2026 Fantasy Football Rankings Update: Putting Respect On Brock Purdy
Fantasy

2026 Fantasy Football Rankings Update: Putting Respect On Brock Purdy

Ian Hartitz dropped his 2026 fantasy football rankings update, pushing up Brock Purdy, Javonte Williams and more players.

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The NFL Draft is over. Best Ball Summer is here. It's time to draft some fantasy teams, people!!!

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Team Fantasy Life has updated rankings for all you fellow sickos for both re-draft and rookie formats. Coincidentally, the fine folks over at Underdog have already released their first crop of best ball tournaments, so the time is MEOW to begin taking early stands against ADP!

This brings us to today's topic: 8 early ranking takeaways that I'm currently keen on exploiting ahead of the 2026 season.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

2026 Fantasy Football Rankings Update

SF_49ers-logo.svgWhere the f*ck is the respect for Brock Purdy?

At some point, the world needs to accept the fact that Mr. Irrelevant puts up numbers on par with the league's best QBs. The No. 1 QB in the Super Bowl era in yards per attempt, passer rating, and passing success rate, those who want to call Purdy a system QB are wrong. But even if they were right: Who cares when the system is literally producing one of the most-efficient passing games ever?

Accordingly, the fantasy returns have been pretty nice as well:

  • 2022 (after taking over in Week 13): 18.1 fantasy points per game (QB11)
  • 2023: 18.7 (QB7)
  • 2024: 18.1 (QB13)
  • 2025: 20.4 (QB4)

Reminder: Purdy averaged a whopping 23.5 fantasy points per game (QB2!) upon returning from injury in Week 11 to finish the fantasy season STRONG–and that was without longtime key pieces like Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams in the fold. Expecting the offensive environment to return to 2023 heights is probably wishful thinking, but it's reasonable to think the additions of Mike Evans, Christian Kirk and No. 33 overall pick De'Zhaun Stribling elevate what Purdy was mostly dealing with last season.

Even with the question marks at receiver, the team's other position groups figure to be strong enough to raise the tide of the rest of the offense. It's been quite some time since this offensive environment as a whole looked anything other than awesome.

Purdy is presently being priced far closer to his floor than ceiling and goes off the board after 44 WRs and 34 RBs are getting drafted. Yes, please.

NYJ_jets-logo.svg The best LATE-round QB on the board is … Geno Smith?

Hear me out:

  • The receiver room is suddenly … kinda nice? We already know Garrett Wilson is a stud, and then the team went ahead and added two talented first-rounders capable of picking up YAC in Indiana WR Omar Cooper and Oregon TE Kenyon Sadiq. Hell, I'm sick enough in the head to even still believe in Adonai Mitchell.
  • Breece Hall—still somehow only 24 years old—is as explosive as they come and remains one of the game's more talented receiving backs.
  • The offensive line possesses a potential long-term elite tackle duo, albeit the interior has some question marks.

Not horrible! Not great, but not horrible!

This brings us to old friend Geno Smith, who is fresh off leading the NFL in sacks and interceptions. Hardly ideal, although he was objectively working inside one of the worst offensive environments in the league in a scheme bad enough to get the offensive coordinator fired before December. Reminder: Smith worked as fantasy's QB17 right alongside Baker Mayfield and Trevor Lawrence during the 2022-2024 seasons.

While not a spring chicken these days (36 in October), Smith's potential to start 17 games with good health in a decent offense makes him a viable Round 15 dart for rosters that still need help at the position. He's a LATE-round QB3 worth clicking over the battles going on in Arizona, Las Vegas, Cleveland and Atlanta.

Why isn't Javonte Williams being treated as a top-15 running back?

It was easy to be wary of Javonte Williams entering 2025. Sure, there wasn't a ton of competition, but many metrics painted the ex-Bronco as one of the league's worst RBs in two seasons following his devastating 2022 knee injury. If Williams couldn't get anything going in a solid Denver offense, why would things be that different in Dallas?

