I’m at the point in the process when I want to fade the entire fantasy football draft. Summers are filled with good news where everyone is in the best shape of their life, dominating practices (cue Allen Iverson), being lauded by coaches and like the laundry detergent, “new and improved.”Even injuries that happen in practices and will sideline players for weeks at a minimum are just sloughed off as completely inconsequential — “no big deal, he’ll be fine when the season rolls around.” After all, who needs practice? The only purpose of training camp is ranking upgrades.Rose-colored glasses are the eyewear of choice every summer. It’s what we wear when we put together our cheat sheets. Meanwhile, I feel like Rowdy Piper in “They Live”, where my glasses reveal the horrible truth hidden beneath the surface.For my All-Fade team (below), I’m noting where I have the players slotted in my rankings vs. where they are ranked as of Wednesday on Fantasy Pros, using their real-time ADP.QuarterbackLamar Jackson, BAL (QB2; My QB5) I confess, I don’t think a lot about the top of the QB queue because drafting a QB early in a 1QB league (and even in Superflex) is madness. If you want to stack in a deep league and spend a fifth-round pick, maybe I can sign off on that. But in a vacuum? No. That’s just dumb. The reason is that all QB touches are uniform. Running QBs are more valuable, but running at QB is very volatile. And that’s the problem with Jackson. The 1,000-yard rushing years are over. So, too, is anything remotely approaching that. He rushed for 26.8 yards per game last year, less than half his prior-year average. He was 12th in rushing points per game. His scramble percentage was ninth among qualified QBs. His designed run rate was sixth. His rush rate inside the 10 was terrible, and he converted 3% of rushes into TDs. Compare that to 12.5% for Allen, who, yes, is the one remotely reasonable early-QB option (but don’t do it!).Running backSaquon Barkley, PHI (RB7; My RB9)You can say the difference in ranks here is minimal, but Barkley is closer to a dead-zone RB for me than a first-round flyer. And these small differences in positional rank when the picks are that high means that you’re never taking the player. I am drafting WRs over Barkely every time. Last year, Barkley lost 34% of his 2024 production. And it was always just a question of how much he’d lose — not because of some year-prior touch number but just simple regression to the mean. His offensive line collapsed. He was 30th in yards over expected per carry and 43rd in yards after contact per carry. In 2024, he finished second and 17th in those categories, respectively. He was 42nd among 48 qualifiers in success rate. Now, at age 29, he’s in the first collapse season of RB aging curves, where backs produce at about 74% of their peak, on average. Barkley got a pathetic 34% of team rushing attempts inside the 5-yard line (37th among RBs). And he was 1-for-9 converting attempts inside the 5-yard line, the worst rate in the league with that many attempts. I need the RB I draft this early to be the default goal-line option.Wide receiverJustin Jefferson, MIN (WR6; My WR9)The first gate you need to clear before drafting Jefferson is the belief that Kyler Murray will be close to an average passing QB, which he has not been since 2021. Murray’s track record with WRs is not great of late — 3.84 PPR per game for Michael Wilson with Murray compared to 15.5 with Jacoby Brissett. Marvin Harrison was better (but still not playable) with Murray. I keep hearing, “But DeAndre Hopkins…” Well, that was back in 2020-2022. And Hopkins had an average line of 107-1,310-8 per 17 games those three seasons. That’s 16.8 points per game in PPR, which was WR8 last year and WR12 in 2024 (WR scoring was down 8% in 2025). I think WR9 is the right number for Jefferson. And if anything, it’s bullish because this Murray is not as good now as 2000-2022 Murray. Is Jefferson now better than Hopkins then? Probably not.