Draft Strategy From The 1.04 In 2026 Fantasy Football: Is Puka Nacua The Answer In Round 1?
Fantasy

Draft Strategy From The 1.04 In 2026 Fantasy Football: Is Puka Nacua The Answer In Round 1?

Chris Allen breaks down the optimal strategy from the 1.04 draft slot in 2026 fantasy football.

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I’ve mentioned throughout my writing or on-camera appearances, but I love to cook. Whether it’s brewing beer or creating a meal for friends and family, the idea of being in the kitchen surrounded by pots, pans and provisions is my sanctuary. Keyword: my.

Despite having a recipe, which, when you think about it, are really just guidelines, cooking gives me the freedom to bend a dish to my palate. My wife calls it “going rogue". But, in truth, working from a flexible position gives you more insight into what works and doesn’t.

The 1.04 draft spot is the first slot where there are no expectations about your first pick. There’s no pressure from the market to go with a specific RB or WR. The whole roster-building process just became more malleable. However, it’s still on you (or us, at least for now) to determine the right ingredients to come up with a viable roster.

Draft Tip From The 1.04 in 2026 Fantasy Football Drafts

Keep Throwing Darts

I couldn’t stand spaghetti as a kid. Maybe I’ve watched Goodfellas or The Godfather too many times, but I enjoy making it. The sauce is the hook. But while I’m browning the beef and sausage along with getting the tomato mixture right, the noodles are boiling on the back burner. They’re important, but again, the sauce has priority. So I’ll switch my attention to the pasta, set it aside, and get back to my main focus.

That’s how we should approach QB and TE in drafts. Pick our spots to address the position and then go right back to adding starters and depth. And the reasoning isn’t just so we have capable subs should our stars have a bad matchup. It’s so we have a fallback plan when our offseason analysis proves to be wrong.

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Blerd Tip: I tend to use mean (or average) often since, like median, it’s a single number. It’s easier to report or use when adding context. But a single large or small value can skew an average. Meanwhile, the median, or middle number, remains unchanged, giving it more applicability to smaller samples that have more volatility to them.

I compared the median (middle) change in offseason fantasy football ADP to end-of-season rank for both RBs and WRs from 2021 to 2025. Luckily, our early-round selections have been safe. Yes, the overall picture shows a drop in value. But if I drafted the WR1 and got the WR7, I’m not quibbling over the drop as long as I can make up the difference elsewhere.

Also, look at where the behavior gets worse. For WRs, it’s in rounds 4-6 and the later rounds. Not every WR1B or WR2 we pick up after the third round will work out. There’s a similar (but later) story for RBs. We stroll down Narrative Street all offseason with stories of how Jacory Croskey-Merritt will reclaim some of his rookie-season magic or Cam Skattebo’s penchant for putting himself in harm’s way will result in more touches for Tyrone Tracy. They make for good bets, but the odds might be longer than we realize. So, our best approach? Keep making more bets.

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 To go with how the season shakes out, I also looked at how often players outkick their ADP. Admittedly, I didn’t set a threshold as I wasn’t looking for league winners. In other words, even if an RB or WR improved on their preseason ADP by one spot, I considered them a hit. I’ll take even a small return on my investment. Anyway, here’s where we see the value in continuing to build on the core positions.

Hit rates for WRs crest in the middle rounds after the frenzy for WR2s ebbs. Essentially, once gamers believe they’ve exhausted all of the “can’t miss” options and flip to other positions. Brian Thomas Jr. (2024), Ladd McConkey (2024) and Jaxon Smith-Njigba (2024) headline the list of hits from this area of the draft. We could buckey all three into a “rookies and receivers primed for a Year 2 breakout” profile, bringing sophomores like Matthew Golden and Jayden Higgins into the spotlight. With RBs, there’s a different takeaway here.

Here are a few examples over the last three seasons of RBs that gained value relative to their offseason ADP from the middle and late rounds. The common bond across them all? Their ambiguous backfield. A whopping 75% of the hits that came from this area of the draft were the projected backups. We cast them aside in favor of the idea that the depth chart was gospel.

