Falling in love with the Chargers over the summer among Scott Pianowski's biggest fantasy football regrets at midseason
· Yahoo Sports
We’re already into the second half of the fantasy football season, so it’s a good time to do some reflecting on what we’ve missed on. And there will never be any shortage of ideas for a column like this — it’s easier to be wrong than right in this intoxicating, but maddening, game. Thankfully, you only need to be right a little more than the guy next to you to ultimately have a successful season.
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It’s been a solid year for most of my teams, as all of my Yahoo clubs have winning records and I’m still alive in my Death League. But today is not a day to play the hits. Now is when we scratch the record, take out the trash, make some sheepish confessions.
Here are some of my 2026 regrets as we move into Week 10.
I didn’t properly rate Kenneth Walker III’s upside
Sure, the frame sounded nice. Walker was stepping into a featured role in Kansas City and leaving the Seattle platoon behind. The Chiefs felt better about their offensive line, too. But it was hard to ignore that Walked was often dinged up with the Seahawks, and had never handled more than 255 carries in a season.
Through nine weeks, Walker is the most impactful fantasy player of the year, rostered on 54.4% of the top-500 Yahoo teams. He’s going to the moon, and it’s frustrating to not be on that ship. I do have a fair amount of Emmett Johnson as a contingency play, not that we ever root for injuries. But if Walker keeps running to fantasy glory, there will probably be cleat marks on my back.
I was mildly skeptical Jaxon Smith-Njigba could be a demigod again
This goes down as a soft fade, because all I did in August was slide Amon-Ra St. Brown ahead of JSN, feeling better about the Detroit infrastructure and schedule. It was fair to wonder if the Seattle offense would drop off without OC Klint Kubiak. Alas, JSN has been just as good as last year, even with Sam Darnold missing some time, and Brian Fleury has been just fine with the play sheet.
Let’s be clear, St. Brown’s WR7 start hasn’t hurt that much. But JSN is two points ahead of the pack on the wide receiver board. It stings.
I stacked some older players on the same teams
This became a long-running joke as I navigated the salary cap draft in my long-standing hometown league. I scooped up perceived values on Derrick Henry ($34), Mike Evans ($5) and Davante Adams ($8), writing “OLD” in the chat log as each offer went final. Any of those players would make sense in a balanced build, but to roster that many back-nine guys on the same team — even if we’re talking about likely Hall of Famers — was probably reckless. Henry (who I’ve since traded) has been in a slow decline this year, Evans is on the injury report every week, and Adams was a forced cut after his hamstring injury.
Normally I would have steered away from this many career-arc concerns, but the offers were so low on Evans and Adams, I couldn’t help myself. I’m feeling the sting of it now, still projected for the playoffs but with no wiggle room.
I didn’t respect Ollie Gordon II enough as a plausible pickup
When De’Von Achane went down in mid-September, every engaged fantasy manager scouted the backfield for a likely successor. I likely paid too much attention to the low returns Gordon showed in limited 2025 action, and not enough eyes on his decent production at Oklahoma State. Gordon hasn’t exactly taken the league by storm, but he’s been the RB19 since the Achane injury, a steady RB2 option. I had the top waiver priority in the Yahoo Expert League when the handoff was made, and my RB2 slot has been sketchy all year. Not selecting Gordon was an unmistakable error.
I didn’t stack anyone with Jordan Love
Even when you get something right, you can pair it with a missed opportunity. Love was one of my favorite late-round QB targets, taking command of a Green Bay offense that can’t run the ball at all. The Packers are the NFL’s most aggressive downfield passing team, and it’s beautiful to watch. But despite my proactive efforts to land Love, I didn’t pair him with breakout receivers Christian Watson or Matthew Golden. Given the simple correlations at play, this feels like an obvious gaffe in retrospect.
I spent a summer in love with the Chargers
We’ll put the most painful one at the end. I believed in new OC Mike McDaniel. I thought they had the offensive line fixed. I saw Justin Herbert as an MVP sleeper, and Ladd McConkey as a perfect fourth-round pick. I even liked the early runout of the schedule, with Arizona in Week 1 and Las Vegas Week 2. Let's do a short-term rental with the D/ST.
It’s all gone horribly wrong. It didn’t help that McConkey was hurt in Week 1 — in the middle of a monster start — and the offensive line quickly fell apart again, but I have to accept that I overrated so many pieces here, especially Herbert and McDaniel. The season can’t end quickly enough for the powerless Chargers. The lucky part of this regret is I didn't get as many Chargers as I wanted in August. Sometimes the football gods save you from yourself. But I have no choice but to own the misguided calls.