Well … they were! Williams racked up 1,338 total yards and 13 scores as THE running back, y'all, of the league's seventh-ranked scoring offense. He posted rather elite marks in rushing success rate (56.3%, 4th), yards per carry (4.8, tied for 10th), and tackles avoided per carry (21.4%, 7th), largely looking fresher than ever along the way. Add it all together, and Williams was the RB12 in PPR points per game!

Fast forward to this season … and it sure looks like Williams is again entering the sort of situation very much capable of enabling another RB1-worthy campaign!

  • Dallas showed its love to Williams by signing him to a three-year, $24M extension with $16 million guaranteed.
  • This Cowboys offense returns all 11 starters from last season. Would it surprise anyone if they finish as the No. 1-ranked scoring group in the league?
  • The team made literally zero meaningful additions to the backfield: Malik Davis and Jaydon Blue are both projected to (again) serve as Williams' backups.
  • Fantasy Life Projections see Williams racking up the 13th-most touches (295) and 14th-most half-PPR points (219.1) among all RBs.

Sure, things were a bit more productive in Weeks 1-9 (17.3 PPR points per game, RB9) than Weeks 10-17 (12.4, RB21), but hell, that latter mark still bested guys like Breece Hall, Rico Dowdle, Josh Jacobs, Kenneth Walker and Quinshon Judkins, among others.

At the end of the day: Williams really doesn't have a red flag to speak of in terms of his age (26), offensive environment or workload categories. Nobody is mistaking him as a top-5 real-life talent at the position, but his aforementioned efficiency numbers were undeniably solid last year, and guess what: Good-not-great ability can still produce ELITE fantasy numbers in an offense capable of producing all sorts of goal-line volume—just like the Cowboys.

Wheels up for Mr. Cam Skattebo

The good for Cam Skattebo: The man worked as the RB9 in PPR points per game as a rookie despite not even starting until Week 4. The team used the NFL Draft's 10th overall pick on Miami bulldozer Francis Mauigoa and added no meaningful competition to the backfield. The offense as a whole could see a boost in scoring with a Year 2 leap from Jaxson Dart and better luck from the injury gods for Malik Nabers.

The bad for Skattebo: He's recovering from an open-ankle dislocation, ruptured deltoid and fractured fibula. Skattebo is tentatively expected to be ready for OTAs, but learned doctors believe there could be a dip in ability. Not great! Additionally, there's a new coaching staff in town featuring OC Matt Nagy (yikes) that could resist the same willingness to force-feed Skattebo the football.

Certainly some red flags here, but reminder: The man just worked as a top-10 running back—and now he's available at a low-end RB2 price tag! Better news about his health throughout the summer could result in a boom up the ranks into Round 3 territory—Skattebo is a GREAT zero-RB target in Round 5 in early drafts.

What if this season's Year 3 WR breakout is Rome Odunze?

The No. 9 overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft hasn't exactly gotten off to a blistering start, but let's all take a deep breath and remember how Odunze was playing before dealing with some untimely injuries last season:

  • Rome Odunze popped up on the injury report with a heel issue in Week 9, noting that it was a "progressive thing." He averaged 15.5 PPR points per game in Weeks 1-8—good for the 12th-highest mark among all wide receivers.
  • It was eventually revealed that Odunze was playing through a stress fracture in his foot. He further aggravated the issue prior to Week 14 and was forced out of the team's final five games of the season. He worked as just the WR62 (7.6) in Weeks 9-13 while playing through the pain.

The impact of the injury was clear from the eye test as well as from separation-based analytics. Per Fantasy Points, Odunze posted the position's best average separation score against man coverage in Weeks 1-7, but fell to 70th during his final six games of 2025.

