The first action of the 2026 NFL preseason upon us, so bring on the Bold Predictions! The goal: find the sweet spot between obnoxious hot takes and boring, predictable prognostications spouted by some analysts. With that in mind, here are five bold predictions that offer an actual pathway to reality in 2026. There’s even a bonus take for the truly fearless. Enjoy!
1. TE1 is Tyler Warren, not Brock Bowers or Trey McBride
A few of your leaguemates will jockey to select Brock Bowers and Trey McBride in the first two rounds of your fantasy football drafts. It’s OK…let them. You are wiser and will wait a few extra rounds before taking this year’s overall TE1: Tyler Warren.
True, Daniel Jones is no Peyton Manning, but let’s remember what the quarterback situation looks like in Las Vegas. Rookie Fernando Mendoza and a decrepit Kirk Cousins aren’t going to remind Raiders fans of…um…Kenny “The Snake” Stabler? Sorry, but with apologies to Derek Carr, I spent too much time thinking of a more recent great Raiders quarterback, only to come up with a slightly less dated reference in the form of 2002 NFL MVP Rich Gannon, a Delaware Blue Hens legend. Sigh.
McBride’s quarterback situation isn’t much rosier in Arizona. Gardner Minshew is always fun to root for, but he’s…well… Gardner Minshew. Jacoby Brissett and rookie Carson Beck aren’t going to provide pleasant flashbacks to Neil Lomax or Kurt Warner, either.
It’s true, bad quarterback play doesn’t necessarily prevent a player from breaking out. McBride and Bowers both flourished last season despite subpar quarterback play. However, both offensive schemes in which they shined have been sunset in favor of new ones orchestrated by Klint Kubiak and (gulp) Nathaniel Hackett. The latter was recently and rightfully described as a “football terrorist” in r/fantasyfootball (well-played, u/fortheband1212). Anyone who has watched his offenses at work in recent years will offer no argument.
The Cardinals’ selection of Jeremiyah Love early in Round 1 this past April makes it more likely that running backs will be targeted in the desert with increasing frequency. McBride therefore stands to lose at least some of his massive short-to-intermediate target share. Also, despite widespread overreactions due to a viral dropped pass in practice in July, Marvin Harrison, Jr. is expected to play a larger role in the new offense. This should likewise result in a smaller, albeit still sizeable slice of pie for McBride and the rest of the TE room.
“Fine, but why Tyler Warren as TE1?”
Fair question! Warren ranked in the Top 5 among all tight ends in receiving yards (817) as a rookie despite losing his starting quarterback midway through the season. Warren had established a great rapport with Daniel Jones, but after the former New York Giants signal caller blew a tire, Warren was forced to endure a quarter of a season of hideous quarterback play. Riley Leonard eventually gave way to the famously fertile Philip Rivers, a one-time great who was eyeing up AARP membership while coaching high school football prior to receiving a call from the Indianapolis Colts.
You can’t make this stuff up. Well, maybe the AARP part.
It gets better: 474 of Warren’s receiving yards came after the catch, second-best in the NFL…again, as a rookie. Warren, who drew a team-high 112 passes, is well-positioned to absorb a large chunk of the 111 targets left behind by wide receiver Michael Pittman, Jr., now a Pittsburgh Steeler. With Jones fully cleared for training camp and preseason action, expect Warren to emerge as THE TE1 in all of fantasy in 2026.
2. Baker Mayfield will be a Top 5 fantasy QB
Spicy, perhaps…but never doubt a determined man who bets on himself, especially when he’s one of two living humans since Bernie Kosar to lead the Cleveland Browns to a playoff victory. Don’t bother with Siri or Ask Jeeves, I gotchu: Vinny Testaverde was the other. The storied career journeyman won a playoff game under center for the Browns in 1995, a full 26 years before Baker Mayfield became the first and only human to accomplish the feat in this current century.
The best season of Mayfield’s career so far was in 2024, a full year after taking over for Tom Brady. Mayfield threw for 4,500 yards and 41 touchdowns, both career highs, en route to a fantasy finish as the overall QB4. He also added 376 yards on the ground, a total he eclipsed last season (382). After two consecutive 4,000-plus yard seasons, the 2017 Heisman Trophy winner from Oklahoma regressed as a passer last season. He amassed only 3,693 yards through the air to go along with 26 touchdowns, his lowest total since 2022. That was the year in which he famously resurrected his career by successfully guiding the Los Angeles Rams to victory with fewer than 48 hours of preparation and practice with his brand new teammates.
