How the 1st Round of 2026 Fantasy Football Drafts Should Go

Good morning, friends and enemies, and welcome back into the very first fantasy football video of the 2026 season. This is how I believe, in my humble, expert, never wrong, sometimes early opinion, the first round of 2026 fantasy football drafts should go. This is one quarterback leagues, primarily PPR scoring, which leaves us with Bijan Robinson at the very top, the 101 for the 2026 fantasy football season.

He just ripped off 2,300 yards from scrimmage, and it kind of felt like a a tame season for him, to be honest, and he's just hitting his prime, obviously. He's just hitting his peak. And it felt tame because he scored 11 touchdowns. When you look at all the other players within this mix, within this mold, the guys who scored at the top of fantasy leaderboards, it was because the number of touchdowns that they typically have.

Now, when we're looking at Atlanta's situation, Tyler Allgeier is no longer there. He is in Arizona now. And that matters because they were forcing him the ball on the goal line, obviously. Allgeier and Bijan last year had the same amount of rushes inside the 5-yard line, all right? Some dudes that had more carries inside the 5-yard line last year than Bijan Robinson. Jacquory Croskey-Merritt, Sean Tucker, Devin Singletary, Chris Rodriguez.

It is important to note that Brian Robinson has now been brought into Atlanta. I don't think he'll play as significant as a role as Tyler Allgeier did, but I do think they got him for a a nice discount based on what Tyler Allgeier ended up getting paid. And I do think they'll use him to spell Bijan, but even last year, you could see the significant change in just overall touches, production, and how they wanted that uh offense to flow through Bijan Robinson. So, I think you take that a step down further in terms of where the touch play is going to go, more so towards Bijan.

Last year, the Falcons ranked 10th in run blocking in their offensive line, which was really surprising, given the fact that Drew Dalman left to go over to Chicago, and was one of the big reasons that they were so good in the run blocking unit. They also lost Kaleb McGary and Storm Norton, their tackles, for the entire season early on in the the last year, and they'll be getting both of those guys back now.

The big question here is obviously quarterback play. Can we get sustainable QB play from either Penix or Tua? We saw Tua dice it up with Devon Achane this year. We also have Kevin Stefanski coming in as the head coach. We have his former OC Tommy Rees from Cleveland coming in as well. Bijan's an OC proof guy, pretty much a quarterback proof guy. The other thing to note here too is like even if the quarterback play is not great, they're still playing in the NFC South. They still get to play Carolina, New Orleans, Tampa Bay six times a year. Most of their games are going to be in good weather. Most of their games are going to be played in the dome. And I would also argue that the poor quarterback play from last year factored in to the reason that Bijan only had seven rushing touchdowns. So, that felt like a little bit of a floor season for Bijan if if we're being honest with each other here. So, Bijan will be my number one.

We'll move to number two, which is Jahmyr Gibbs and I actually have zero zero issues with anyone that wants to take Jahmyr Gibbs over Bijan at one. I feel like arguing the one two three, anyone in like the top five, you're wasting your breath. Like none of them are going to lose you your season. Jahmyr Gibbs, similar to Bijan, loses Todd Gurley last year. Jahmyr Gibbs now loses David Montgomery. He's in Houston and it's crazy to say because Jahmyr Gibbs over the last two seasons has scored 18 and 20 touchdowns, somehow comes into this year with touchdown upside on top of those numbers. That that might be one of the the crazier story lines going into this year. Like he somehow has scored almost 40 touchdowns over the last two years and has untapped touchdown upside and potential. Last year he had eight carries inside the 5-yard line. David Montgomery had 14, which was eighth most among running backs.

If you take a look at this chart, this is the splits with Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery playing together versus without them. Obviously, this is a huge story line. Anytime David Montgomery's out, Jahmyr Gibbs goes [ __ ] nutty in the fantasy world. You can see in the out split column there and also just the green column to the right of it. His rushing yards go up by 43 yards. He scores almost an extra half a touchdown per game. Eight and a half PPR points more per game when David Montgomery is not on the field.

Now, they do bring in Isiah Pacheco here. So, he will play a little bit of the replacement role for David Montgomery. And even last year, we saw David Montgomery get pretty pretty strongly phased out of the overall offense in favor of Gibbs. And I think similar to Brian Robinson going into Atlanta, like we'll see an even watered-down version of what that split ended up being. I think we'll see the same thing with Pacheco in Detroit. He's not the player that David Montgomery is, and I think they know that there.

