These are Walter’s Sunday Nuggets featuring:
🚨 3 pieces of NFL news (two expected, one unexpected) that could all have a huge effect on fantasy
📚 Reading recap from our team from this week - if you’ve ever wondered how we account for coaching impact in our player projections you’ll love one of these!
🎥 Highlights from the WalterPicks content team - terrible schedules for RBs and the worst WR duos in the league
Before we get into it…let’s do a pulse check on the 1.01 for 2026 drafts.
Who are you taking 1st overall in a fantasy draft today? (PPR)
🚨 Important NFL News
What it means for fantasy:
"He's in the middle of it. It's such a hard thing. It's an ACL, and whatever else he had in that knee."
"Not a simple knee [injury], you know? So, he's in the slog of it, the grind of it, I would say. So, he's fighting through it, and he's here every day working hard at it." - John Harbaugh
Malik Nabers is an absolute stay-away until further notice. In my Tuesday piece about coaching impact on fantasy I highlighted that we are already projecting the Giants to pass a lot less this year. The chances of Malik Nabers being fully available, let alone fully himself this season seem microscopic.
As of this writing, Nabers has a late 2nd round ADP in Underdog Best Ball drafts. That is irresponsibly high right now.
What it means for fantasy:
Do not panic about Rashee Rice.
Alongside this news came a report that Rice underwent surgery that is expected to sideline him two months. For a veteran player like Rice who is recovering from a surgery, OTA’s and minicamp were never going to mean that much.
Rice was utterly dominant in the Chiefs WR room last season, finishing 4th in WR target share for the entire league. The Chiefs did nothing to bolster their pass catchers. Barring any setbacks, these reports are likely to be forgotten by the time the season begins.
Draft Rice with confidence.
What it means for fantasy:
Shocker.
As boring as this news is, Rodgers is very much a stabilizing force in the Steelers passing game. They were top-10 in the league in passing rate last season. The hiring of Mike McCarthy who loves using 3 WR sets and the additions of Michael Pittman Jr. and Germie Bernard only reinforce that they want to play behind a pass heavy offense.
Rodgers was not good last season but Drew Allar, Mason Rudolph, or Will Howard would all almost certainly be worse for the fantasy viability of this offense.
📚 Reading Highlights
Most Clicked Story in the Walter Nuggets last week: You all loved Joey’s piece breaking down the winners and losers of the schedule release.
🎥 RB’s with the Hardest Schedules
5 - Chase Brown (Bengals)
4 - D’Andre Swift (Bears)
3 - Chuba Hubbard (Panthers)
2 - ?????????????
1 - ?????????????
Click the video to see the top 2 👇👇
🎥 5 WORST WR Duos 📉
5 - Carnell Tate + Wan’Dale Robinson (Titans)
4 - Jerry Jeudy + KC Concepcion (Browns)
3 - Romeo Doubs + Kayshon Boutte (Patriots)
2 - ???????????
1 - ???????????
Number 1 is pretty obvious. Number 2, maybe not so much…
