Transcription
Good morning, friends and enemies. In today's video, we're going to be talking through six players with legitimate league-winning upside in fantasy football for the 2026 season.
Now, these aren't guys that I'm going to be targeting in every single draft. I just think we need to weigh the spectrums. I think we need to weigh the outcomes. I think there are drafts that I want to get these guys in. There are drafts that I'll probably pass up on because the risk and reward are both there. But, if they hit, if they hit, they're going to change the dynamic of the 2026 fantasy football season.
We're going to start off at the very top of the list by tucking our shirts in. I know y'all missed it.
>> [music] [music] >> Waffle shirt into sweatpants is crazy. I know. I know. It's like 8:00 a.m. Whatever. Let me live.
The very first player on this list is Ashton Genty, the running back for the Las Vegas Raiders. And I know. I know. He's a generational prospect. It's crazy to say that he has upside of of a league-winning player given the fact that he was a top-10 draft pick last year, and those are typically the players that end up becoming league-winning players. But, obviously, the steam on him has cooled a little bit after his rookie campaign that was really disappointing. And I think if you know ball at all, you just look at the situation, you look at the offensive line, you look at the surroundings of Ashton Genty, and it's very easy to point the direction of of of why everything faltered last year. So, we're going to talk through what happened last year and why I think it's going to be different in 2026.
The very first thing that needs to be addressed is obviously the offensive line. If you watched any Raiders game last year, even if you were just watching the red zone channel and saw Genty highlights, it was all highlights of his offensive lineman basically falling backwards into the backfield. He was getting hit behind the line of scrimmage every single carry. He ranked 47th among 49 qualified running backs in yards before contact per attempt. Really, really bad. Blake Corum averaged 3.5 yards before contact per attempt, which was more than double the running room that Ashton Genty had last year. When you look at his individual metrics though, when you look at his individual stats in terms of tackle breaking ability, in terms of elusiveness, they were all very, very solid. So, I don't think he came to the NFL level and his speed wasn't up to par or he wasn't the player that he was in college. This to me was purely a circumstantial purely an environmental problem for Ashton Jente.
Now, what's changed going into this year? They went out and signed Tyler Linderbaum from the Baltimore Ravens, which gives them an incredibly solid center there. Will the contract actually match the town here? It doesn't matter because now you take one of the weakest points of your offensive line and make it a strength for yourself. 3 years, $81 million for Tyler Linderbaum. He was the fourth highest graded run blocking center in the NFL last year. Kolton Miller, their best tackle and one of the premier tackles in the NFL, what he's become over the last few years, missed 11 games last year, so he'll be healthy. They spent a day two pick on another offensive lineman. So, if these things work out, we have a much, much improved offensive line. And what I think is the most important change of this off season is Clint Kubiak coming over as the head coach of the Raiders now. Former OC of last year's Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. So, I just think this offense is going to be 100% better, more progressive, a better stylistic fit for Ashton Jente. Just a a ton more creative than what we saw last year.
Quarterback play, you know, we'll we'll see if it's improved. I think it has to be. Geno Smith was terrible last year. They'll either have Kirk Cousins or I think we'll probably project Kirk Cousins under center for somewhere between three and six games and then the number one overall pick Fernando Mendoza taking the rest of the year. You look at quotes from Clint Kubiak. He said, "We've got to get our best running back on the field as much as we can. We want to put a lot of pressure on Ashton." You look at Christian McCaffrey, his play snap percentage is high. Those great backs, they don't want to come off the field. And last year, Jente handled 85% of the opportunities in the backfield, which was the number one opportunity share in the entire NFL, right? That is the type of opportunity share that you covet in fantasy football. That is treasured, right? And if the situation breaks right, you combine situation with opportunity and you have the number one player in fantasy football. You have a guy that is great at catching passes, he's explosive as [ __ ] in a brand new offense, a progressive offense with an upgraded offensive line. So, when you're playing fantasy, you could try to predict all these things. I think you can try to predict opportunity. We saw exactly what the opportunity was last year and it's among the best in the entire NFL. So, for projecting that to be the case again, which I am, all we saw were improvements to the personnel here, to the coaching staff, to the offensive line, to the quarterback. I just don't see a world where Gentry's not getting another 80% opportunity share and if efficiency ticks up by 20 to 25%, you're looking at a guy who saw almost 75 targets last year, went for 1,300 yards from scrimmage and 10 touchdowns. Like, it's ins- it's mind-blowing that that was a terrible season for him. So, we have a tick up in efficiency and we're talking about a guy who can go for, you know, 1,500, 1,600, 1,700 12 to 13 touchdowns, another 60 catch season here and again, you're looking at a top-five fantasy running back there. So, it feels like you're getting a little bit of the Ashton Gentry discount before the actual breakout happens here. So, three-down back in an improved offense, improved coach, like I think the sky is the absolute limit for a guy like Gentry here.
