I Projected 10 More NFL Teams for 2026 Fantasy Football

I am just over halfway through my 2026 fantasy football projections, and I have 10 more things that I've learned about the recent 10 teams that I've gone and stat projected for the 2026 season. As I detailed in the last video, I'm going through projections for the first time, really, in the history of us being fantasy analysts. This is a good exercise to get me familiar with the teams, the tendencies, and who we can actually say has high ceilings, has low floors, so on and so forth. I really wanted to be a lot more rooted in projections this season than I have in previous seasons.

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But we are going to get started with the first team that we're going to talk about, which is the Detroit Lions. Now, quick spoiler: so far, of the teams I've projected, there's been 20 of them. I got 12 more teams to go. This is the highest scoring offense that I have projected, the Detroit Lions. And part of the reason for it is, obviously, they've been a very good offense for a couple of years now. And I really like the addition of Drew Pig at offensive coordinator. They have the number one easiest strength of schedule of any team in football.

The takeaway that I had for the Detroit Lions was that I want a Detroit Lion on every fantasy team that I have. They have the number one easiest schedule: Saints, Bills, Jets, Panthers, and Cardinals to start the year, then a Week 6 bye and another couple easy stretches. Giants and Bears in Week 16 and 17.

When you look at Jared Goff as the first kind of piece of this offense, he's projecting for me with 18.5 points per game. Great value in drafts, good late round quarterback to have. That'll probably be QB11, QB12 on most given seasons.

Jir Gibbs. Oh man, Jir Gibbs, I have projected for the seventh most fantasy points per game all time by a running back. Let me repeat that: seventh most fantasy points all time by a running back. Without David Montgomery, I essentially slotted in Isaiah Pacheco for 80% or so of David Montgomery's workload. But I do expect Jir Gibbs to take another large step in the volume department.

When you look at my actual stat projection for Jir Gibbs, 62% of the rushing attempts is only 4% higher than he had last year. The opportunity share is not much different than it was last year. So, I'm not even going overboard with the Jir Gibbs projection and saying, "Oh, he's going to have 80% of the opportunities and 70% of the carries." No, just baseline level averages from his career in an offense that projects to be one of the best in the league. I don't even have him for 100 targets. I don't even have him for 300 carries. I think very easily he could have both of those thresholds met this year and be a 400-touch running back. So for me, I think he's clearly 1.01 in all formats.

When you go back and just look through all these Detroit Lions, every single one of them has the opportunity to smash, whether it's Goff, whether it's Gibbs. You look over even at Aman Ross St. Brown, who I have projected in the projections right now for 19.27 points per game with, again, a 28% target share, which is actually a low for him the last couple of seasons. And Jonathan Taylor, CD Lamb, those types of players that are going around him, Justin Jefferson in drafts. I promise you, Aman Ross St. Brown is projecting out a lot higher than those guys, at least from my perspective. And I actually think Ammonra St. Brown is probably going to project higher than what I have for Jackson Smith and Jigba. When I do the Seahawks, I'll obviously know that answer for sure. But for me, he's like the 1.05, 1.06, 1.07 in drafts right now. And you can consistently get him, you know, routinely 1.07, 1.08, 1.09.

So, just this Lions team in general, 'cuz Sam Laaporta also, truly one of the best value tight ends on the board. When you go through and look at his career trajectory, you have only top-nine seasons in his career, top three as a rookie. Obviously, part of the the lore of Sam Laaporta is, you know, the contingent upside if St. Brown were to miss any time. And that's also kind of the lore for Jameson Williams, as we saw last season down the stretch. Jameson Williams, when St. Brown was banged up, when Leaporta was out of the lineup, he was a legitimate difference-making wide receiver one type of projection week over week.

So, the only takeaway I had from this team is that I want literally everybody. Every year, an offense giga-smashes. The Rams were that team last year where Adams and Puka and Kairen and Stafford, everybody was a good pick. I'm predicting the Lions to essentially be this year's Rams, be the number one scoring team in football. I'm through about 20 teams in the projections. Like I said, they are currently the highest scoring offense that I have. And I've already projected the Rams, have already projected a number of other great offenses like the Bengals and the Chargers and the Broncos and the Cowboys and those types of teams. The Lions projected better than all of those teams for me.

