9 Training Camp Storylines I'm Buying For 2026 Fantasy Football: Wheels Up For Parker Washington

Saturday morning, I downloaded my Twitter archive to see the NFL offseason drumbeats I’ve been posting on X. One thing I learned was that I’ve posted more than 6,200 tweets since the NFL Draft in late April, mainly about NFL news and analysis, which is an absurd amount. You can follow me here, and if you’re a sicko, turn on alerts.

The most important thing is that most of the news cancels out because every player is in the best shape of his life, every rookie looks explosive and every offense plans to move its best players around more. What I care about is what keeps showing up week after week, from different trusted sources, while most people hold on to previous fantasy football ADPs and “don’t trust beat writers”.

After more than 6,000 tweets, these storylines were still standing and are good bets compared to Underdog’s ADP.

NFL Training Camp Storylines I'm Buying For Fantasy Football 2026

Parker Washington | WR | JAX | Underdog ADP 60.8 (WR31)

In May, I tweeted that if Parker Washington's name were Travis Hunter, he would be going at the 3-4 turn—everything since then has made me more confident in that take. The reporting has been relentless, right down to Washington getting to the Jaguars' facility at 4:55 AM.

Liam Coen brings up Washington almost every time he gets the opportunity. He has praised his ability to play inside and outside, win at all three levels and create after the catch.

Also, if you’re worried about Hunter, based on reports, he has primarily lined up outside, while Washington has usually worked from the slot in 3-WR sets, so they don't have to be competing for the same snaps. Washington also said he is playing in 11-, 12- and 13-personnel, which means he will be on the field A LOT. Pair that with Coen calling him a good inside and outside WR, and that means he’s not just going to play in the slot.

The 2025 numbers back it up. Washington posted a 21.4% TPRR, No. 24 among the 76 WRs with at least 300 routes, per PFF. He also had 2.06 YPRR and an 18.0% target share on the season, plus 14.6 PPR FP/G from Week 10 on.

The Jaguars entered 2025 believing Brian Thomas could handle a more complete route tree, but that's not how the season ended. BTJ's aDOT climbed from 11.9 to 14.8 yards, his YPRR fell from 2.45 to 1.50 and his scoring dropped from 16.7 to 9.9 PPR FP/G.

The market recently moved Washington ahead of BTJ, but they're still close to each other and Washington is by far the Jaguars WR I want.

Chase Brown | RB | CIN | Underdog ADP 15.4 (RB10)

Joe Burrow gave us the entire Chase Brown case at his July 30 press conference:

"He does everything. He can protect. He trains as a receiver all offseason and you wouldn't know he was a running back. You don't have to take him off the field."

Camp reports have consistently suggested Brown should be among the Bengals' top players in targets—the second half of 2025 already showed us what that role could produce.

From Weeks 10-18, Brown averaged 20.9 PPR FP/G. Only Jahmyr Gibbs, Christian McCaffrey, Bijan Robinson and De’Von Achane were ahead of him over that span. He scored at least 15 points in every game from Week 11 on and finished No. 4 among RBs with 88 targets on the season.

His rushing efficiency was closer to the middle of the pack—14th among the 24 RBs with at least 180 carries in success rate—but even the rushing improved as the season went along, from 3.89 YPC through Week 9 to 4.83 afterward. The Bengals have also talked about going under center more this season, and there's actual substance behind it: Burrow practiced a ton of under-center work this spring, the team believes under-center play action is the key to creating easy explosives, and Brown himself has performed better from under center.

I get that having Brown at No. 9 overall in my fantasy football rankings, well ahead of his Round 2 ADP, feels high, but the workload is projected to be strong, and Cincinnati now has at least a plausible path for the rushing efficiency to improve—you get the crazy boom seasons when workload and efficiency hit at the same time, which could be 2026 for Brown.

Luther Burden | WR | CHI | Underdog ADP 42.4 (WR22)

Ben Johnson said in early August that Luther Burden is "wired like an elite WR" and is destined to become one of the best. He also compared Burden to Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jarvis Landry. That caught my attention because I had already posted the route-tree comparison in May.

Burden averaged 2.69 YPRR as a rookie, No. 3 among all WRs with at least 200 routes in 2025 and ahead of Amon-Ra himself. His 24.8% TPRR was also close to St. Brown's 25.0% mark in Johnson's final season with Detroit.

Their route trees had a 0.98 cosine similarity—a complicated way of saying they were almost identical and ran the same routes at almost the same rates (does not include the depths).

Burden did all of that with only a 43% route share. Now DJ Moore is in Buffalo, and his 85 vacated targets give Burden a clear path to a much larger role. My Receiver Score model (more on that later this week) grades every route (not just targets) and viewed his rookie season very favorably.

Burden's short-to-intermediate role with YAC opportunities fits what performed best in my Route Depth research, and now he should be on the field much more.

He is currently dealing with a mystery groin injury —not ideal, especially without much information—but unless we get a genuinely concerning update, I'm probably buying whatever dip it creates in his Underdog ADP.

Jaylen Waddle | WR | DEN | Underdog ADP 38.3 (WR19)

Sean Payton has talked about using Jaylen Waddle inside and outside, and he compared that flexibility to how he once used Michael Thomas. When a coach describes a role that maps onto the best target funnel he ever built, I listen.

Waddle has already shown he can handle both versions of the role. As a rookie in 2021, he ran 61% of his routes from the slot, carried a 7.0 aDOT, and caught 104 passes. In 2025, he won more often from the outside with a 13.2 aDOT, finishing No. 11 among 76 qualifying WRs with 2.19 YPRR while earning a 23.2% target share in a bad Miami offense.