The next player on this list is another second-year running back out of Jacksonville, Bijan Tuin. Now, I was not like a huge Tuin fanboy last year. I know as you guys consume more and more content throughout the summer, of people that play dynasty and a lot of people that play best ball and they have this like rookie craze. There's this rookie hype that like cannot be taken down a notch and Tuin was like one of those guys that everybody went crazy for last year as well as like every rookie, Trevion Henderson, all those guys. Tuin, like it wasn't a guy that I was all in on or drafting in a lot of places, but I do think going into 2026 fantasy football, you'd be doing yourself a lot of favors by taking stock in Bijan Tuin. Because when you look at the holistic, you know, operation there in Jacksonville, you have a bunch of things working in his favor. One, number one of course is Travis Etienne is no longer in Jacksonville. So, you have the number one running back that he split time with last year, no longer there. They went out and signed Chris Rodriguez, who is right now missing a lot of the summer activities for the team because of this foot injury. We don't have a ton of detail on it right now, but it seems to be a little bit more than serious. We won't go like too down the uh tin foil hat path right now, but if more negative reports come out, obviously that's going to lead to more of a workhorse role for Tuimoloau. Regardless, Chris Rodriguez is an early down thumper at best. And I just think that this is a team that with Liam Cohen and the weapons that they have on offense and the step that they took on defense last year, is a team that you just want to attach yourself with in terms of fantasy football players.
The receiver position is going to be a little bit tricky to figure out there. Like, do you want Parker Washington? Do you want to Kobe Myers? Do you want Brenton Strange? Do you want Brian Thomas Jr.? A lot of the times when you find yourself in that situation, it just means they're they're a really good offense. So, attach yourself to the quarterback, attach yourself to the running back cuz they're going to have a lot of scoring opportunities. Is there a world where Tuimoloau is playing all three downs on every drive? Unlikely because I think Laquon Allen has a legit pass-catching role there. He'll play, you know, 15 to 25% of the snaps depending on what the game script is for that given week. But again, the good thing about a team like Jacksonville is you don't expect them to get in situations where they're trailing by 14 points or 17 points or, you know, 11 points and need to keep a pass-catching back on the field for multiple drives at a time.
So, when I look at Tuimoloau, I see a little bit of Chase Brown here. Their athletic profile is extremely similar. It's actually kind of shockingly similar when you when you put them like next to each other in terms of their size, their athleticism, what they did in college. And we remember Chase Brown took a minute to come on. He was in a committee with Zack Moss, then he was sharing some snaps with Samaje Perine, but I think that's a similar similar situation you could look at where it's like you have an incredibly high-powered offense right now, and you have one running back that is head and shoulders like so clearly more athletic and explosive than the other players in that backfield, likely going to separate himself. And when he does, it's going to lead to insane upside. This is a backfield last year, a backfield only, that scored 20 total touchdowns, okay? And that is not including Trevor Lawrence's nine rushing touchdowns. This is a backfield that's going to have a ton of fantasy points scored. And even if Chris Rodriguez is healthy by the beginning of the season, he's not a dude that scores them via explosive plays. He's not a dude that scores them via catching passes. These are things that Beeshall Tueton can do. I also think it's really easy to like look at a Laquont Allen and be like, "Oh, he's going to be the pass-catching back." There are a ton of passing opportunities on first and second down when a guy like Beeshall Tueton would be playing anyways. It is a little weird that a guy like Tueton only caught 10 passes last year cuz he is a guy that was good in the pass-catching department in college. And And Liam Coen historically as the guy who's been either the head coach or the offensive coordinator has led to a lot of targets to the running back position. Going back to, you know, his time in Tampa Bay when he was utilizing Rashad White and Bucky Irving to a really high degree. And in 2025, Travis Etienne saw 23 screen targets, which was fifth most among all NFL running backs. The only guys that were ahead of him, Etienne, Bijan, Rashad White, Kenneth Gainwell. So, you have two workhorses and then two like pass-catching specialists there. So, again, Etienne out of the picture, the early down guy there, like I can promise you they are not writing up screenplays to Chris Rodriguez. Those are going to be going to Beeshall Tueton. And then the last thing I just kind of like to look at. This is not necessarily like a season-long upside thing, but when you look at his playoff strength of schedule, Houston week 15's obviously death blow. But if you can get past that, you get Dallas and Washington week 16 and week 17. That is some juicy juicy [ __ ].