And throughout this video, I'm going to be kind of going through a pick entry that we're going to do over on Underdog for season-long picks. And I think the most sharp pick out of everyone that I have here is Jared Goff higher than 4,074.5 season passing yards. Because the other part of this too is Drew Pig, the new offensive coordinator, was mainly the reason why the Cardinals are dropping back and throwing the ball like crazy. Of course, they were on like their fourth-string running back, so that obviously played a big part, but just the fact that Pig was willing to go there and be that pass-heavy shows me that there's an extremely high ceiling for Jared Goff and the Detroit Lions passing offense.

Let's move over to the Houston Texans. Now, I think the biggest takeaway from Houston is that David Montgomery might be one of the best values in all formats, specifically from a dynasty perspective. You don't have to pay very much for him. He could give you high-end level production. We are just two years removed from David Montgomery being a 15.84 fantasy point per game running back as the number two back on his team. That is an absurd level of production when you are working with, in tandem with, Jir Gibbs. And I don't think people understand how valuable this Texans role can be, the starting running back for this team in 2024.

This seems like an optimistic projection, but Joe Mixon's carry share was well over 83% when healthy with 78% of the team opportunities, which was top five in the NFL. So, me projecting David Montgomery for 69.5% of the rushing attempts and 55% of the opportunities in total is actually rather conservative for the Texans offense. I landed him at 328 touches this year with, in my opinion, a rather conservative backfield split with him and Woody Marks. Mark's obviously getting a lot more receiving work than him and working in a little bit on the ground.

The Texans have improvements on the offensive line. Assuming Tank Dell is back, they have four healthy and capable wide receivers with the two Iowa State second-ear guys, Nico Collins and Tank Dell. And, you know, Daltton Schultz was second on this team in targets last year. He's no slouch at tight end. The Texans could be a sneaky profitable offense this season. The wide receiver core is murky. I don't really want to mess with Jaden Higgins and Tank Dell and Jaylen Null outside of basketball leagues. So for me, of course, Nico is going really high as well. I think that the starting running back of this team is the one that's going to return the most value in terms of where you draft him and where he finishes. Going in Round 5, Round 6, where David Montgomery goes, I think it's a nice discount for a proven Bellcow with 10-plus touchdown upside very easily. And also, it's second-year Nick Haye system as the play caller. Much healthier at running back and wide receiver. And David Montgomery has fresher legs too than he's had in recent years because of the workload that he's been getting in Detroit. And I like him to go higher than his rushing touchdowns as the second part of this entry.

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So, moving in to the Indianapolis Colts, the takeaway that I have for the Colts in general was that I was just kind of underwhelmed to some degree by the team across the board. I was all in on Daniel Jones last year. You guys remember I was talking about it non-stop. I would say this offseason, I'm expecting, let's call it, a league average team, a team that I expect to win seven and a half, eight games, like the Vegas projection indicates. People forget that this Indianapolis Colts offense was number one in the NFL in EPA per play when Daniel Jones went down. So, we're talking about a team that didn't just exceed expectations. Most people expected the Colts to be a bad offense, bottom-10 unit. I was very much in the camp that they could be an above-average offense. I didn't expect them to be the number one offense in EPA when DJ went down, the number eight points per game total offense through the entire season.

I've brought this up before, but remember, Jonathan Taylor needs to be Superman to hit on his ADP. He needs this offense to be cooking because the only two times he's finished with 20-plus points per game, 18-plus points per game, he needed a top-15 offense to do that. And I tend to think that he'll be more of a volume-is-king play than he will be an efficiency-dominant RB1 like he was at the start of the season last year.

The biggest takeaway I had here is that this wide receiver core and tight end room is a lot like the Chicago Bears or the Green Bay Packers, where you have two wide receivers, a tight end. And for me, I just like the cheapest option of that entire core because I think any which one of them could turn, you know, the most targets or the most yards, the most touchdowns. So between Alec Pierce, between Josh DS, and between Tyler Warren, I do believe that Josh DS is the best value in this core because with his shift to playing more on the outside, he could receive more targets as a result of that. And again, the other thing that I could see happening as well is Tyler Warren, because he's a tight end and because he goes kind of like at the 6, 7 turn, give or take, in reddraft leagues right now, I do think that you could see an increase in touchdown volume for him. He only scored four touchdowns last year despite having a really solid, you know, 21% target share and consistent, you know, 6.5 targets per game type of volume. But the problem for him was touchdown volume and overall efficiency. And knowing that he's going to be moving into the slot a little bit more this year, he was only in the slot 30% of the time with Josh Downs playing more on the outside. Maybe that number increases. Well, three of his touchdowns, of his four touchdowns, came in the slot. So, I do actually really like if Tyler Warren, if people are going to overthink him, you can draft, let's say, five, six running backs and wide receivers to start your build and then go with Tyler Warren as your starting tight end. And I don't think that's all that dissimilar from taking a Trey McBride, a Brock Bowers, as a Coulson Lovelin. Do I think Tyler Warren's going to outscore those guys? Probably not. But the opportunity bundle of getting Warren and say, you know, Nico Collins in the third round versus taking Trey McBride and whatever receiver you're going to get where Tyler Warren is going, say Mai Lemon. I like the bundle of Nico Collins and Tyler Warren a little bit more in overall points per game. So that's something that I'm kind of intrigued by. Tyler Warren and Josh DS both projected out pretty well relative to their price.

