Transcription
Good morning, friends and enemies. I have finally flushed out my very, very initial thorough rankings for the 2026 fantasy football season. And thus, now I know where I stand. Am I higher on this guy? Am I lower on this guy? That's what we're going through today.
All right, I've got eight guys that I am, I guess, obnoxiously high on relative to what the current market price is for them. All right, I'll show you where I have them in my rankings. I'll show you the difference in ADP, give you a little reason as to why, maybe change your mind a little bit, and we'll go from there. So, let's jump into the rankings.
And the very first guy we're going to start off with is is a dude that I've I don't know that I've necessarily attached myself to being a hater of him. I just I don't think he can get it done. I've been saying this for a while now, but that's real football. I don't care about that. We're here to talk about fantasy football. And Justin Herbert is my quarterback four right now. Currently going off the board as the QB10 per ADP, which means I am six spots higher than the rest of the market. The most important thing to note when it comes to Herbert is simply his offensive line health with Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt being back. They went out and grabbed Tyler Bottish off of free agency from Washington. They drafted Jake Slaughter in the second round to shore up the offensive line. So, it's going to be night and day going into the year. They're a top 10 offensive line rank for me as you can see here. And the other really, really big important part of Justin Herbert's game here is that Mike McDaniel is coming over from Miami as the offensive coordinator in LA.
Now, the part of Herbert's game that we really saw unlocked last year was his rushing. And I think it's like a very untapped part of what we can see fantasy-wise from him. Like, we've already seen the 5,000 yard passing season. If he gets those attempts, he'll be able to throw for a lot of yards. But I do think the rushing capability that we saw last year is something that we'll probably see stick around for a while. He ran for 498 yards, which was second most in the NFL, and he still had the ninth most pass attempts last year, which is increasingly impressive considering he missed the game. So, when I look at Mike McDaniel coming in as the offensive coordinator as opposed to Greg Roman, Miami top five in play action rate, number one in pre-stat motion, these are things that are cheat codes for offenses in terms of efficiency. These are things that Herbert has never really had at a high volume. And I would say like the one aspect of this offense that scares me a little bit is like the lack of explosive playmakers. You'll have a fully healthy Omarian Hampton. We know Lad Maki is good, but is he a legit wide receiver? One, Quint Johnson has been fine. Keenan Allen's a free agent right now. They did bring in David and Jooku. They have Aronda Gatsoon who broke out last year. So I do think the one upside case or the or the bull case for this is we're going to see a lot more 12 personnel from teams around the league. Like people are going to start copying Shawn McVey where they're putting two or three tight ends on the field at the same time. And I think the fact that they signed Injoku is like a really nice pairing between Injoku and Aronda Gatson. And what that does is take a little bit of the pressure off of having to be three deep at wide receiver. So you have Lad out there, you have Quint Johnson out there and maybe someone can emerge behind those two whether it's Trey Harris second year second round pick from last year or Brennan Thompson who Mike McDaniel loves. Like maybe one of those guys can show out and be a consistent wide receiver three. But if they do go very two tight end set heavy, you could see a world where the third wide receiver doesn't matter as much and the two wide receivers up top, Latt and Quinton Johnson can get the job done. So for sure, that's the biggest worry for me when it comes to Herbert when it comes to this LA team. But his MVP odds at 11 to1 are really strong. Uh plays in a dome, so he's going to have really good weather throughout the course of the year. And again, just the heavy investment in the offensive line is really, really important. Obviously, as we saw last year, everything kind of broke down, which did lead to a lot of rushing upside for a dude like Justin Herbert, but it was good to see that like he wasn't afraid to use that to his advantage. So, Herb's the first guy for me on this list.
