Every August someone builds the Do Not Draft list and everyone nods along. Karabell flipped it, and the flip side is more useful: a full roster of guys going later than their production says they should. Running back is the headline theme, mostly because fantasy managers keep loading up on quarterbacks in rounds 3 through 6 while proven bell cows slide. If you play in a redraft league that still treats RB as scarce, this list is basically a shopping guide.
The running back tier is where the value actually lives. James Cook III racked up 342 touches for 1,912 scrimmage yards and 14 touchdowns last year and finished as the No. 6 scorer at the position, yet he's still sliding to Round 2 on plenty of boards. Chase Brown finished as the RB8 overall in 2025 and is now getting drafted around the 12th to 15th overall pick depending on the platform, which some analysts are flatly calling theft for a workhorse in a top-five offense. Derrick Henry, now 32, keeps showing up anyway, with double-digit touchdowns in eight straight seasons and top-10 finishes in six of the last seven. Age curves are supposed to catch him eventually. They haven't yet.
Then there's the sneaky-good tier further down the board. Javonte Williams quietly put up 1,201 rushing yards and 13 total touchdowns as Dallas's lead back and is somehow still going in Round 5. David Montgomery takes over as Houston's starter and is priced like an afterthought around Round 8 despite a real shot at reliable RB2 numbers at 29. Kenny Gainwell in Tampa and J.K. Dobbins in Denver both come cheap enough to stash as handcuff-plus-upside plays, and Karabell says he'll reach a round or two for both. If your league mate is hoarding a third quarterback in Round 6 while these guys go undrafted in the same range, let them.
Quarterback is where this list gets spicy, because Patrick Mahomes headlines it after tearing his ACL and LCL against the Chargers last December. He's practicing in a brace at training camp, taking every rep the Chiefs will give him, and by all accounts is on track for Week 1 against Denver, well ahead of the usual nine-month recovery window. Vegas already believes in the comeback story: DraftKings has Mahomes as the +150 favorite for Comeback Player of the Year and gives him +1000 to win a third MVP, with Kansas City's win total sitting at 10.5. Fantasy drafters, meanwhile, are letting him fall into QB2 territory. That's a gap worth exploiting in single-QB leagues, and an obvious target in superflex.
Brock Purdy and Jared Goff round out the QB value case and it's almost embarrassing how far each has fallen. Purdy was the No. 6 fantasy scorer at the position in 2023 and is being drafted outside the top 100 picks overall. Goff has been a top-10 fantasy QB in each of the last four seasons and is going 16th at the position anyway, which is the kind of name-brand discount you rarely see on a guy with that track record. Neither needs to be a Round 6 pick to pay off; both are profit machines from Round 10 onward.
At receiver, Justin Jefferson is the obvious buy-low, sitting at a career-low ADP right around the early second round after a down 2025 that had far more to do with bad quarterback play around him than anything wrong with Jefferson himself. Zay Flowers finished seventh in wide receiver scoring last season but is going 17th at the position, which is about as clean a market inefficiency as fantasy football produces. Mike Evans, fresh off a three-year, $60.4 million deal that sent him from Tampa to San Francisco, is being treated like a retirement candidate instead of a guy who's cleared 1,000 yards and 11 touchdowns as recently as two seasons ago in a Shanahan offense that should feed him early downs and red-zone looks.
Tight end has its own value play thanks to a contract. Mark Andrews signed a three-year, roughly $39 million extension with Baltimore in December, locking in the volume that comes with being the guy the front office just paid to keep around. He's got five top-five finishes at the position in the last seven years and is being drafted like a TE2. Tucker Kraft, coming back from a torn ACL as Green Bay's clear top receiving option, deserves better than his current ADP too. Both are cheap enough to pair as a TE strategy without spending a real pick early.
The through-line for draft rooms: don't let name recognition and recency bias dictate your board. Stack the RB position early since Karabell's numbers back up the scarcity argument, then let the QB and TE discounts fall to you in the middle rounds while everyone else reaches. Mahomes as a QB2 with Comeback Player of the Year buzz and a top-five MVP number attached is the single cleanest arbitrage on this whole list — draft him like the QB1 Vegas already thinks he is.