Moving in to the Green Bay Packers, I already kind of made reference to what their offense represents and how they kind of operate with the two wide receivers. I think Jaden Reed, Christian Watson are going to go back and forth. Matthew Golden going to be a bigger part of the game plan for the team, but generally I expect this offense to run through big plays of Christian Watson, PPR targets of Jaden Reed, and then whenever Tucker Craft is out there and fully healthy, I actually expect him to be the biggest return on investment post, let's say, ramp up period of four to six games coming off of the injury.

Here's the thing, though: the Green Bay Packers have a long history under Matt Laflur of being 52% pass rate, one of the slowest pace of play units in the NFL. So reasonably, you want the run game of this team. Jacobs is projecting for 15.62 PPR points per game, assuming all goes well with his current overarching legal situation. That's higher than Javvante. That's higher than Kiran. I'm sure that's going to be higher than Bree Hall once I get to the Jets going around the range where Jacobs is going in that mid to late third round on underdog because of the legal situation. He slid down from the 2-3 turn. Then when you factor in where he was going before the legal situation, you had him going right around Derrick Henry, Jeremiah Love, and even just a tick behind the Seaquans, the uh Devon Achans, the Ashen Gentes of the world. And he projects higher for me right now than what I had on Derrick Henry. So, I think that when you look at the whole situation with Josh Jacobs, it's worth taking the swing because the felony stuff it sounds like has been dropped. There still could be an ongoing suspension or legal situation that happens. But this does read a lot to me like the Quinchon Judkins situation from last year. And I would be buying at a discount if the price on underdog is in Round 4 right now or if the manager in your respective dynasty league will sell him for an early second round pick or something. In reddraft leagues, I'm sure we'll have more clarity by the time we're actually drafting, but generally speaking, I think that Josh Jacobs, given his career track record, the last I don't know how many years he's been over 15 points per game, every year of his career, except for one, he's been about at that 15 point per game RB1, backend RB1 type of total. And of course, we saw that big-time performance in 2022 where he had 19 points per game, 17 points per game in 2024 on this Green Bay team. If they can all figure it out, put it all together with Jordan Love and with Christian Watson and Jaden Reed and Tucker Craft and be a top 10 offense, Josh Jacobs can easily, easily hit 16, 17 points per game and be one of the best picks on the board in the early to mid-third round where I think he'll end up going by the time the season starts, mid to late third, early fourth, where he's going right now on underdog, especially in a half PPR format. He is an awesome pick in that.

Let's move into the Jaguars. Now, this might be one of the most difficult teams to figure out in the NFL because they have four receivers that could reasonably, let's say reasonably, lead the team in targets, but you should take shots where you think smashes are possible. One takeaway that I did have from the Jaguars is maybe you just want the syrup here rather than the pancakes because we can't figure out who the receivers is going to be, because we can't figure out to another degree who the backfield, uh, how the backfield split is going to go. Maybe you just want Trevor Lawrence as a part of this offense. Or maybe you even just want Brentton Strange as the guy that should be the lead tight end here.

I gave Bashel Tutin and Chris Rodriguez almost exactly the Week 6 through 17 split of Bucky Irving and Rashad White because that is how I expect this offense to go. Of course, Liam Cohen was the architect of that offense in Tampa Bay. So, I gave 52% of the carries, which is what Bucky Irving had Week 6 onward his rookie season, and 34% of the carries, which is what Rashad White had Week 6 onward of Bucky Irving's 2024 rookie season for these two guys, respectively. I do expect Chris Rodriguez to be involved. I'm not going to sit here and say that I'm going to give Beel Tune a 75% opportunity share. A 56.37% opportunity share is, let's call it, rather conservative. 13.52 points per game out of a mid-round running back who's going in Round 5 or 6 is definitely worthwhile swing because obviously the ceiling beyond this median projection is much higher. He could have 16, 17 points per game if he carves out, let's say, a 70% opportunity share and he takes the bull by the horns. And I only have him projected for like 4.3 yards per carry as of now. What if he goes 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, breaks a lot of big plays? To me, the one of the most calculated swings in the mid-rounds at running backs is Bay Shel Tutin because I think his median is cushiony enough that he won't flop. He just might be kind of frustrating from a reddraft angle.

