Cleveland Browns Fantasy Football Team Preview For 2026

The 2025 Browns were stuck in QB purgatory and coming off a 3-14 campaign. Expectations weren't high … and the team accordingly met them! Credit to Myles Garrett for racking up an NFL-record 23 sacks, and to rookies Harold Fannin, Quinshon Judkins and Carson Schwesinger for making their fair share of awesome plays. But otherwise: This was once again an objectively bad football team.

2026 Fantasy Football Team Preview For the Cleveland Browns

Of course, new year, new Browns, and this front office made quite a few changes ahead of the 2026 season:

HC Kevin Stefanski is out, and former Ravens OC Todd Monken is in. Of course, Monken actually spent time in Cleveland himself as the OC back in 2019; he's improved the majority of passing games that he's had the privilege of leading during his seven years as an NFL coordinator.
Longtime face of the franchise and future Hall of Famer Myles Garrett was traded to the Rams in return for stud EDGE Jared Verse and future 1st (2027), 2nd (2028) and 3rd (2029) round picks.
The team conducted a massive overhaul of the offensive line. Ninth-overall pick, Utah OT Spencer Fano, is expected to be the longtime stud of the group, but the likes of Florida OT Austin Barber (3.86), ex-Texans OT Tytus Howard, ex-Chargers G Zion Johnson and ex-Packers G Elgton Jenkins were also added to the picture to hopefully improve what was one of the league's worst groups in 2025.
The wide receiver room also has several new faces: Explosive Texas A&M WR KC Concepcion (1.24) and physical Washington WR Denzel Boston (2.39) will both compete for Day 1 starting spots in a group with VERY little proven production outside of Jerry Jeudy.

What follows is a fantasy-focused team preview of the Cleveland Browns ahead of the 2026 season. Make sure to check out Fantasy Life's rankings hub for updated player ranks all year long.

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

Is there really a winner in this sad quarterback competition?

QB1: Deshaun Watson (QB33 in Fantasy Life ranks)
QB2: Shedeur Sanders (QB35)
QB3: Dillon Gabriel
QB4: Taylen Green

Probably not. While nobody would call this supporting cast loaded, and Kevin Stefanski's schematic excellence seemed to wane in recent years, we have seen nothing from any party involved here to expect something close to even average performance.

There are 68 qualified QBs in EPA per play since 2023 … and Shedeur Sanders (65th), Deshaun Watson (63rd) and Dillon Gabriel (60th) all rank among the bottom 9 signal-callers. Not great!

Who will rise out of this QB competition?

Is Quinshon Judkins the Hero Zero-RB drafters deserve?

RB1: Quinshon Judkins (RB22)
RB2: Dylan Sampson (RB56)
RB3: Raheim Sanders

There was a lot to like about Quinshon Judkins as a rookie. The Ole Miss/Ohio State product combines physicality with enough breakaway speed to put together a pretty, pretty, pretty good highlight mixtape.

Quinshon Judkins pic.twitter.com/M1kiZc2sgz
— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) June 17, 2026

Of course, things fell off in a pretty major way down the stretch of last season: Judkins averaged 4.1 yards per carry in Weeks 1-9 compared to just 3 in Weeks 10-18. An October shoulder injury could have perhaps influenced this dropoff, and the league's 32nd-ranked offensive line in RB rush yards *before* contact per carry also didn't help. Cleveland came in 29th in my running back supporting cast rating and literally the only reason they weren't lower was because of the group's high combined target share.

Can Judkins return to health and deliver a top-24 season?

Who is projected to lead this new-look WR room?

WR1: KC Concepcion (WR47 in Fantasy Life ranks)
WR2: Denzel Boston (WR52)
WR3: Jerry Jeudy (WR67)
WR4: Cedric Tillman
WR5: Isaiah Bond
WR6: Tylan Wallace

Well, Fantasy Life Projections have KC Concepcion leading the way with 104 targets. And hey, why not, they did draft the man in the first round after all, and there's a lot to like about his big-play ability. A similar sentiment is true for Denzel Boston, who yes, fell to Round 2, but the 6-foot-4, 212-pounder possesses a pretty damn fun combination of great contested-catch ability and underrated route-running. Now, Boston isn't likely to run past many professional corners, and his lack of an early breakout as well as middling production in big games wasn't ideal. Still: Solid traits, at a cheap cost, in a fairly wide-open passing game. Not the worst package to target.

And yet, it's actually Jerry Jeudy who I can't stop drafting.

Will anyone rise up out of this WR room to be fantasy viable?

Are we buying Harold Fannin as a top-5 fantasy tight end?

TE1: Harold Fannin (TE5 in Fantasy Life ranks)
TE2: Blake Whiteheart
TE3: Joe Royer

Fantasy Life's alleged expert rankers are! And hey, Fannin was pretty awesome as a rookie. The man broke a position-best 29 tackles avoided in 2025—and boy, oh boy, did he look good doing it. The per-route efficiency was awesome, too. And not just relative to rookies!

Arbitrary counting number cutoffs aside, the full list of rookie tight ends to catch at least 70 passes for 700 yards and 5+ touchdowns is pretty damn sweet: Fannin, Brock Bowers, Sam LaPorta and three-time All-Pro Keith Jackson. Now, it's not ideal that Fannin has missed offseason workouts and OTAs seemingly due to a groin injury, but let's not get too concerned about injuries in June.

Believe the hype on Fannin

Predictions for the 2026 Cleveland Browns

Win total prediction: The Browns have won just eight games over the past two years … and now their best player resides in Los Angeles. This team will, in all likelihood, once again be bringing knives to gunfights in their weekly QB battles. Kudos to the team for seemingly finding a bunch of young talent in the 2025 NFL Draft, and their 2026 picks show plenty of promise—I still got to take under 5.5 wins with a team that is arguably the favorite to score the least total points in the league.

Bold fantasy call: Who else would I pick? Give me Jerry Jeudy clearing 1,000 yards and serving as an upside WR3 in fantasy land..

Last season predictions: Under 5.5 wins (hell yeah, brother), and David Njoku turns in his third straight top-5 finish (sorry for underestimating you, Harold Fannin).