The concerns are Payton's WR rotations and Courtland Sutton. Sutton and Waddle operated at similar depths last season, 13.3 versus 13.2 aDOT, so there is real overlap in the role, but they get downfield differently, with Sutton as the straight-line guy and Waddle winning on breaks. Waddle also earned targets far more often, 23.8% TPRR to Sutton's 19.1%, and if those two are competing for the same work, I want the one who has been winning it.

That TPRR gap is part of why my June flag plant has not changed and why I think we’re still drafting Waddle too low.

Josh Downs | WR | IND | Underdog ADP 84.2 (WR40)

I've said Josh Downs is too cheap enough times this offseason, but the reporting out of Indianapolis keeps giving me reasons to say it again. The Colts no longer view Downs as a slot-only WR, and Shane Steichen plans to move him around the formation.

The snap cap is the one thing that has always been wrong with Downs: his slot rate has stayed between 78% and 84% during his career, while his route participation fell to 67% last season. Even with that limited role, his per-route numbers have been elite, including a 27.9% TPRR in 2024 that ranked No. 3 among 80 qualifying WRs behind only Malik Nabers and Nico Collins.

We just saw what can happen when a very good slot WR earns a full route share and tree. Jaxon Smith-Njigba had an 83% slot rate and averaged 14.9 PPR FP/G in 2024, then Seattle moved him around more in 2025 and he jumped to 3.62 YPRR and 21.2 PPR FP/G. Fine, there were also some major schematic shifts here too, but that’s not the point!

I'm not projecting Downs to become JSN, but my research says getting out of a slot-only role can be a massive unlock.

All of that keeps me above market on Downs at WR40, and if a Keenan Allen signing pushes his price down, I would view that as a better buying opportunity rather than a reason to get out.

Isaiah Likely | TE | NYG | Underdog ADP 128.0 (TE13)

I was out on Isaiah Likely earlier this offseason, and his 2025 season gave me a legitimate reason to be: he posted a career-low 1.29 YPRR and averaged only 4.4 PPR FP/G. What changed is that nearly every plugged-in Giants source is now describing Likely the same way: he has been the top target while Malik Nabers works his way back and should remain one of the top two after Nabers returns.

A full-time role is the one thing Likely has never consistently had. When Mark Andrews went down in Week 11 of 2023, Likely caught 17 passes for 282 yards and 5 touchdowns over the final five weeks and finished as the TE3 in that span. In Week 1 of 2024, he went 9-111-1 and finished as the TE1.

The Giants offense could still struggle—Jaxson Dart has reportedly been uneven, and complaints about Matt Nagy's system are already surfacing—but a struggling offense without much proven WR depth can still funnel targets to Likely and that’s what matters at TE in fantasy.

That has moved me off my earlier fade, especially at pick 128, where the market is pricing in more of the bad 2025 season than the possibility that Likely finally gets a full-time role and top-two target volume.

The Boomer Backfields I'm In On For 2026 Fantasy Football

Apparently I am a boomer this season. Last week I tweeted, "I feel like a boomer this year for being in on Jacory Croskey-Merritt, Jordan Mason and J.K. Dobbins …”, since those are all not pass-catching backs. Dobbins is eliminated for now given his hamstring injury, but the other two and one more semi-boomer pick still remain.

Jacory Croskey-Merritt | RB | WAS | Underdog ADP 112.2

The Washington beat writers have been moving toward Bill for months. Ben Standig, who was early on the Brian Robinson move last year, now believes Croskey-Merritt will have the largest role in the backfield.

The receiving work is what moves me most—camp reports say he has flashed enough as a pass catcher to put himself in position for the lead role, with pass protection as the last major box to check. We're talking about a potential starting RB in a solid offense in the 10th round. After last year’s call, I plan to listen to Ben Standig.

Jordan Mason | RB | MIN | Underdog ADP 109.8

Matthew Coller has been direct about expecting this to be Jordan Mason's backfield, with Aaron Jones spelling him.

The Vikings' new run scheme should look familiar from Mason's time with San Francisco, and the explosive-run data supports him: Mason's 13.8% explosive-run rate ranked No. 4 among the 49 RBs with at least 100 carries last season. Jones, who is often viewed as the more explosive option, was below league average. I even modeled a new metric called explosive-run rate over expected, which I’ll potentially write about in the future, and Aaron Jones was an outlier in how far below expected he was in 2025—a sign that the wheels may have fallen off.

The market has already started to come around: a month ago Jones was the one coming off the board first, and now Mason goes about 15 picks ahead of him. Even then, a 10th-round price is too cheap for the back who looks like the lead.

Rhamondre Stevenson | RB | NE | Underdog ADP 73.7

Camp opened with Rhamondre Stevenson as the clear RB1—TreVeyon Henderson, with an Underdog ADP of 55.1, worked with the second team.

When I charted their touch share in games that stayed within two scores, Stevenson held a 16% edge through the first eight games. Henderson's role expanded when Stevenson was injured, and he kept the larger share for the rest of the regular season even after Stevenson returned, but across every game in which both were healthy, Stevenson still held a 9% edge. In the playoffs, that gap grew to more than 30% edge in Stevenson’s favor.

Henderson's price assumes a change that hasn't happened yet, and with Stevenson more than 18 picks cheaper on Underdog, I know which side I prefer and I have Stevenson ranked above Henderson.

After 6,000 tweets, those are the biggest bets I keep coming back to.