Turning 24 in June, Odunze suddenly profiles as the potential No. 1 pass-game option in this DJ Moore-less Bears attack. That's what early Fantasy Life Projections believe anyway. Yes, rising second-year talents Luther Burden and Colston Loveland could have something to say about that. Also yes, finally condensing this Ben Johnson-led passing game around just three targets could produce fireworks for all key parties involved should Caleb Williams take a serious Year 3 leap.

Fun late-round dart alert: Cowboys WR Ryan Flournoy

Watch this shit.

Ryan Flournoy is good, man!

Sure, the 2024 sixth-rounder  didn't do much of anything as a rookie, but he effectively forced out former third-rounder Jalen Tolbert (now on the Dolphins) and supplied 6-114-0 and 9-115-1 booms when CeeDee Lamb was forced out of action. His numbers in yards per route run (1.75, 31st among 78 WRs) and targets per route run (20.6%, 38th) were solid, while both ESPN (WR25) and PFF (WR22) said he was certifiably good.

I get it: Flournoy isn't someone we're going to feel excited about slotting into lineups in September (unless George Pickens' ongoing franchise tag situation goes awry). Even then, he's the No. 3 WR in a high-octane passing attack who will be featured in waiver wire articles of all shapes and sizes should the Boys be without either of their top 2 receivers at any point in the season.

Not bad for a guy going outside the top-200 picks in current best ball drafts!

Don't sleep on a massive Year 2 from Tyler Warren

In case you missed it: Tyler Warren was really good as a rookie.

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And the returns would have been even better if Warren wasn't forced to, you know, spend his December catching passes from a literal Grandpa. Even still: Warren stands as one of just six tight ends to post top-12 PPR per game numbers as a rookie over the last decade!

So why the optimism that even bigger and better things are on the way? Mostly due to the departure of Michael Pittman Jr., who regularly ate in the same underneath and intermediate areas of the field as Mr. Warren last season.

Most agree Warren is deserving of TE4 treatment in fantasy drafts—but does he deserve to be going nearly two full rounds later than TE3 Colston Loveland? How about 50 picks after Trey McBride? 45 picks after Brock Bowers? Well, these are four of the position's only five players (shoutout Harold Fannin) presently projected for triple-digit targets next season—don't count out the possibility that Warren manages to make the most out of these opportunities and post a top-three finish.

THE late-round tight end of 2026 is … TJ Hockenson?

T.J. Hockenson was widely speculated to be a cap casualty this offseason, but instead he'll be wearing purple and gold for at least one more year after the team restructured his contract.

On the one hand, Hockenson is essentially coming off career-worst counting and efficiency numbers inside a Vikings offense that will presumably continue to primarily flow through Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison. He gained more than 50 yards just twice and finished as fantasy's TE27 in 2025.

On the other hand, the veteran TE is an extra year removed from 2023's devastating knee injury—a season in which he finished as fantasy's TE2 in PPR points per game despite catching passes from Kirk Cousins, Nick Mullens and Joshua Dobbs. This came in a season in which Jefferson and Addison combined for 208 targets, albeit the former receiver did miss seven games due to injury.

So we're looking at a TE who has finished the last three seasons as fantasy's TE2 … TE18 … and TE27 … and he's now being priced as the TE22 in early drafts! Last year Hockenson ended August as the consensus TE5 in ADP. Talk about someone being priced closer to their floor than ceiling ahead of a season in which all parties involved *should* see some level of improvement in the QB play department with the addition of Kyler Murray, who, you know, helped Trey McBride work as fantasy's TE2 all the way back in … 2024.

Players Mentioned in this Article

  1. Brock Purdy
    BrockPurdy
    QBSFSF
    PPG
    18.8
    Proj
    304.5
  2. Geno Smith
    GenoSmith
    QBNYJNYJ
    PPG
    12.2
    Proj
    235.0
  3. Tyler Warren
    TylerWarren
    TEINDIND
    PPG
    8.7
    Proj
    157.1
  4. T.J. Hockenson
    T.J.Hockenson
    TEMINMIN
    PPG
    5.8
    Proj
    111.2

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