Football is BACK. Sort of…

We’re heading into Memorial Day weekend, which means the smell of hotdogs are in the air, your neighbor’s mowing his lawn in a stars and stripes tank with matching shorts, and most importantly—OTAs are in session!

This is the time where we at Fantasy Points are analyzing the tidbits of news that are leaking out, while also diving deep into the nitty-gritty stats to pinpoint some 2026 fantasy draft targets.

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The Fantasy Points staff identifies its favorite players who could pull off a sleeper #1 positional finish 2026 fantasy football leagues.

QB Kyler Murray
Under Kevin O’Connell, the Vikings have ranked 2nd > 1st > 6th > 30th in passing yards and t-3rd > t-4th > 5th > 18th in passing touchdowns. O’Connell was able to achieve those numbers with the likes of Kirk Cousins, Josh Dobbs, and Nick Mullens while resurrecting the career of Sam Darnold before the bottom fell out with JJ McCarthy at the helm last season. It’s certainly within the range of outcomes that KOC can pull a Darnold-like resurrection out of Murray and return this offense to a top-5 passing offense.

RB Chase Brown
From weeks 8-18, Chase Brown’s YPC ballooned up to 4.82, Success Rate up over 56%, and his expected fantasy points were the 3rd highest of any RB at 18.5 per game. This is the 2nd year in a row that we saw Brown become a potential league winner heading into the fantasy playoffs. Cincinnati refused to add any RB competition and almost completely overhauled its defense, which should offer Brown more opportunities to bleed the clock late in games.

WR DeVonta Smith
If/when A.J. Brown gets traded, Smith is a logical candidate for a JSN-like leap in 2026—a third-round fantasy pick who’s about to become the #1 receiver in a run-centric offense. Brown will leave behind a 27.5% target share and a 35% first-read share from last season, so Smith could push to be a top one of the league’s top target earners. He’ll also benefit from playing more on the perimeter (with rookie Makai Lemon operating mostly in the slot), as just 16.3% of Jalen Hurts’ attempts (74 of 454) were thrown over the middle of the field last season.

TE Tucker Kraft
Kraft is going off the board as the TE5 in most drafts, and that’s a price our Joe Dolan is willing to pay for someone who was tied atop the leaderboards with Trey McBride at 16.2 FPG (PPR) through seven games, until an early-November knee injury robbed him of the rest of his season. While he may not be 100% by Week 1, when Kraft does return to the field, he’ll be part of a Packers offense that removed Romeo Doubs and Dontayvion Wicks from its extremely crowded target tree this offseason. So even if his ridiculous 2025 efficiency falls off, an increase in volume should offset that decline.

Read the full article HERE for more players who could finish atop their position.

Ryan Heath examines the personnel usage of the NFL's new playcallers in 2026 to try to identify major fantasy football breakout candidates.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s breakout from last year was largely due to increased efficiency. OC Klint Kubiak utilized heavier personnel groups much more often, leading to less target competition for JSN.

Ryan Heath used this same logic to identify players that will benefit from new playcallers. Here’s the TL;DR…

Ladd McConkey ran only 9.9% of his routes from sets with fewer than 3 WRs in 2025. For comparison, that number was 46% for new Chargers OC Mike McDaniel’s Jaylen Waddle! McConkey is Heath’s favorite bet to be this year’s JSN.

Drake London’s 3.13 YPRR on plays with 2 or fewer WRs ranked 9th-best in the NFL last year. His 0.61 FP/RR on these plays was nearly twice that of the Falcons’ next-closest receiver. He’s Heath’s favorite darkhorse candidate to lead the position in fantasy points.

Christian Watson ran a route on 62.0% of the Packers’ dropbacks that featured 2 or fewer WRs last year, to Matthew Golden’s 43.3% and Jayden Reed’s 1.5%. Watson has always been a per-route superstar, and he finally looks locked into a full-time route share that should allow him to challenge for fringe-WR1 upside.

Mike Evans averages a gargantuan 0.34 TPRR (would have ranked ~WR2 last year) and 2.97 YPRR (~WR3) with 2 or fewer WRs on the field since 2022, +36% and +31% more than he averages across all plays. If his health cooperates, he’s an amazing bounce-back candidate.