And when I continue down the quarterback rankings, Matthew Stafford is my quarterback seven, which is somehow a hot take right now. He's a quarterback 14 and ADP. When you look at ESPN, when you look at Yahoo, when you look at underdog, he's like outside of the top 100 picks despite just having an MVP season. And I get it. It's an outlier of a year. 4,700 passing yards, 46 passing touchdowns. It wasn't like the previous years. But I'd also say the years prior to 2025 had a lot to do with the fact that he couldn't get Puka or Cooper Cup both at their full strength or healthy for the majority of the season. When last year we saw Puka and Devonte Adams really come together and like a merge. And now Shawn McVey is this mastermind who cooks up a new offense with the two tight ends, the three tight ends on the field at the same time and led to a bajillion touchdowns. Stafford's Vegas line is at 4,000 yards. His offensive line rank is in the top five. He plays in a stadium that has a dome, so we don't have real weather concerns. Not a ton of huge changes in the offseason that really matter. They obviously just traded for Miles Garrett, which will make their defense kind of elite. And maybe they need to throw the ball a little bit less. But here's the thing. When it comes to Stafford, when it comes to fantasy football analysis over the summer, I think when you have a player who does really well and almost nothing materially changes in the offense, I think people go overboard, overanalyzing, overanalyticing, whatever the [ __ ] verb for that would be. Like looking at numbers too deeply to tell you why it's not going to be good this year. Like, sure, there'll be some regression on it, but Stafford being at quarterback 14 to me feels crazy. I I had him in my big league last year, loved owning every second of them. So, like Safford's another dude where if I'm in a Superflex league and I get him at the bottom of the QB1 rankings as my QB1, I'm going to feel great about that.
So, if we move things over to the wide receiver position, the next couple guys on this list, you'll be able to see on my rankings here. And when I first started doing research for this video, which was like a week or two ago, Devonte Smith was the wide receiver 16. Since then, AJ Brown has now been traded to New England. As I was writing this up though, I was doing it with the assumption that AJ Brown would be in New England, and he now is. So, he's the one there in New England. But that also moves Dvonte Smith up to be the one in Philadelphia. It's very easy to say. It's very easy to see that when we look at splits with and without AJ Brown, Devonte Smith kind of becomes a different type of player. More targets, more receptions, more receiving yards, a lot more fantasy points. Averages 16.2 PPR fantasy points per game when AJ Brown was not on the field. That's comfortably inside the top 10 fantasy wide receivers. And I don't even think like I'm not looking at Devonte Smith as a guy who's going to pop off for 1,600 yards and 15 touchdowns, but you could have that like Calvin Ridley 2020 type of year. I think I think they're similar players. And sometimes with this when like a number one leaves, you automatically assume like all right, this other guy is going to step in and get a bazillion targets. And I do kind of think that's the case for Dvonte. But we've also seen that go sideways before where like Juju Smither massive target year next to Antonio Brown. Antonio Brown leaves and Juju Smith Shustster can't really be the guy there. With Devont, I'm more confident that he can be an alpha or at least for like a a season he can be forcefed targets and be really efficient with them. I mean, dating back to college, Dana Smith was one of the most legendary college wide receivers ever. He's been nothing but really good in the NFL as well. Had one season where he didn't top 1,000 yards. That was because he missed, you know, four games. But otherwise, you're going to give a very highly efficient receiver probably a huge boost in targets for the year. And I think like Dvonte Smith, more often than not, he's going to see, you know, a 25 to 30% target share. Him and Jaylen Herz already have this real built-in chemistry. They do draft Mai Lemon and Eli Sour, so they add some passcatching targets to the competition, but it's nothing that would scare me away from Dvonte Smith. So, I think we're going to watch Philadelphia this year, and I think Dvonte Smith is going to see, you know, 8 to 10 targets a game. Probably haul in six to seven catches a game, usually finish between 60 and 80 yards, score a touchdown, score like seven or eight touchdowns on the year, and just be like a really really good PPR play where like you can't really overthink this. He's just going to be very very good for fantasy football. Does he have the ceiling of other like elite wide receiver ones? Probably not. But I love Smitty as a pick if you can get him in the middle of the third round.
And then a couple spots below him, I have Lad Mani as my wide receiver 14. And he is currently the wide receiver 19 in the rankings. He's basically a mid fourth round pick right now. And this is another one where I just don't necessarily want to overthink. Like we know Lad is very very good. I think he's capable of playing inside. I think he's capable of playing outside. Keenan Allen is no longer there. So the leading target guy is now out of the offense. Mike McDaniel comes in as the offensive coordinator. A lot of people have kind of been likening Lad Makanki to a little bit of like a Jaylen Wadd type where Lad is not as explosive like down the field. I don't think as like a deep passer, but I'd imagine they're going to get a lot of targets funneling towards uh Lad McConi. And Justin Herbert with the offensive line back functioning normally again I think is is just going to do wonders for the offense. So it's like great offensive situation, good offensive line, great quarterback, really really strong weapon. It's just one where you're not going to go broke taking a profit on a really good player that's probably going to have a really good fantasy year. We saw him finish really strongly down the stretch last year becoming the number one target once again. So Lad's a dude that, you know, I'll probably be patting a lot of my teams with him as my wide receiver two. If he drops into the fourth and I go wide receiver heavy, he'd be a great wide receiver three.