All right, so we got Jentsy, we got Beeshall Tueton. We're going to move over to the wide receiver position. And as I'm going through this video, all these charts like the strength of schedule that I just showed you, what I'm about to show you with the Chicago Bears playmakers here, this is is right now on our website in our fantasy membership, which will also encapsulate the draft guide that you guys as supporters always purchase throughout the summer. Right now, we've combined all of our products into one fantasy membership, one monthly price that will run through the summer. It'll update in real-time throughout the summer with rankings. It is so much better this time around in this summer, and then that'll just lead right into the season. So, we have a bunch of new tools, a bunch of new awesome things for you to play around with on the site right now if you are a fantasy member, and we have an awesome promo going on with our partner BetMGM over there. If you are a first-time depositor using code BDGE, as soon as you play your first slip on there, you're going to get an in-app message that gives you a promo code to our website that gets you everything on the website for free for the next 3 months. And we're in the middle of the World Cup right now. So, if you place a slip on USA, MGM is culminating a pool of $500,000 for every single goal that the USA scores throughout the World Cup, and they're splitting it between everybody that puts a slip on the USA right now. So, they're already up four goals. That is 2 million. So, you're getting all this just by putting $10 on there. Use code BDGE when you sign up. 3 months free of the membership and everything good that that encapsulates.
Let's move on to the Chicago Bears pass-catchers. Now, I will say it's a little bit tricky to kind of narrow down who you want to be targeting here cuz you have Cole Kmet and you have Robert Tonyan and you have Allen Robinson as both fourth-round picks. You got Darnell Mooney going at the end of the fifth round here, but we've kind of wiped all the [ __ ] out of that receiver room and out of that play-making room, right? Ben Johnson came in, immediately drafted Cole Kmet, immediately drafted Robert Tonyan, and immediately drafted Darnell Mooney, but didn't immediately play them. Now, with DJ Moore out of the way, he's in Buffalo. Now, with Allen Robinson out of the way, which might sound crazy, but he was a [ __ ] problem early on in the year last year if you remember, played a lot over the first half of the season, and it kept Darnell Mooney on the sideline. Now, everybody is expecting a big jump up for Caleb Williams this year. Year two of Ben Johnson is going to be a very magical thing, and I think it'd be wise to end up drafting a decent portion of all of these Chicago playmakers. I would be hard-pressed to find a league that I'm going to be in this year that I don't leave my draft with at least one of them, if not two of these guys. Because the offensive playmaking should be extremely condensed. We know the run game, there's going to be a lot of carries for Swift and the long guy, but when Caleb Williams drops back to pass, there's nobody else catching passes besides Rome Odunze and Cole Kmet. And And Vegas sees it the same way. Ironically, Vegas actually has Odunze It's not ironic at all. I don't know why I said that. But Odunze at 825.5, Rome at 800, and Cole Kmet around 750 depending on where you're looking at the lines. But they're pretty neck and neck. Just a quick breakdown of all of them. Kmet obviously broke out and went crazy over the second half of the year. And I think that probably just continues into 2026. Odunze, where I think he makes his most dough this year, is he's not as good of a route runner or a separator as some of the top-tier guys in the NFL, but when you look at what Ben Johnson did with Amon-Ra St. Brown, I think they have similar trajectories. And Odunze is at his best when he has the ball in his hands and he's making plays and he's a YAC guy, and his screen game is incredible. And now you have DJ Moore out of the way, and if you remember watching any Chicago games over the last like 2 years, DJ Moore was used at the line of scrimmage and in the screen game at such a high degree that you'd imagine most of those are going to siphon over to Odunze. So I think he's probably got a floor of like 25 screen receptions, 20 to 25 screen receptions for the season, just baked into what his total is this year.