The wide receiver core to me is simply a matter of large sample sizes. I have chosen to buy back into the Brian Thomas Jr. experience because Brian Thomas Jr., of all four of these receivers, is the most proven in the NFL despite being only 23 and a half, 24 years old. He has a wide receiver one season, 1,300-yard, 10-touchdown season under his belt. To me, he is the best pick on the board of this core, which is why I like him to go higher than his season's receiving yards of 714.5. We heard yesterday that he's going to be working more downfield. Now, that's actually a good thing because Brian Thomas Jr.'s best attribute is his ability to be fast and big and work downfield. We just need him to connect more on those plays to play better. Last year, he's in his head. He's dealing with injuries. We don't know what was going on. Brian Thomas Jr., to me, big-time takeaway here from doing the Jaguars projections, is that it's very possible for him to return on ADP pretty easily and then also possible for him to smash on ADP if there's injuries in this wide receiver core or if he just outright, you know, pulls away from everybody else.

The other big takeaway that I think is going to happen is this Jaguars team is a Shawn McVey brain trust. Liam Cohen, James Gladstone, the GM and the coach of this team. They just watched Shawn McVey almost go to the Super Bowl running 30% of their snaps out of 13 personnel, meaning three tight end sets. What did they do in the draft? They drafted Nate Borachure, who's a blocking tight end, in the second round, and they drafted Tanner Kosol, who's another receiving tight end, in the fifth round. I expect that these receivers, as talented as they are, could be subject to two or three of them being below 80% of the team's routes because they shift towards more of a two-tight end, three-tight end approach. In that situation, which receiver is going to stay on the field the most? Brian Thomas Jr. because he's the outside exceiver of this team. In a three-tight end set, you have your ex-receiver on the field. In a two-tight end set, it will probably be Brian Thomas Jr. and maybe Parker Washington, Jacobe Myers, or Travis Hunter. My guess right now would be Jacobe Myers, but we'll see what happens there. Again, I like Travis Hunter given how cheap his cost is, and I actually do project him for the second most targets on the team because I'm just kind of buying into the talent of the players, but it wouldn't shock me if, let's say, my projection for Travis Hunter is completely flipped with my projection for Parker Washington. My thought process here is I'm not going to mess too, too much with Hunter Myers and Washington unless it's best or unless I'm getting a good discount on them, which I am with Hunter, which is why I'm taking him. I'm just going to take Brian Thomas Jr. because he's going to be the guy that's on the field for the most part all the time. And as I said, Brian Thomas Jr. in his career, 16.71 point per game season under his belt. When you are drafting receivers in the mid-rounds, the most sure bets are typically wide receivers who have finished as wide receiver ones before who are under the age of 27, which is the prime wide receiver ones category that I broke down last August, the August before that, and I will break it down this August as far as highlighting the best picks in the mid-rounds. Oh, and by the way, this is a team in a quarterback that was top five in MVP voting last year. So being the downfield target for Trevor Lawrence is a good thing, not a bad thing.

So, Jacobs, Thomas aside, Toutin aside, let's talk about the Kansas City Chiefs, who I was relatively conservative in projecting and kind of projecting even a bit of a down season for them. Like, 23.43 points per game out of this offense is average to below average. And even in that situation where I also have Mahomes missing two games, whether it's at the beginning of the season or some way through the season, maybe he suffers like a compensatory injury to the ACL. I'm a little worried about Mahomes' injury because we are exactly nine months post-ACL and LCL, multi-leg ACL tear, which, you know, is a 10-month recovery according to Dr. James Ferretti from the first game of the season. And during training camp, we're only going to be seven and a half months removed. Now, I get Patrick Mahomes as Superman. However, I basically am underweight Chiefs across the board except for one player: that's Rashe Rice. Vegas seems to think they're going to be a top-eight scoring offense. They haven't been top 12 and barely top 15 in three seasons. And I don't think the season that they bounce back and smash is the season that Mahomes is coming back from a multi-leg ACL tear. I do I down-ticked Momes's rushing. I down-ticked some of his passing efficiency metrics. Plus, I gave Fields two starts to account for some of that injury risk. I would avoid Mahomes overall in reddraft and in baseball. I don't think he's worth the squeeze when there's so many other great quarterbacks going around him. I love Justin Herbert. I love Bo Nix. I love Jared Goff. I love Matthew Stafford. I love all the quarterbacks going around Mahomes. So, for me, especially in reddraft, I just don't feel the need to take the risk on him. And if I take him in baseball, I'm taking a third quarterback at some point.