The next couple dudes I want to talk about are just the Colts receivers in general. Both Alec Pierce and Josh Downs I have significantly higher than their current ADPs. Alec Pierce is the wide receiver 33 in drafts right now. I have him at 26. Josh DS is the wide receiver 48 right now. I have him up at 36. Now, a lot of this ADP suppression is because of the unknown of Daniel Jones. And then I think the reason I like him so much is cuz we're finally getting like a condensed target share with a lot of these guys cuz AD Mitchell is obviously in New York now and Michael Pitman Jr. was traded to the Steelers. So it opens up players to have like secure roles where we saw this in Indie, we saw this in Green Bay. It became really really hard to trust any significant like target source in any given game. Now they do bring in Tyler Warren last year obviously and was a phenomenal rookie and should probably soak up a ton of targets if not lead the team in targets, but I also think having Michael Pitman out of the way is massive for a dude like Josh DS. And I think that will allow him to play more sets on the outside. And in splits where Michael Pitman hasn't played over the last couple years, it's a very small sample size, but whenever he doesn't play, Josh DS kind of blows up and has a really good game relative to the way that he has played previously when Michael Pitman is on the field. And I do think Daniel Jones will be out there for the Colts at the start of the year. Will he be less mobile for sure? And I also think Alec Pierce is probably an underrated receiver. It is weird. He got a, you know, fat bag this off season. He felt a little one-dimensional. He had like 45 catches or something last year. But if you do look at the numbers, he's becoming a good separator. If you look at Matt Harman's reception perception profile on Alec Pierce, he's becoming a really good separator and he clearly has a great chemistry with Daniel Jones. They resigned him in favor of Michael Pitman. They didn't go out and draft a notable wide receiver. So, I think the condensed target chair in Indie aligned with the fact that Alec Pierce and Josh DS are both good separators in their own right. And I'm banking on Daniel Jones being ready for week one. These are all discounts I think you're getting on players that are going to perform well above their ADP this year.
Let's move over to the running back tab here. And um let's talk about Carolina, man. Here's what you're going to see. You're going to see Jonathan Brooks six spots higher in ADP for me, RB34, and a spot higher than Chuba Hubard, who is eight spots lower than ADP for me. This is not going to make any logical sense. And um people that watch Jonathan Brooks in college and people that were a fan of him will understand. You've probably forgotten by now, but Brooks was one of the most exciting running backs as a prospect coming out over the last few years. That second round pick out of Texas is even more impressive when you think about the fact that he just tore his ACL and then went in the second round still. Um there are no Vegas lines up around him. We have no idea what his injury status is going to be. Obviously he is, you know, in elevated concern for his injury rating. He's got two ACL tears now over the last couple years. He is very young still though. Still just 22 years old as of this recording. People don't know this, but Frank Gore when he was very young tore his ACL twice as well and then he played for [ __ ] 40 years. All right. So, I'm not giving up on Jonathan Brooks. Offensive line rank inside the top 10. They bolstered it more this off seasonason. They dealt with a lot of injuries last year, but it still didn't hold Rico D back from going nuclear. What I'll say is they showed last year that they're not afraid to bench Hubard if the other player is performing better than Shouba Hubard is. Rico Dattle is now in Pittsburgh. What we're hearing out of training camp is really good. Like Jonathan Brooks has apparently looked very good and I still think they want him to be a big piece of this backfield. Do I think it's going to be some sort of committee? Yes, I do. Especially to start the year and it might be in favor of Chuba, but I think as the year wears on, they're going to keep putting Brooks on the field and see like, oh, we don't get this out of Chuba Hubard. So, I could see it working into sort of a time split that we saw last year with Rico Dattle taking a lot of early down work, Chuba Hubard playing a lot of like third down and pass catching role, but I think it's very clear that Brooks is going to be the more talented back there, the one that gives him a higher level of explosion. This is definitely a risky pick, but right now I really like him because his ADP is outside of the top 100 picks. As you can see on ESPN, he's 126, Yahoo 125, Underdog 113. So, if Brooks starts to creep up ADP, you know, by the end of the summer, and he's like a seventh round pick. We're going to pump the brakes a little bit. But right now, Brooks is one of my favorite players coming out of uh Texas in college. Obviously, a brutal runout when it comes to injuries, but he's a dude that I want on my team and I think is going to have massive upside.