The Lions do bring in Drew Petzing as their offensive coordinator, which I I don't love for the overall offensive structure, but he was the former uh OC in Arizona. They always had like pretty strong ground games as long as their running back stayed healthy. So, I'm not overly worried about the offensive coordinator in Detroit, their system being all wonky or whatever. They have so much continuity with the players on that team that I think it's, you know, business as usual for them.

One of the crazier parts of this, too, the Lions finished 9 and 8 last year, and they are the fourth-place team in the NFC North division. So, while we don't know exactly who they're playing, like they'll obviously get the Bears, they'll get the Vikings, they'll get the Packers, they will have a fourth-place schedule. And that's something that I think people need to like understand a little bit more. We saw that almost taken to the top of the spectrum last year, like the Patriots, right? They went from really bad to amazing, thanks a lot in part to Drake Maye's quarterback play, but the fact that they had a fourth-place schedule. Like, you don't really think about it now, but that [ __ ] matters. When you're the fourth-place team in the division, you get the fourth-place schedule for the upcoming year, and the Lions will have an incredibly easy schedule. Another team that plays in the dome. They might literally be the best team ever to have a fourth-place schedule. So, give me Gibbs, give me that schedule.

Moving on down, I've got Puka Nacua at the number three spot. Right now, his ADP is fourth overall. So, I would be picking him one spot higher. I'm just going to assume the rehab stint is in the rearview come summer, and that won't be a problem for him. You guys can do whatever you want for that. Last year, Puka missed a game and still outscored JSN. He outscored Amon-Ra St. Brown by 50 points, Ja'Marr Chase by over 60 points. Stafford is back, he's resigned, Sean McVay is back. This is just one of them I'm not about to overthink.

Next up at the 104, we've got Jackson Smith-Njigba out there in Seattle. Insane breakout, obviously. Depending on what source you use, he was somewhere between like a 36 and a 40% target share in that Seattle offense. It's one of the highest target shares in a single season ever. And there wasn't a ton of change in that offense. They still have busted Cooper Kupp. Van Jefferson they resigned or extended. He's not really a high-volume player. He didn't really make much difference in JSN's target share last year. I really do like Tory Horton, but he never really got you know, a crack at the offense. And with the veterans still in place there, I don't see him getting a bigger role change. So, I think this offense is just going to run through JSN, through JSN, through JSN.

We'll see what their ground game looks like. You know, they obviously got rid of Kenneth Walker. Zach Charbonnet is coming back from the ACL. They drafted Kendre Miller in the first round. So, I'm I'm imagining it's going to run through him, but we don't know how successful it's going to be. They might have to push more through the air. I will say I will say I'm definitely legitimately concerned about them losing Klint Kubiak as their offensive coordinator, who goes to the Raiders in the head coaching position. Their new offensive coordinator, let me make sure I get this right. Brian Schottenheimer was the former San Francisco run game coordinator / tight ends coach. Shanahan, I guess you want to just connect that string there. Connect the dots. Whatever. JSN, obviously full-fledged superstar at this point. Very little target competition in that offense. They will have a first-place schedule, which will be relatively tough there. You know, they get the Rams twice. will be a lot healthier on the defensive side of the ball this year. Arizona will be terrible, but that's great for everybody. He's just an incredibly high-floor player in PPR leagues who might see a bit of a dip overall just based on schedule and not having Klint Kubiak in that offense anymore.

Let's move to number five. That would be Ja'Marr Chase of the Cincinnati Bengals. His current ADP is three overall. So, people like him right in the tier below Bijan, right in the tier below Gibbs, and then it's immediately Ja'Marr Chase. So, I've got him as five. Again, I have no problem, honestly, if you wanted to take any of these guys at three, at two, at four, it's all kind of like the same tier to me. He's another extremely high-floor player, has incredible chemistry with Joe Burrow. But, I will say, like, I I as someone who drafted Ja'Marr as my first-round pick in in like my highest, you know, my my the league that mattered most to me last year, I preferred him with Flacco more than I did with Burrow. If any of you guys were Chase owners last year, you probably felt the same. I think when Burrow came back, he gave Higgins a lot of very very very valuable targets. Most of the deep balls, a lot of the red zone looks ended up going to Higgins there, which is always going to be the case when you have two superstar receivers on the outside.