But all that being said, it's hard to ignore how dominant Rashi Rice pops on the on the screen here. You get close to 16 points per game, only having a 25% target share, which when healthy the last two seasons, he's been closer to 27%. I would be all in on Rasheed Rice right now if it weren't for like the looming legal stuff. But here's where you can kind of copium your way into Rasheed Rice a little bit more than I'm doing so far. When you look at Rasheed Rice's last two seasons, he was wide receiver five in points per game last year on eight games played. He suffered a hamstring injury at the end of the season. He was one of the biggest league winners in fantasy last year. Like for those of you guys that drafted him in Round 6 or Round 7 and you stashed him on your IR spot, when he came back, he was ready to go. I mean, he if he doesn't get hurt, he wins people leagues, no questions asked. And I would play into all of the positive reports that Mahomes gets as positive Rasheed Rice news as well. Anything that that Xavier Worthy is getting positive as well, I also view kind of as positive Rashid Rice news because the knee procedure with Dr. Ferretti, he wasn't concerned about it. The fact that he recovered in jail, he's obviously out of jail. I'm not worried about him getting suspended again because he was already suspended for this very incident. I don't think the NFL is going to further punish him for the same exact incident as before. So, for me, my big takeaway from the Chiefs is that he would still be one of the best picks on the board at the early third round, late second round where he's going. And I won't be shocked if by mid-August we don't get a suspension. He's back healthy in training camp. He's like the 2.04 in in reddraft leagues. It wouldn't shock me if that's how high his ADP gets. So I am drafting the crap out of him now on underdog while his ADP is in the early third round.

So moving in to the Las Vegas Raiders. Now this is going to bug some people. And you guys might have noticed with Kenneth Walker, too, I look a little bit lower on him point per game projection wise. I just don't get the he has RB1 overall upside for both Kenneth Walker and and Ashen Genty. For Walker, because of volume concerns and injury stuff and the fact that they have a bunch of passcatching running backs, but for Genty, I think it's just that the Raiders are going to be bad. Uh the Raiders scored 14 points per game last year. They were by far the worst offense in the NFL with virtually the same personnel. Like, is Gino Smith much worse than the combination of Kirk Cousins and Fernando Mendoza? I think that's a slight upgrade at quarterback, but I don't think it's a meteoric upgrade at quarterback. Okay, O line got better. Coaching got better. Clint Kubak is a much better coach than what Pete Carroll and, you know, uh, the freaking uh, Chip Kelly experience was, and Tyler Linder bomb helps the offensive line and Coltton Miller was injured most of last year. Great. I hear all that. However, Vegas knows all that information and Vegas projects them as a bottom six offense with a firstear coach, a 38-year-old quarterback to start the season and then a rookie quarterback beyond that point and the single worst wide receiver core in football. There is not a worse wide receiver core than this one. Trey Tucker, Jaylen Naylor, Jack Bes, other than maybe the Dolphins, this is the worst receiver core in the league. I don't see this offense getting out of the basement of the NFL and being a top 15 unit. I just don't. And I think there's teams like the Jets and the Cardinals and the Browns and the Dolphins who you could say are worse offenses or project worse, including in my projections. I actually think the Cardinals will be better than the Las Vegas Raiders. Even with an 80 point increase in the amount of points scored from last year to this year, they're still bottom five in offense in my projections so far.