Which is why I’m keeping a candle lit for guys like Chris Rodriguez and Isiah Pacheco. Jacksonville has Bhayshul Tuten on a four-year, $5.28M rookie deal and still chose to bring in Rodriguez for twice the cost. The former Commander has the size to steal the short-yardage/goal-line work as he did for Washington, making the multi-round gap between the RBs a worthy wager for the Tuten doubters. 

And we know Detroit’s tendency for using multiple rushers. David Montgomery’s lowest carry share was 37% (2025). I’m as much of a Gibbs supporter as the next person, but taking a shot on the RB46 (in a productive offense) to slide up a few spots is how bench depth complements a strong starting roster.

Now, let’s draft!

For reference, here’s the format I chose:

  • 10 teams
  • PPR
  • 1QB, 2RBs, 2WRs, 1TE, 1FLEX, 1K, 1DST, 6 Bench

You’re On the Clock With 1.04!

As you’ll notice, I’ve cut the number of teams down to 10, and I did it for a couple of reasons. First, to test my theories about the shift in ADP for skill position players when you change the number of drafters. But also, I want to iterate a few times.

Because, as I mentioned, there are two separate paths we can pursue right away. The Draft Assistant in our Draft Champion tool highlights the immediate split in roster-building strategies to emphasize my point.

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 I sang the praises of Puka Nacua when comparing his candidacy for the 1.03 to Ja’Marr Chase’s. The Bengals’ offensive environment was the tie-breaker in favor of Cincinnati’s WR1. However, one could make the point that having HC Sean McVay as a playcaller bridges most of that gap. In 2024, one of Joe Burrow’s best (read healthy) seasons, the Rams and Bengals were near-mirror images across multiple efficiency metrics. Other than Nacua finding himself in the blue tent more often than fantasy gamers prefer (just one 17-game season in three years), drafting him at the 1.04 has its merits. But then again, there’s a similar case for Christian McCaffrey.

  • Rush Att Rate Rank (amongst all RBs): 5th (2025), 10th (2023), 11th (2022)
  • Target Share Rank: 1st, 2nd, 1st
  • Goal-Line Share Rank: 5th, 15th, 8th 

Over the last five years, if you’ve drafted McCaffrey and gotten at least 16 games out of him, you’ve been rewarded. He’s finished as the RB1, RB1 and RB2 in those three seasons he’s avoided injury. His secret to success in fantasy? His skill set as a receiver. Last year alone, McCaffrey ran more routes (511) than Jaxon Smith-Njigba (487). The 49ers’ RB1 earned more targets (129) than Courtland Sutton (124), Tetairoa McMillan (122) and A.J. Brown (121). All WR1s on their respective squads. Meanwhile, only Jonathan Taylor (323) had more carries.

It's the same proposition we make with Derrick Henry every year. An aging RB with “less tread on his tires” carries injury risk. Sure! But a rusher who garners this much volume can swing championships. Especially one that combines the ground production with receiving talent. And with San Francisco using at most Day 2 or 3 picks at the position over the last two years, and neither prospect boasting similar pass-catching ability, McCaffrey’s profile is hard to bypass as the RB3 for ’26.

So, let’s build teams with both players.

The Rest of the Early Rounds From The 1.04 In Fantasy Football

Unsurprisingly, the shift to a smaller league brings us some players that weren’t even on our radar when playing from the 1.03. 

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 With a couple more drafters, most (if not all) will be gone by the time you’re back on the clock. Curious that the top recommendations for the team that started with Nacua are either RBs or Brock Bowers. I don’t want to pigeonhole us into a WR-RB start, but let’s use our arbitrage logic to see if taking the top WR (DeVonta Smith) is necessary.

At least two of the WRs that should still be in the player pool by next pick have projected point totals greater than Smith’s. In other words, I can get “Smith-like” production at a lesser cost. Meanwhile, the RB point totals plummet (Jeremiyah Love – 246.9 PPR points, next best available rusher). So, given the options, focusing on our ground game is an optimal move. But let’s consider Bowers and the elite TE profiles, again.