I would say the more legitimate concern as it relates to like just pure fantasy upside for the Bengals in this passing offense is the overall improvement of their defense through the off-season. That's in theory, at least. So, they add Dexter Lawrence, they add B.J. Mafe, they add Jonathan Allen. The draft was basically entirely defense as it should have been for them. So, they will have an improved defense. How much that actually comes to, uh, you know, the forefront, how much that comes to reality, will be the difference-maker of whether or not they need to score 40 points a game, whether or not they need to score 35 points a game in order to keep up. But, at the end of the day, I don't think there's any way that you could genuinely sit here and argue that their horrendous defense over the last, you know, two to three years hasn't contributed to the insane passing statistical upside that we've seen from Burrow, from Chase, from Higgins. So, you know, if I have to like [ __ ] go out of my way to make an argument about why I have Chase five instead of three, that would be the one thing I'm looking at.

Next up, we got Christian McCaffrey. Another dude where, listen, if you had him last year and you [ __ ] wanted to take him one overall this year, I don't really have any logical argument against that. He's old, he's a year older, but he still has zero competition. They drafted Keelan Black in the third round, but most people said that that was a reach, and Kyle Shanahan just like continues to add guys through the draft that never pan out in this backfield. It's like everything and every down and every play and every situation just runs through CMC as long as he is alive and on the field, and I just don't really see that changing. And Breece Robinson again is out in Atlanta there. It's like even if he averages 3.5 yards per carry again, his target numbers, if you look at the makeup of this offense, they did bring in Mike Evans. So like that will, you know, vacuum up a decent amount of offense, but George Kittle has the torn Achilles very late in the year. Uh Jauan Jennings is now in Minnesota. Brandon Aiyuk, first-class ticket to the [ __ ] loony bin right now. So a lot of the targets that had been what made up this Niners offense over the last few years. And and and George Kittle might be ready for like week one, week two, whatever. And and maybe slowly gets incremented into the offense, but I think with all these moving parts like CMC is probably in line to be, you know, the, if not the number two target in this offense for a very, very large portion of this season again.

So again, we saw his rushing ability kind of slip back and move away from the overall explosiveness that he had when he was a little bit younger. But then we also saw it not matter. Like he put up an insane fantasy season last year, one of the best of all time. And it was because the amount of involvement he had in the passing game, and that's probably just going to be the same. So if you want to bet on him just being older and getting hurt or something like that, you can be my guest.

Number seven, we've got another running back. So we're we're kind of moving back to form where it's like workhorse running backs are are are getting respect again in in fantasy land here. And we've got Jonathan Taylor out there in Indy. His current ADP is seven. I have him at seven. He was just a complete [ __ ] alien last year. And it was like despite losing Will Fries on the line, Ryan Kelly on the line to the Vikings, they bounced back and were one of the strongest run blocking lines in the NFL last year. There's zero competition once again for Jonathan Taylor in the backfield. You're just getting a workhorse running back one, game-breaking ability, very high floor. The obvious elephant in the room here is Daniel Jones and his return timetable for the torn Achilles that he suffered in week 14 last year. They resigned him. He is their quarterback of the near future. And while I expect his his mobility to be a bit limited, for sure, at least for the first half of the season, I do think he still ends up suiting up for the very large majority of of the Colts games in 2026. I think we've just made a lot of progress in the last, you know, few years, five years, whatever, as it relates to Achilles tears and and players' ability to like rehab from them and get back to 80% of themselves relatively quickly. And and quarterback is one of those positions where you're not a running back or receiver where you need incredible explosiveness to get off the line of scrimmage at all times. So, I think DJ will be fine and I think we'll see a somewhat similar offense to what we saw last year in in Indy. So, JT should be more of the same from what we saw last year. Obviously, he's kind of below these other guys just cuz his pass-catching ability does not hit the ceiling that these other guys do.

But, you want to talk about pass-catching abilities and a ceiling, that is Amon-Ra St. Brown. He's coming in at number eight for me. Just as consistent as they come, he's just a top-five fantasy wide receiver, if not top-three guy, year in year out. It's just you know, you're never going to regret having Amon-Ra St. Brown on your fantasy team. It's just like how many years in a row do we need that to be the case in order for it to just become a fact, right? And I I think we're there. I think we're there.