The first overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft played through a myriad of limiting injuries last season: an AC joint/shoulder sprain, a bicep injury, and two sprained ligaments (PCL and LCL) in his knee. He started all 17 games despite playing through significant pain, yet still managed to finish as Top 12 fantasy QB (QB12). This feat is even more remarkable behind an offensive line that was decimated by injuries, not to mention the loss of key wide receiver Chris Godwin for much of the season. Let’s also not forget the midseason injury issues that hampered rookie phenom Emeka Egbuka after an early season breakout.
Last season’s “down year” was Mayfield’s third straight finish as a QB1 (Top 12), yet he is currently going off the board as the QB18 across multiple platforms, per FantasyPros. Yahoo! drafters in particular (QB26?!?) have some explaining to do! This is no doubt a gross overreaction to the loss of 33-year-old Mike Evans from the Buccaneers offense. Contrary to popular belief, that void that will be more than offset by a healthy Mayfield motivated by a contract year, Egbuka’s return to health, a potential upgrade over Rachaad White in the form of Kenneth Gainwell, and of course, the return of Godwin. Speaking of which…
3. Chris Godwin will be a WR1 (Top 12 or better) in 2026
This might not seem bold to some given Godwin’s past success as the overall WR2, but 2019 was a long time ago…and he hasn’t played a full season since 2023. So why the exuberance? Well, the last time Chris Godwin broke camp with Baker Mayfield to start the season, he was fantasy football’s overall WR1 (PPR). Then, a horrific ankle injury upended his 2024 season and threatened to end his career. Godwin finally got back onto the field for good in Week 12 of 2025 and started playing the majority of snaps by Week 13. In Week 17, Godwin caught 7 of 8 passes for 108 yards and a touchdown, finishing as the WR4 of the week when he wasn’t back to 100 percent yet.
Fast-forward to the present, and ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler recently reported that several team sources are thrilled to see the return of Godwin’s explosiveness this preseason. Now, enter an improved offensive scheme conducted by Zac Robinson, who melded minds quite well with Baker Mayfield during their brief time together with the Rams.
Robinson comes from the Sean McVay tree and was in the “room where it happened” during Cooper Kupp‘s triple crown season in 2021 (145 receptions, 1,947 yards, 16 TDs) under Kevin O’Connell. Robinson then worked closely with Liam Coen in 2022. Last year, Coen made a fantasy stud out of Parker Washington in the very same role Kupp thrived in, one Godwin will fill for the Buccaneers in 2026. The former Penn State standout will eat up the majority of vacated targets left behind by Evans and is well-positioned for a renaissance season in which he’ll make a mockery of his current ADP (WR42).
4. Jonathon Brooks will be a Top 12 fantasy RB in 2026
All hail the 2026 Comeback Player of the Year, Jonathon Brooks! The 46th pick of the 2024 NFL Draft was the first running back selected despite a 2023 ACL injury, one of two he’s endured in the past three seasons. Had he been healthy, the young man widely regarded as the top running back in the nation would’ve surely been a Round 1 selection. Two years later, he now offers tremendous value and incredible upside in Round 9 or later of fantasy football drafts.
Incumbent Chuba Hubbard scored 11 touchdowns and compiled over 1,300 yards two seasons ago, but lacked explosiveness in 2025 and began giving way to Rico Dowdle as the season progressed. Hubbard missed two weeks for a nagging calf injury, but still managed to play in 15 of 17 games last year. Dowdle ended up leading the team in rushing but was interestingly not retained by Carolina, a move that many observers see as a great omen for Brooks in 2026.
Meanwhile, Hubbard finished the year with a yards per carry average of 3.8 or lower for the third time in five NFL seasons. He caught 30 passes, failing to eclipse the 40 mark for the fourth time in five seasons. While Hubbard carried the mail during a career year for a (5-12) team in 2024, that season appears to be a retrospective anomaly for a player who is shaping up as a timeshare running back for the fifth time in six seasons.
Per John Paulsen of 4for4.com, Carolina projects as the third-best run-blocking offensive line in 2026, a boon for Brooks if he manages to wrestle touches away from Hubbard as I believe he will. One piece of evidence pointing to a meaningful standalone role for Brooks out of the gate: despite a return to health and full participation in practice, Brooks is on the coveted list of starters and key players chosen by the Panthers to sit out the upcoming Hall of Fame Game against the Arizona Cardinals, a rare occasion when we actually want to see our fantasy studs dressed in street clothes on the sidelines.