For Genty to be worth a first round pick, a top 10 pick, a top 11 pick, everything. I mean everything will have to go right for him. What if Clint Kubak knocks Gent's workload down, which was the number one opportunity share in the NFL last year from an 84.3% opportunity share, which was the best in the league, to a mid70s number, which would still be top five, still be top 10, but remember, he limited Kenneth Walker in Seattle. What if Fernando Mendoza doesn't check down as much as Gino Smith? What if Genty, the excellent prospect that he was, doesn't take a meteoric leap in terms of talent and he still looks like, let's say, a Pro Bowl player instead of an allpro player? There still could be a ramp up for this young running back with all of the moving parts of this offense. First year coach, quarterback changes, bad receiver core, etc. 16 points per game, which I haven't projected for, is still a good season. It's still a good pick in the early second round, but I don't think it's worth a first round pick because I have this guy projected for freaking 372 touches and that's me giving him a super workload and he still can't crack 18 to 20 points per game. So my advice when people say things like Genty has RB1 overall in his range of outcomes, you should ask them, well, how good do you think the Raiders are going to be? Because I still think that this is a bottom 10 offense even optimistically. And I think the only way you can get Genty to that level is if Clint Kubak wins coach of the year and they win 8, 9, 10 games and they're a top 15 scoring offense. 'Cuz to me, I don't think that's going to be happening. And also, I think it has to happen for Jenty to be able to crush and absolutely smash the projections that some people have for him. Again, 14.42 fantasy points per game. Good season for a rookie, especially considering the circumstances. You see some of these comps here, whether it's Todd Gurley or Noan Moreno or whether it's Jir Gibbs or Bejian Robinson. I just tend to think that he's going to be more of a 15, 16 point per game guy than a 17, 18, 19 point per game guy 'cuz I just don't think the team is going to be good enough for him to get there.

Los Angeles Chargers, kind of like the BTE Lions. I just want all the Chargers I could possibly get. Really like Hampton this year. Really like, even though I've been talking [ __ ] about Lad McConi lately, I still think 14.57 PPR points per game is still a very good season and you'd be happy with the pick where he's going. However, Quinton Johnson is my baby of this offense. So he is the guy that I'm really, really surprised by the projection how tight the target shares have been when him and lad mcconkey have both been healthy the last two seasons. It is not 27% of the targets for lad, 18% of the targets for QJ. It is much closer than that. So for me, QJ, the best value on this team, no questions asked. But I've already talked about him a lot.

So let's talk about the quarterback Justin Herbert. I'll take the, I'll take the syrup, not the pancakes here, too, because I really like the idea of Justin Herbert having, let's call it, a 2021 Justin Herbert season where he's able to unccort the football 500 and something plus times, 600 times almost, and he's also able to reach career highs and yards per attempt and completion percentage because that's what Mike McDaniel does for this offense. He schemes up things in an extremely productive way and Justin Herbert hasn't had that in the last couple of seasons. So, I think some people are going to go the direction of, "Okay, Mike McDaniel's a runheavy coach, so he's not going to let Justin Herbert throw the football." I would argue that when you look at the 2022 and 2023 Miami Dolphins situations when Tua Tong of Aloa literally led the NFL in passing yardage, he would have unccorked Justin Herbert even more because Justin Herbert is a better quarterback than Tua. And I think Mike McDaniel is smart enough to know that you play to the strengths of your offense. The strengths of those offenses were Devon Achan and Raheem Mostard in the run game. The strength of this offense while Hampton is a good player and that kind of thing is the quarterback. So, I do think he's going to run the offense through Justin Herbert. Lots of play action. I actually really like Gadson as a good value, especially in baseball. Rerafting might be a little bit challenging to figure out when to start, but for me, this is how aggressive I am on Justin Herbert. I have Justin Herbert ranked higher than Caleb Williams, Drake May, Jaylen Herz. He's my quarterback four right now. The only quarterbacks that I would not take Justin Herbert over are Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and Joe Burrow. I think he is above Jaden Daniels, above Jaylen Herz, above Drake May, above Caleb Williams. Because here's the other part about uh Justin Herbert. He ran for a career-high 5.25 rush attempts per game last year. And he has 500 rushing yards, three to five touchdowns, very much within his range of outcomes because he did it last season. So for me with Justin Herbert, I am very much in on potential MVP type of candidate. His ADP being in Round 8 is so, so crazy to me and it's why I'm comfortable waiting on quarterback because he represents the first guy of a tier of the Trevor Lawren's and Bo Nix's of the world where I think the wide receivers and running backs are dried up at that point in the board and that's why I'm waiting on quarterback overall grabbing my running backs and wide receivers early in drafts and taking a guy like Justin Herbert when just pure projection positionless football in fantasy drafts he is the best projection on the board to be a differencemaker at his position then let's say the running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends at their position. So, love me some Justin Herbert. Definitely a big time, not a shock because I knew I was going to like him, but definitely a big time riser for me post um post projections here.