When the Bears had 3 TEs on the field in 2025, Colston Loveland averaged an absurd 4.66 YPRR and a 53% receiving yards market share. Heath believes he’ll lead the Bears in receiving this year and cement himself into the position’s top tier alongside Brock Bowers and Trey McBride.

Sam LaPorta’s 0.70 FP/RR from multi-TE sets over the past two seasons ranks 5th-best among WRs, behind only Puka Nacua, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Davante Adams, and Stefon Diggs. By early ADP, he’s one of the most mispriced players on all platforms.

Read the full article HERE for a thorough breakdown of all the new playcallers around the league, including even more players who should benefit from these changes—and some whose production could decline.

Betting expert Tom Brolley examines the 2026 Offensive Player of the Year odds and gives his best bets and leans for the annual award.

Brolley’s Best Bet: Nico Collins (+4500, FanDuel)
Collins’ biggest issue has been staying healthy for an entire season, which he’s yet to do in his first five years. But over the last three seasons, the Texans WR is averaging 5.4 receptions and 86.1 receiving YPG in the 38 games he’s played more than half of the snaps. Collins has been knocking on the door to finish among the receiving league leaders, and, with a little better injury luck, he could do it as he enters just his age-27 season.

Others to Consider…

Jahmyr Gibbs (+1000, FanDuel)
The Lions downgraded at RB2, trading David Montgomery to Houston and signing Isiah Pacheco. Gibbs averaged 32.6 FPG and 162.4 scrimmage YPG in three games missed by Monty in 2024. He also led the NFL with 24.7 FPG and averaged 121.3 scrimmage YPG from Week 10 on last season, which coincided with Dan Campbell taking over playcalling and leaning more heavily on Gibbs. Detroit’s offense has ranked in the top five in PPG and YPG for four straight seasons, and Gibbs will be a big reason if they remain one of the NFL’s best offenses once again.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba (+1500, BetMGM)
The reigning OPOY blew away all other receivers in receiving yards (1793), target share (36.1%), and air yards share (49.1%) during his third-year breakout campaign. The offense could revolve around him even more this season after Kenneth Walker left for Kansas City in free agency.

Read the full article HERE for other OPOY bets to consider.

Tom Brolley gathers and breaks down the latest actionable fantasy football intel from NFL OTAs and minicamps.

The NFL is into “Phase Three” of the offseason—the final stage before contact practices begin with training camp in late July—so Tom Brolley went team by team to round up the most important fantasy headlines coming out of all 32 workouts. Here are a few to note…

Rashee Rice triggered a 30-day jail sentence by testing positive for THC, which violated his five-year deferred probation for a third-degree felony charge last summer. He’ll miss Chiefs OTAs and mandatory minicamp while he serves jail time until June 16. It also came out that Rice needed to have a clean-up procedure on his right knee a week before he was ordered to serve jail time. He’ll be a risky pick this season.

Quinshon Judkins participated in the Browns’ voluntary minicamp in late April and in voluntary OTA workouts on May 20, which is five months after he suffered a dislocated ankle and a fractured fibula, which required surgery on Dec. 23. His initial recovery timeline called for 4-6 months off before returning to football activity, so it appears he’s on track to be ready for training camp.

ESPN’s Ryan McFadden believes the expectation is for Kirk Cousins to open the season as the starting quarterback for the Raiders over first overall pick Fernando Mendoza. It’s not a big surprise, but Cousins received all of the first-team reps at early OTAs, while Mendoza worked mostly with rookies behind Aidan O’Connell.

Chargers GM Joe Hortiz told Kay Adams that the team hasn’t “closed the door” on Keenan Allen returning to the franchise for a 13th season. He also said, “We’re letting these young guys get a chance…Our guys that we have here, we’re letting them grow and develop.” The next month of practices will decide whether the Chargers go into training camp with Ladd McConkey, Quentin Johnston, Tre’ Harris, KeAndre Lambert-Smith, and Brenen Thompson at the top of the WR depth chart, or if the team will sign Allen and slot him back in as the #3 WR.

Check in HERE for the full tracker, which Brolley will be updating consistently through June 18th.

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