Fading talented, explosive, and fully healthy players because of past injury history is for the weak. You, on the other hand, are reading this article because you are bold and fearless. So draft Brooks without reservation at current ADP, if not a round or so before, and you’ll be smiling at your bitter-faced leaguemates like Pedro Pascal in a convertible by the time your fantasy playoffs roll around.
5. Dylan Sampson: a free, flex-worthy late round gem
OK, we’ve spent enough time in the NFC South. Before we move north to Ohio and discuss Dylan Sampson, who saw 40 targets in a part-time role last season, let’s briefly explore the pass-catching landscape in Cleveland. The only established player in the wide receiver room is Jerry Jeudy, and the Browns showed how they feel about him by drafting not one, but two other wide receivers in the first two rounds: K.C. Concepcion and Denzel Boston. Both are talented, but have yet to play a down in the NFL.
Second-year tight end Harold Fannin, Jr. isn’t going to absorb all of the nearly 50 vacated targets left behind by David Njoku‘s departure, and neither will the WR group. However, Sampson will absorb nearly all 32 now up for grabs after Jerome Ford left town. Don’t bother looking at Quinshon Judkins for those: his lack of effectiveness in the passing game is why Sampson is even relevant in the first place.
Per FantasyPros, Sampson ranked 2nd among all qualified running backs in yards per route run. He also led everyone in target rate per route run (28%), so he should conservatively see 55-60 targets in an expanded role. Sampson therefore offers sneaky stand-alone value in full PPR leagues as a third-down back on an offense that will play from behind a ton. The cherry on top: if anything happens to Judkins, the second-year RB from Tennessee instantly becomes an intriguing fantasy RB2 who can offer Top 10 spike weeks as a potential three-down player.
BONUS: The two best RB handcuffs are going undrafted!
I was going to write a glowing piece about Blake Corum, but everyone’s doing that this August…and it takes somewhere between six and a dozen brain cells to draft a timeshare running back with tremendous upside in a McVay offense. So, trash pickers, rejoice…I’m here for you! Even though they lack Sampson’s floor, there are two other late-round bargains who offer incredible upside: Kaelon Black from the San Francisco 49ers and Emari Demercado from the Kansas City Chiefs.
Both are forgotten handcuffs, yet are well-positioned to step into roles as immediate backups to two players who are widely viewed as injury risks by many in the fantasy community. Black already flashed in OTAs and minicamp. He’s now in prime position to take full advantage of an untimely fractured rib suffered by Jordan James. Head coach Kyle Shanahan went on record stating that Black was the RB2 on San Francisco’s draft board this past April, which explains why the team called the name of the 2025 National Champion a full 2-3 rounds earlier than most expected him to go off the board.
Black compiled over 1,000 rushing yards and 10 rushing TDs for the Indiana Hoosiers during their impressive title run but was not asked to do much as a receiver by Curt Cignetti and staff. However, the 49ers rookie demonstrated adequate receiving chops at James Madison during his freshman and sophomore seasons, when his versatility out of the backfield was on display.
Meanwhile, according to PlayerProfiler, the (5′ 10″, 215 lb) Demercado runs a sub-4.5 and owns a 0.91 FP/O (Fantasy Points per Opportunity). That metric measures how many points a ballcarrier scores for every combined target or carry. His FP/O average ranked just outside the Top 15 for all running backs in 2026. Demercado also ranked first overall in the entire NFL in True Yards Per Carry (5.8), a metric that removes all runs of 10 or more yards to better illustrate the consistency of a running back’s per-touch effectiveness.
The deeper we dig here, the more impressive it gets: Demercado’s explosive run rate of 11.4% in 2025 was better than that of every qualified NFL running back (100+ carries) except for DeVon Achane and Blake Corum. Even more astounding: Demercado accomplished this as a member of the hapless Arizona Cardinals.
It makes all kinds of sense for Christian McCaffrey and Kenneth Walker III drafters to nab these promising, unheralded backups, especially when both can be selected in the “kicker rounds” of fantasy football drafts. For those who drafted neither big-name, high-risk RB but enjoy preying on opposing managers’ handcuffs in the late rounds, well…you know what to do.
Photo by Zach Bolinger; Adapted by Parker McDonald (@CarbonFoxGFX on Twitter/X)