And then you got Rome Odunze, who I think is like the most interesting one to me because like he's been incredibly disappointing through 2 years in the NFL as a guy who was a top-10 pick that was looked at as like, okay, Malik Nabers type of caliber. And I'm still trying to like wrap my brain around what the problem is here. When you look at Rome, when you look at his separation ability, when you look at his route running ability, he's still a top-tier player like he was coming out of college. This is Matt Harmon's reception perception chart on him from 2025. He's still separating like a [ __ ] divorce lawyer out here. The problem was his catchable target rate, 63.3% last year, 81st among wide receivers. A lot of it has to do with the fact that he's getting a lot of deep targets, so naturally those are going to be a little bit less accurate, but he did see 40.4% of the team's deep targets. Like, that is such a juicy number, and I think if Caleb can get a little bit more consistent on a down-to-down basis, then we're going to see a lot more consistency in the accuracy downfield. And And if you remember the first half of the season last year, it was so sloppy for Chicago. They would have three to five penalties a game just on like procedural [ __ ]. Like, they couldn't get a guy in motion without getting a penalty, and I think it's because that offense with Ben Johnson, he probably imagined as a first-time head coach, like he tried to make it as creative and progressive as possible, and I think there was probably a lot in year one. So, I think year two you're going to see a comfortability with this offense that was just not there last year. Getting the entire off season, getting all of them being able to work together. Caleb just has the arm there. He's got the arm that like a 4,500-yd passer finishes a year with. Will he get there based on volume? I don't know, they're a pretty run-heavy team, but I just think you have these three extremely unique, explosive playmakers that if any of them popped off, if Loveland went for 1,200 yd and 10 touchdowns, if Luther Burden caught 80 passes for 1,108 touchdowns, if Rome Odunze ended up popping off for 80, 1,410, like an Allen Robinson-type year, wouldn't surprise me whatsoever. So, I would leave most of your drafts with one Chicago playmaker.
And we'll move on to the next guy, and it's funny because when I made this video last year, I was debating putting Rome Odunze and Marvin Harrison Jr. on the list, and I decided not to cuz I talked through them in that video just more conversationally. Ultimately landed on the fact that like they were fun buzz names last year, and I drafted Rome in a couple spots. The actual real-life situation didn't really feel like it allowed their their projections to like get to a a super high upside case. Now, anytime that a player does not perform well in a singular season and then there's no like real material changes going into the following year, that was my problem with Marvin Harrison Jr. the year before. He was a He was a a big time fade for me going into last year and it was because there was just no creativity from Drew Petzing out there as the OC. Him and Kyler clearly just did not work and then nothing changed over the off season. So, it was like, why would I look at what happened in 2024 and then just assume everything's going to get better because we didn't see any lick of that in 2024. So, now that we have these changes, now that Kyler is gone, now that Drew Petzing is gone and we have LaFleur coming in, the upside case is is much easier to make. I still think there are a lot of red flags in the situation. So, like I said at the very top of this video, this is not like here are the guys that I'm projecting to win you your fantasy league. These are guys that I think have a really, really solid risk reward type of profile. And I think there's a a very real chance that Marvin Harrison Jr. just continues to be a good wide receiver until there's a massive shift in what his environment is. Like a number one overall pick type of quarterback comes in or something like that. But, he's a dude that I'm willing to keep the lights on for, you know, a fourth or fifth year breakout, for sure.