  • 2025 Season: WR4 (TE1), WR16 (TE2), WR23 (TE3)
  • 2024 Season: WR8, WR9, WR15

I took a snippet of my earlier TE analysis to highlight the idea that they need to match certain thresholds to pay off their price. Essentially, if being in the top-10 WRs is in their range of outcomes, fire away. And routes and target rates are a prime indicator. Luckily, the last time we saw Bowers healthy, he showed all the signs of a WR with a TE designation.

  • (2024) Total Routes: 1st (out of 27 qualifiers – min. 50% team route rate)
  • Targets per Route Run: 2nd
  • Red-Zone Target Share: 2nd 

So, now we have another universe to explore where we take one of the top TEs. And by applying some of the previous tips, we’ve got three strong contenders coming out of the early rounds. 

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Taking a QB and TE in the early rounds is a strategy I tend to avoid, but I wanted to test. As I’ve laid out, I want as many shots at the core positions when I’m likeliest to find talent in productive situations. However, as our hit rate chart indicated, those chances level off in rounds 4-6 and start to pick up later. Sure, I’d have to not only add a starter (for my FLEX) but build out my bench depth. But the flexibility of not having to address either onesie position for the rest of the draft may yield a playoff-level squad.

Mid-Round Pitfalls From The 1.04 To Avoid

Let’s focus on Teams 1 and 3 for a moment and apply our mid-round evaluation process. The gaps should stand out, but let’s walk through each roster.

  • Team 1
    • Need a FLEX starter
    • Want a strong RB2-B (in case Tuten-Rodriguez split goes against us)
    • Want more WR depth (it’s a PPR league)
  • Team 2
    • Need a QB
    • Need an RB2-B (details below)
    • Want RB depth

The downside to Travis Etienne is simple. His highest target rate was 12.0%, and that was back in 2023. It’s declined every season since. New Orleans retained Alvin Kamara. Also, the highest share of the looks any RB has gotten under Kellen Moore, as HC or OC, was 12.3% (Ezekiel Elliott, 2019). Said another way, I’m not looking for a home run once we get into the middle rounds. Let’s hit a double and find other rushers to get us around the bases. 

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 At worst, RJ Harvey’s projected 46 targets (leads Denver RBs) along with roughly a third of the carries will net us a few weeks in the top 24. Tony Pollard can do the same with optimism growing around the Titans and the pairing between Cam Ward and Brian Daboll. The big-picture takeaway is that instead of focusing on a single player to solve my problems, I’m splitting the load between two players with a similar range of outcomes. But with Team 1, I only needed one guy to do the job. 

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 Of course, I’ll be sensitive to the news. And reports of Jadarian Price having a role as a kick returner (even though he led the NCAA in kickoff return TDs and yards while at Notre Dame) are at least noteworthy. But, as I’ve been preaching, look at the full profile before backing off of a player. His draft capital and athletic testing put him in the RB2 bucket. Plus, as my third rusher, his development and Seattle’s backfield evolution can play out without adding more risk to my team.

Building a Championship Fantasy Football Roster From The 1.04 In 2026

Well, here we are. The moment of truth. After going through the later rounds, the tool projected each of our squad’s standings by the end of the season. I don’t think we did too bad.

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 Now, if projections were gospel, we’d never have any problems after September came around. But I’ll admit that I need to revisit my stance on taking a QB and TE early in drafts. Here’s the full squad:

Remember, it’s a 10-team league. But still, a lot of breaks went my way. Other teams followed ADP, where your league members will have preseason or training camp hype on their minds. So, while even I’ll concede that this team would be hard to recreate in an actual league, finding similar profiles of players can get you to the same result.

Players Mentioned in this Article

  1. Puka Nacua
    PukaNacua
    WRLARLAR
    PPG
    19.8
    Proj
    266.6

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