Number nine. And and I I I see a lot of people putting this guy, CeeDee Lamb, above Amon-Ra St. Brown, eight over nine. Not one I'd really argue too heavily against. If you're looking for a little bit more ceiling, Lamb feels like the guy that can give that to you. He's obviously a lot better than what he posted last year. Um he's dealing with some injuries, but you know, you can't just not talk about the emergence of George Pickens. It's very, very, very real and I think that does hurt the overall ceiling of CeeDee Lamb and the other pass-catchers in this group. He's He's one of the best in the game just on a pure, you know, just receiver talent level basis, plus what he did back in 2023 is like the ceiling that we all kind of envisioned for him. I think a lot of people that drafted him last year assumed that that would be the case for him again, but it's going going hard to sniff that, man. It's really going to be hard to get there when you have a another legitimate 1,200, 1,300 yd receiver on the other side of the field. There are just simply going to be games that are the George Pickens games. Like we saw those a lot this year, and CD will kind of take a backseat.

And the other argument to be made here, I think against CD a little bit is is very similar to what I said about Ja'Marr Chase, is that their defense will no longer, in my opinion, be like a bottom three, bottom five, bottom two defense going into this year. Though I'm I'm sure they're still be they'll still be in the bottom half, and they they they won't be like a defense that you need to shy away from, but that matters for fantasy upside when the team needs to throw the ball 40 times a game, when you need Dak Prescott to score 34 points a game in order to keep up with the opposing teams cuz they score on every [ __ ] possession. That matters a lot in fantasy, and you know, the addition of Caleb Downs, bringing on Quinnen Williams last year, like I do think they'll just be an overall better unit in Dallas this year that doesn't give up 35 points a game. So, that wraps up the first nine.

I will say like this is where I felt real good about the first nine. In whatever order you want to to throw them out, and I'm almost like as long as I get a top nine pick, probably more so like top six-ish, as long as I get in that top-ish half of the draft, I feel pretty good. Once you get down to the 10 spot, once you're in the double digits, there there's a group of like five or six guys that I think you can make really strong cases for being at the 10, being at the 11, being at the 12. The guy that I put up here at the number 10 spot is James Cook. His current ADP is 10. I have him ranked at 10. He's gotten better and better each year, and they're trusting him with more work each and every year. He had 309 carries in 2025, which was up from 207 the year before. That is a a massive jump, and for the first time ever in his career, he had more carries inside the 5-yd line than Josh Allen did. He had 14 to Josh Allen's 13, so they're now trusting him in an area where they didn't previously trust him in that led to a lot of fantasy points kind of just dripping off his bottom line. That's not really the case anymore.

The other thing, too, and this was something I kind of hammered away to you guys last year, like rushing touchdowns for a player many, many, many, many, many times is simply just the results of being in a good offense. Rushing touchdowns are a product of a good offense, and we saw that be the case again last year with many of the players who just simply put up the highest rushing touchdown totals, whether it was James Cook or Derrick Henry. It's like, yes, you're in a very good offense. You're going to score a lot of goal line touchdowns, and that will be the case again this year. They are always very good on offense. They will always have a lot of touchdown opportunities for guys like James Cook, and James Cook was kind of at the forefront of the insufferable like touchdown regression argument every single off season. Like, of course he's not going to score 18 touchdowns again. Cool, he scores 14. Another great fantasy pick. Buffalo has been Listen to this stat. Buffalo has been a top six scoring offense in points per game for six straight years, and top three in five of those six years. Cook is not a fluky touchdown scorer at this point. He's just a great back in a great offense that also provides a ton of explosive runs where he can actually score from the 50-yard line on top of now getting a bunch of goal line carries.

Do I wish he caught a few more passes? Yes, I do. Like, he is certainly capable of doing that. He's a very good athlete out of the backfield, but they like giving that third down role to Ty Johnson. I will say Joe Brady is now the head coach in Buffalo, and he loves James Cook. You can see over the last couple years as he was the OC, they've gotten him more and more and more and more involved in the offense, and they bring in Pete Carmichael as their offensive coordinator. Now, Pete Carmichael was the OC in New Orleans from '09 to 2023. That was with Sean Payton, obviously, the entire time. And then he was the senior offensive assistant in Denver in 2024. If there is a more pass-friendly scheme for running backs than Sean Payton's over the last two decades, point me in that direction, please, cuz I don't think there is. So, I do think there's a chance that we see more pass-catching script and upside from James Cook based on the coaching staff coming in and the scheme that might be implemented a little bit more here. So, Cooks is my number 10.

