Dontayvion Wicks gone, and Watson's new contract, I'm not willing to trust it until I see consistently meaningful volume and a more reliable floor.

What to do ❓ Watson's in a very similar spot to McLaurin: outside WR2 range, just outside of FLEX range, very boom-or-bust play. Unless your lineup feels in desperate need of a jolt, I'd rather play a more reliable option like Tony Pollard in my FLEX. Oh, and please start Parker Washington over both of these guys if you have the chance.

Mark Andrews has a long and storied career of fantasy excellence at the tight end position, so it's hard to put him in a column like this ... but here we are. Over the final seven weeks of last season, Andrews averaged 2.3 catches and 20.9 receiving yards per game, with zero touchdowns. He never hit double-digit fantasy points over that stretch, averaging just 3.3 per game. The list of tight ends who outscored him from Week 12 on includes Gunnar Helm, Josh Oliver and A.J. Barner.

Don't get me wrong, the arrival of OC Declan Doyle, departure of Isaiah Likely and prospective rebound campaign from Lamar Jackson could all play in Andrews' favor in 2026. Maybe he has a resurgent season at 31 years old. To me, that seems a little far-fetched, and I'd like to see some believable and sustainable production from the veteran before putting him in my starting lineup again. Specifically, Andrews did not top four catches or 50 receiving yards once after the month of September last season. Unless he returns to form as a go-to target for Jackson, he belongs in the tier of "touchdown-or-bust" tight ends outside the top 12.

What to do ❓ The tight end position is admittedly shallow, so you may not have a wealth of alternative options to Andrews. But he is outside TE1 range for me in Week 1, and you can consider streamers like Isaiah Likely, Juwan Johnson, Dalton Kincaid, Dalton Schultz and Michael Mayer (sans Brock Bowers) over him.