Um Devonte Adams, let's talk about him because I reject the premise that Devonte Adams is going to regress significantly to the point that he's not going to be good for fantasy. It's a 16 point per game receiver last year. This is a guy that was a legit difference maker. Like to give you guys an idea, Devonte Adams scored the ninth most fantasy points per game of any wide receiver last year. And everybody's doing the regression argument, right? "Oh, he's not going to have 14 touchdowns in 14 games." You're probably right about that. Okay, fair. But he's still going to be heavily involved in their end zone and red zone target share because he led the NFL in end zone targets. It wasn't even close. He lapped the field. It's what he does. He's been a top 15 point- per game receiver in fantasy every year since I graduated high school in 2016. This is a guy that's uber consistent. I didn't see an evident fall off last season, so I'm not just going to predict one this season. I get that he's 34 and he could fall off this season, but the type of receiver he is is shifty, crafty, physical, like he's not a speed guy. It's not like he's going to have this evident fall off a cliff type of season. They can move him around the formation, move him into the slot, use him in tight coverage, whatever they got to do. I have him projected right now for uh 14.86 points per game, which is a full point per game less than what he had last season and four touchdowns less than he had last season despite playing all 17 games in my projections here. And he's still a great pick where he's going. This is a guy that you can get in the fifth round.

And here's a regression argument that the regression police don't want to hear. Devonte Adams had a 52.6% catch rate last season, which is by far the lowest of his career. And he had a career-low 60 receiving yards per game because his A dot jumped from sub 10 yards, his average depth of target, to 12.6 yards. They were using him more downfield than Devonte Adams has been used prior. What if the team decides, "Maybe we shouldn't use the 34-year-old receiver as our deep threat?" Maybe instead we give him some PPR chain mover type looks and we use Puka Nua down the field a little bit more. So here's my whole point with Dvonte Adams. I could see him falling off a little bit from a talent perspective, gradual decline and so on, but like I said, he's shown very little signs of fall off. He's not Tyreek Hill. He's physical. He's crafty. Even if he loses a little bit of a step here, I'm not expecting, you know, 2025 DeAndre Hopkins in 2026 from Devonte Adams. Worst case scenario for me is you're looking at a 12 to 13 point per game receiver who's a wide receiver three in fantasy. Best case scenario, he scores 10 plus times again because when they get into the red zone, it's either going to Kairen Williams or Devonte Adams because they don't use Puka in the red zone a ton and they use him in like jet sweeps and that kind of area. One-on-one coverage, back shoulder fades, Matthew Stafford, that is baby food. I think Devonte Adams is going to score upwards of the top five in the NFL in touchdowns yet again. And people are going to take their regression arguments and sulk about them after the season. So, yes, he's probably not going to score 14 in 14 games, but it wouldn't shock me if he scores 10 to 12 on the season, no questions asked. And I also think he's going to regress positively catch rate wise and yardage-wise.

So, moving in to the final team, the Miami Dolphins. The only thing that anybody cares about or should care about on the Miami Dolphins is Devon Achan because this receiver core sucks ass and this tight end core don't care. I don't care about any player on the Miami Dolphins other than Devon Achan for fantasy. Unless we're talking 18th round best baseball dart throws of Malik Washington and Greg Dolich. I could care less. The Dolphins are gonna suck. This is how I have them projected. The number one question that everybody has about Devon Achan is, "If the Dolphins are the worst team in football, is Devon Achan going to be a terrible fantasy pick?" So that's exactly what I projected them as. I projected the Dolphins as the worst team in football. I think they are going to have a top three pick in the 2027 NFL draft. The only question to me that matters is, "Can Devon Achan still hit despite this with 14.82 points per game as an offense?" We're talking Raiders bad last year. Dead last in the NFL, a disgusting 49% run rate because I think Jeff Hafley and Bobby Sloic are understanding that Malik Willis can't throw the ball very well and he's going to run the ball like crazy. 949 projected plays uh on the season. Dead last in the NFL uh last season. That was the Dolphins projection last year. Here. I'm going to carry it over to this year. And 30.3 projected seconds per snap, which was the slowest pace in the NFL. So again, for those people that go, "Devon Aan can't do it again because he's going from his Dolphins offense last year to his Dolphins offense this year." Well, they were dead last in pace and seconds per snap last season. So they were already a slow paced offense. They were already a runheavy offense before. This is a doomsday projection, fellas. I have them projected as the stone worst defense and offense in the NFL by every single metric that I've done so far. And I'm sure it won't change even when I get to the Jets and some of the other bad teams. Quinn Eers I have starting four games. Like it doesn't get worse than this, fellas. And yet Devon Achan stacks up with 17.14 PPR points per game. This is your alarm bell to say Devon Achan is a very fine pick where he is going. Yes, it sucks that you're going to have to watch Dolphins football every Sunday, but there's one Lone's bright spot, and that is the 24-year-old running back from Texas A&M, who has been a top six fantasy running back in every season of his career, and by the way, has also been an ADP value in every season of his career, 'cuz people overthink him.