Moving up the running back list a little bit, uh I want to stop and and yap about Tony Pard a little bit. He's he's a relatively boring pick and I get that. Is not going to win you your league by any stretch of the imagination. He's the RB31 right now. I have him up at RB 27, which is seven spots higher than consensus. Tony Pard's been about as consistent as you can find a running back over the last four years. 1,000 rushing yards, thousand rushing yards, thousand rushing yards, thousand rushing yards dating back to 2022. You never think of him as an upside guy because he's only rattled off five, five, six, and nine rushing touchdowns. But on the lower side of that, the last few years, as I've said the last few summers, however, like your rushing upside in terms of touchdowns is almost always going to be a product of how good your offense is, right? And the Titans have invested kind of everything in making sure Cam Ward can take his next step up. They bring in Brian Dable as OC, which I love that that swap there. They grab Carnell Tate with the fourth overall pick this year. They sign Juan Del Robinson, who's not like a super high ceiling player, but he was really good for New York last year. Now, what that does is allow there to be this like this this group which now has depth cuz I think Shamir DK was really good last year. Elakai Mayor is all right. Uh Calvin Ridley, if he can come back and like provide anything as a wide receiver, 34. I think you have like a decent looking room here. They did draft Nick Singleton. He's a fifth round pick, so like he is someone who I will be taking some shots on in drafts this year. I do like the talent there, but he's coming back from an injury and again he's a fifth round pick. But I'm kind of a fan of uh of Tony Per this year. I I think their offensive line has been improved a little bit. They brought in some pieces. So overall, I think if you think the the Titans are going to take a step up, then Tony Pard should be a huge beneficiary from that. Even if even if it's more so tilted towards the passing game because the one aspect of Tony Pard's box score that isn't really seeing any love is the rushing touchdowns. And that's because if you're not inside the 5yd line often, you're probably not scoring that many rushing touchdowns. So I'm a little bit above consensus on Tony Power right now.
And then if we move over to the last position here, we have the tight ends and I have Dallas Goddard here as my tight end 9. Tight end 12 and ADP. I'm not going to go too deep into this. It's just another thing of like the splits there between when AJ Brown is on the field versus off the field. Dallas Goddard also sees a huge boost. We've just seen this over the last like three years when any of those guys are off the field, whether it's Devonte or AJ Brown or Dallas Goddard, like the other guys just get funneled a bunch of targets and we have a very clear indicator of like what's happening going into next year. We don't have to we don't have to think about it through injuries or that kind of lens right now. We know who's not going to be there. So, I like Dallas Goddard there.
And then the last player I like on this list more than ADP is Shiggy. Shiggy signs uh I think it was like three years 30 something million with the Washington Commanders. Right now is ADP is tight end 22. I have him as tight end 15. So, he's not a surefire like must type of dude that I feel comfortable getting into my lineup right away. But, I do think they are so void of of talent there in the passing game right now. And they signed Chiggy to be like that athlete there, right? Zack Z is coming off the ACL tear, so like he's very old. I don't expect to see much out of him there, but I think Chiggy's shown like that that breakout kind of upside that we'd hope to see continue in Tennessee. But Washington clearly believes in him. This is a guy that can play after the catch. This is a guy that has good hands. This is a guy that I think if given the opportunity in a consistent, you know, high producing offense like I think Washington will be with Jaden Daniels this year, I do like taking Chiggy with some upside shots here, especially after that contract he signed with them. And overall, it's a good good schedule for the uh the passing game here. Little rough early on, but once you hit this slate of the Giants, Cincinnati, Arizona, Tennessee, it's it's it's going to get nice and juicy there.
So, I will wrap up there. Um, all this stuff is on bge.co, co. By the way, this is our fantasy membership. Uh, all of our products are now under one membership. So, the draft guide, the rankings, inseason, out of season, all this stuff is just going to be updated on this website. One membership gets you everything. And as you can see, the tech has been incredibly upgraded from last year and will only continue to get better and better. You can compare players if you want. We'll have all the Vegas lines of projections ready for you guys by the time your drafts roll around. And we're actually working on a live draft assistant that you could sync with your league as well. So it'll like take guys off the list as you're drafting them on Sleeper, on ESPN, etc. Uh, we've got some [ __ ] really, really cool things in the works. So you can go sign up for a membership on bdge.co. We've also got a very very cool promo running with MGM. If you have not yet signed up and you place just a $10 bet on there using code BDGE when you do your first deposit of $10 or more, uh you're going to get access to the fantasy membership for 3 months for free just by placing a bet on MGM with our code BDGE. All right, I love y'all. I'm out. I'll see you over there on the site. Smoochies.