I had so much trouble with 11, 12, and 13 here. And we're only doing 11 and 12 for this video. 11, I'm I'm going to put Justin Jefferson back inside the first round. His current ADP is 12th. I put him at 11. Obviously, the entire offseason conversation is going to be about Kyler Murray. I think he's likely 90%, 95% going to be the starter there in Minnesota over J.J. McCarthy. I still think there's definitely risk there. You know, you bake in a little bit of percentage risk that it is somehow McCarthy wins the job, whatever. And and I think the overall conversation needs to be more about Kyler. If you followed my videos last year, I was very, very off Kyler. People loved Kyler, I was not a fan of him. I just think the NFL kind of figured him out. I thought he had a lot of trouble just throwing over the middle of the field. I didn't want him to invest in Marvin Harrison, some because of Kyler, some more because of Drew Petzing, and I don't believe he can run a very creative, successful pass offense there. But, Kyler at this stage, I think he's kind of shown us what he is as an as an NFL passing pocket quarterback.

Now, KOC is a [ __ ] genius, and I think he can get a lot out of guys that might not be able to get that much out of themselves. He's an elevator of talent, right? And I I think Kyler is one of the most talented players on the field every time he steps on the field. But, is he as good of a thrower as Jefferson has had in previous years, whether it was Kirk Cousins or Sam Darnold, just from a pure arm standpoint, like accuracy, consistency? Probably not, but I'd still like to see say Justin Jefferson is, you know, the best receiver in the league. And I think a lot of people will probably point back to like, look what Kyler did with DeAndre Hopkins his first year in Arizona. I think it was back in 2020, D-Hop went 160 targets, 115 catches, 1,400 yards, six touchdowns. But again, like that was almost six [ __ ] years ago. It was like when the league was first kind of coming around Kyler Murray. He hasn't thrown for more than 24 passing touchdowns since 2020. And he's never thrown for more than 4,000 yards. So, you have Jefferson, you've got Addison, you've got Hockenson, you've got Jauan Jennings. Kyler is just 28 years old and you know, we've seen time and time again now over the last half decade to decade, many NFL players careers simply aren't linear. They're simply not like, okay, they're not doing well, so they are bad. A lot of it is they're not doing well, likely a bad situation, put him in a good situation, he could play a lot better. So, I don't want to completely write off Kyler. I don't want to completely write off Minnesota passing offense because of what we've seen from J.J. McCarthy last year. From what we've seen from Kyler the last few years. So, I I I I am cautiously optimistic. Again, with all of these picks, you kind of like weigh the pros, the cons, things you like, things you don't like, and then you kind of fit them into different slots based on that. So, he will be 11.

And then I've been going back and forth on Saquon and Ashton Jeanty for the 12th spot. And I ultimately decided on Saquon Barkley here. And I think the biggest addition to Philly is by subtraction, by a long shot. a Philadelphia Eagles fan, getting Kevin Patullo out of that situation and not being the offensive coordinator, he might have been the woat. He might have been the woat offensive coordinator that's ever set foot on a football field. He's no longer there. They replaced him with Sean McVay. McVay, former Green Bay quarterbacks coach. So, again, I like him coming from the LaFleur tree. I just like a mix up from Patullo cuz he was just so [ __ ] bad at calling plays last year. And like I just said, I just don't think careers are very linear. Where it was like, all right, Saquon was bad and then he was really good and now he's kind of bad again. I think they're going to have no choice but to go extremely run heavy in this offense, too. A.J. Brown, I'm sure is getting moved in a couple weeks. You know, I I I just think Saquon goes back to being the main focus of an offense that at the end of the day is still going to be a good offense. You're getting a workhorse in an offense and that's something not to underestimate in fantasy football. It might not be as flashy as 2024 Saquon, it might not be as fun as some of the younger Saquon years, but he has so little competition. This will be a very strong offensive line. This will be an above average offense. This will be an offense that I think leans on their running back. So, I'm very much assuming Saquon with a more successful system getting 20 touches a game again will again be viable for a first round pick. I think there is a good chance that Achane eventually makes his way into my top 12 throughout the course of the summer, but I think I need to see a little bit of cohesion in Las Vegas first for me to really move him up that spot.

So, that is how the first round of 2026 fantasy football drafts will go for people at Simply No Ball. We will be ramping up our video content schedule, of course, as the summer progresses. I'm looking to do one to two videos per week right now. As we get into June, maybe that goes up to two to three. You guys know the deal. I've been doing this for a very very very very very long time. And while I might have taken the dynasty season off, redraft is now back in full effect, and I would never leave you with your hands out. We are here. If you enjoyed the video, hit the button that looks like this. Love y'all. Smooches.