How did I get there? Okay, the Miami Dolphins, terrible team. There's no way Devon Chan's gonna average 5.7 yards per carry again, even though on a terrible team last year, he did it. 4.7 yards per carry. That is a huge drop off. That's a full yard per carry drop off last um than his his season previous. And again, in his career, 7.8, 4.5, 5.7. Let's give him his 4.7 yards per carry. Bad number. The Dolphins already sucked in offensive points per game. They were 25th in the NFL last year. I increased Devon Achan's target share from 19.2% to 22%. The reason I did that is because Jaylen Wadd and Tyreek Hill are no longer there. I think a 2.8% 8% increase in target share is a modest increase and it only ends up netting him 92 targets on the season. It's not like I gave him 127 targets like Christian McAffrey got last year. He is definitely alive to get more targets than I have him projected for and legitimately have a 25% target share, but I didn't want to give him a crazy number. I gave him 62% of the carries, which is the exact percentage of the carries that he had last season. Plenty of volume to go around for Malik Willis, the quarterback, Jaylen Wright, Olly Gordon, and so on. Plus, I gave him a career low in touchdowns. Just nine of them. 17.14 PPR points per game was the result. Also, a career low for Devon Achan. So, here's my entire point. While your league mates might think that Devon Achan and the Dolphins are going to suck and there's no way he can be an RB1, they're not going through the projections like you guys are watching this video right now and like I already did. You can project them as the stone worst defense and offense in the NFL and still get a great season because he's that freaking good. I gave them the doomsday scenario. Smack dab in the middle of a running back's prime with a major regression from career averages and he still outscores Jonathan Taylor for example in my projections and finishes as a top six running back that I've projected so far just like he's been every season of his career. So again, this is the same scheme with Bobby Slowick. It's going to be the same wide zone type of play calls. He's not as good of a play caller as Mike McDaniel, of course, which is why he regresses yards per carry. But Bobby Slo was also the one who gave Joe Mixon a 77.15% um opportunity share which was top five in the NFL. So there's no law saying he can't feed Devon Achan 275 carries in 100 plus targets which is more volume that I haven't projected for here. For the fourth year in a row Devon Achan is going to be a value at ADP. Last year people overthought the Dolphin situation and didn't really factor in that a prime RB1 was about to have another great season. He finished with 20 points per game. Two years ago, everybody was worried about Raheem Moer and he finished with 18 points per game or 17 points per game. Every year of his career, he's been a smash at ADP, including his rookie season when he crushed for a top five finish in 11 games. So, just just draft him. I have him at 11th overall. He's my um RB six right now ahead of Jonathan Taylor. I expect people to overthink him a ton and take him in the mid-second round. You guys are just going to laugh all the way to the bank. If you could start your draft with Christian McAffrey and Devon Achan and get a combined 240 targets from your starting two running backs, insane. Absolutely insane. That is what I learned from this set of projections.

So, 10 more things that I learned from uh doing projections. Obviously, the next video will be 12 teams. So, 12 more things that I learned from doing projections. Um hopefully you guys got some value from this video. But like I said, if you guys want to tail the pick entry that we built out throughout this video, we got Justin Herbert higher than 24 and a half passing touchdowns. Brian Thomas higher than 714 receiving yards. David Montgomery higher than 6 and a half rushing touchdowns. And Jared Goff higher than 40 474.5 passing yards. You guys can head on over to underdog. When you sign up, if you tail this entry, you will get access to the projections and to the draft guides totally for free. Reaff guide coming out July 1st. Dynasty draft guide already out. All the rookies, writeups, player cards, film breakdowns, everything you guys need there. And then weekly start, set rankings manifesto. If you guys are just getting back into the swing of things for uh your fantasy football drafts, all of that stuff is going to be extremely valuable to you. That is a essentially our bonus content for the year. Uh yearly site subscription on the site is 97 USD. You get that for a $10 underdog sign up and first deposit and first play on the site, which you can then win money with the money that you would deposit on the play on the site. And also too, just the best place to practice for your home reddraft leagues. If you have 100 underdog drafts under your belt going into your home reddraft leagues, you are going to be laughing at some of the values that you get there. So definitely check that all out. Basketball mania is live. Puppy drafts are live. $3 contest, $5 contest, $25 contest, $150, $500 contest. There is price points for every player out there. Both of those will be linked down below in the pin comment and in the description. But with that being said, peace out and I'll talk to you soon. Me. Me.