When we look at last year, I mean, it was like the perfect storm of upside fantasy wise for this passing offense, right? They were just getting their [ __ ] teeth kicked in every single game. Every Every Sunday it was just Jacoby Brissett dropping back for 45 passes. But, Marvin Harrison Jr. obviously dealt with a lot of injury stuff that led to Trey McBride going crazy, led to a breakout year for Michael Wilson. And in the beginning of the summer, my thought was like, no way any any of that can be repeated. No way that they don't go super or at least a a bit more run heavy going into 2026. And that's going to be the case. They drafted Jeremiah Love number three overall. So, you want to give your workhorse running back workhorse carries. They signed Tyler Allgeier. They bring back James Conner. So, I'd imagine they're they're going to try to go run heavy. The problem is when you look at the Arizona Cardinals look ahead lines, meaning their schedule, Vegas already has the lines up for all all their games, they're dogs in every single game this year. So, the Jacoby Brissett piece of the puzzle is the difficult one to figure out here cuz right now he's like holding out because he wants starter money, right? He played well enough last year. He was their starting quarterback and he's projected to be the starting quarterback going into 2026. They drafted Carson Beck who is, in my opinion, not a legit NFL quarterback. And I I think there's a real chance that we get a decent chunk of Carson Beck starts, which is what makes this pick risky. I would say Marvin Harrison Jr. is, without a doubt, the riskiest player I think on this board to pick or in this video to pick. You have the systemic risk of just being in the Arizona Cardinals offense. You have both Trey McBride and Michael Wilson there. You have the quarterback situation with Jacoby Brissett. Like even if Jacoby Brissett is under center, there's a world where like, okay, you don't get the same Jacoby Brissett throwing for 400 yards a game in year two. Like defenses now have that full year of like, okay, we know what this Arizona Cardinals offense is going to be. But I will say with LaFleure coming in and calling the plays there now, much more optimistic this will be a more efficient offense. I still think Marvin Harrison Jr. is a very good player, a very good route runner, as you can see again by the Reception Perception done by Matt Harmon over there on receptionperception.com. Great resource. Highly recommend you go sign up there. Tweet from Michael Florio, Marvin Harrison Jr. has a 63% catchable target rate since joining the NFL. That is the second lowest in this span. I think a lot of what we're seeing downside from Marvin Harrison Jr. is the effects of of the environment that he's been in. But I think in an all else equal, I think in an ideal world, the Cardinals have an efficient offense and Marvin Harrison Jr. is their number one guy. Like I think LaFleure is going to push to have that happen. I'm not going to look into like small sample sizes of Marvin Harrison Jr. and Michael Wilson on the field with Jacoby Brissett over the second half of last year. I just I think it's too small of a sample size to try to depict who's doing what. Like, oh, Marvin Harrison Jr. was the guy for the [ __ ] two quarters that he was in, but he was dealing with a ton of injuries last year. So, I don't care. I also look at the playoff schedule in the fantasy playoffs for all the pass catchers on this team, the Jets, the Saints, and the Raiders. That's kind of beautiful. So, the upside case here is that Jacobi Brissett and the Cardinals end up coming to some sort of resolution with the contract. They are still a team that loses a lot of games, and he needs to pass the ball 35 to 40 times a game again. And Marvin Harrison Jr. is put in much more advantageous positions where Drew Petzing only used him specifically on the outside as an X receiver. LaFleur will come in, move him around a lot more, use him in creative ways, and he's a dude who sees seven to 10 targets per game, and then will turn that into, you know, 11, 12, 1,300 yards, become a red zone player, and that's the upside case here.
So, we've got a lot of year two players, some year three players. This is my favorite rookie on the board right now. It's Jordan Tyson, the wide receiver, top 10 pick for the New Orleans Saints. New Orleans last year was number one in pass rate over expectation, okay? This is year two of Tyler Shuck and Kellen Moore. We have the single highest pace of play last year, the lowest seconds per play, and it's all about this offense. It's all about the speed, the pace, and just the volume from the Saints. I think they've quietly built up a really strong offensive line. They added David Edwards from Buffalo, which I think we're going to look back on it at the end of next year, and be like, that was a phenomenal signing, which took the Saints offensive line from, you know, 19th overall up to a top 12 or top 10 unit. They play in a dome, so the environment's almost always going to be great for their passing offense. Their defense is, you know, probably maybe a little bit underrated, but they're nothing to write home about. So, I think they're going to be in shootouts a lot. I think they're going to have to use a high-paced offense a lot. There's no number two target there. There's no real number two wide receiver. Their next leading receiver behind Chris Olave was Rashid Shaheed last year with 66 targets, and he's in Seattle, obviously. He got traded. Then there's De'Von Achane, he saw 35 targets and then landed on season-ending IR. Like there is just literally nothing behind Chris Olave. I think Juwan Johnson was forced into a really high target situation, but if you start moving those targets from Juwan Johnson, who was seeing, you know, six, seven, eight, nine targets a game, over to Jordan Tyson, you're going to see a major breakout for him in his rookie season. And the strength of schedule for the Saints is incredible. As a fourth-place schedule team, they have one of, if not the single best strength of schedule for the entire season, plus a playoff strength of schedule that's top three. So, I look at the pace of play, the number of pass attempts that are projected in the Saints offense, just the hurry-up play, the environment, the lack of targets, or the lack of opportunity for targets, I I love Jordan Tyson in this offense. So, while I think Carnell Tate is a really talented receiver in his own right, I just trust this situation a thousand times more than I trust the Tennessee Titans offensive situation as it lays, all right?
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>> [music] [music] >> Mhm.