Fantasy Football Today - FFT Express - UPDATED Breakout Players for 2026 Fantasy Football ! Heath Cummings’ Top Targets! (05/19 Fantasy Football Podcast)
Episode Date: May 19, 2026Heath Cummings joins the show to reveal his UPDATED breakout player list for the 2026 fantasy football season. These are the players who could smash their ADP, become league-winners, and dominate your... fantasy drafts. We break down standout names like Sam LaPorta, Kyle Pitts, Isaiah Likely, Jayden Daniels, Omarion Hampton, Quinshon Judkins, Ashton Jeanty, Rashee Rice, and Luther Burden—covering their upside, role, and why they could take a major leap this season. Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Shop our store: shop.cbssports.com/fantasy SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 FOLLOW FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 SUBSCRIBE to FFT DFS on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dfs/id1579415837 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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updated breakouts from Heath Cummings right now on Fantasy Football Today Express.
All right, what's up, everybody?
Welcome to the show.
So Heath just published his updated breakouts last week.
Let's recap some, maybe all of them.
Who do you want to start with?
Let's start with the tight ends.
It would be unfamiliar to no one who's been listening to our show.
But I do think Sam Leporta, Kyle Pitts, Isaiah likely, all three have an opportunity to have career years
with new offensive coordinators who have traditionally thrown the ball.
ball to tight-ins a lot.
Laporte has already been a,
I think the tight-in won overall one season,
but I think he has a chance
to be better than the 14 points per game
that is his career high.
And,
and probably Nerf James
and Williams in the process.
Kyle Pitts,
like, I think part of
like the Kyle Pitts has been an enormous
disappointment is overblown.
He has the fourth most receiving yards
amongst tight-ins since he is,
entered the NFL. He's very good. He has a better offensive play caller for tight-ins than Kevin's
Defansky now. He could be a top five tight-in and then Isaiah likely finally getting a chance to
be a full-time player. Again, going to follow his former head coach with Matt Nagy coming in who's
run the Andy Reid offense the past few years could be the number two target on the Giants.
All right. So Sam Laporta at tight end seven, Kyle Pitts is tight end eight. I'm looking at Fantasy
Pro's ADP. Both those guys are going pretty late in the 90s.
They are the reason I cannot draft Trey McBride or Brock Bowers in round two or early
round three, because I don't think the gap's big enough for a five-round difference in ADP.
And likely's round 11. He's tied in 13.
Take two of these guys.
Okay. And I don't, I mean, I'm just surprised.
Let me just real check draft sharks real quick.
It's really surprised to see Leporta that low in the 90s.
But let me see if, yeah, he's 80, he's 85th on draft sharks.
So that's the first pick of round eight.
That's pretty damn good.
I mean, I feel like he goes in round six, maybe seven of our draft.
So good stuff there on Sam Laporta.
All right, who's next in your breakout list?
Jaden Daniels with the re-breakout.
Average 23 fantasy points per game as a rookie could lead quarterbacks in rushing yards.
Terry McLauran, he should both be healthy this year.
I think Chigo Conquo gives him a little more after the catch.
than Zach Ertz did.
Jaden Daniels, I was way too high on him last year and he got hurt and it stunk.
But I still think he has the potential in a given season.
Maybe it's not this season to be the number one quarterback in fantasy.
Jaden Daniels only played 100% of the snaps four times.
Only had four games where he played pretty much every snap.
Even if you, the other games, he didn't even come close to that.
It wasn't like he had a 96% game.
In those four games, he average 23 fantasy points per game,
23.1 to be exact.
And that was with zero rushing touchdown.
So I love this one.
And maybe you could say he's the reason why I never draft Josh Allen or something like that or Lamar Jackson.
I almost said I wouldn't be surprised on I wouldn't be surprised show that I wouldn't be surprised if he was better than Drake May this year.
But I didn't think that was bold enough.
But I wouldn't be.
All right.
What's next?
The three second year running backs.
And everybody has one or two of these guys as their breakouts probably.
But Omari and Hampton with Mike McDaniel there.
That's a fantastic situation for him.
Ashton Gentie with Clint Kubiak there.
That's a fantastic situation for him.
Quinn Sean Judkins, I just recently said on a show that I wouldn't be surprised to be led the NFL and rush attempts.
These guys do it in different ways.
I think Gentie and Hampton obviously have a lot more pass catching upside.
I think Judkins is probably going to have a lot larger share of his team's rush attempts, though,
and may score more rushing touchdowns than the other guys.
Some people have felt like the rookie running back class was a disappointment.
As rookies, I think will feel much better about them after year two.
I saw an amazing stat on ESPN.
So for Ashton Genti, since 2010, we've had 737 seasons in which a running back has had 100 carries, at least 100 carries.
So 737 times we've had a running back with 100 more carries since 2010.
If you look at yards before contact, the average yards before contact,
Ashton Genties season last year ranked 734th out of 737 running backs.
That is a massive offensive line problem.
I hope it's better, should be with Lindybaum.
I think we can say for sure it's better.
We don't know how much better.
Right, exactly, exactly.
But he's obviously going to be expensive.
People are expecting a big bounce back from Gentie and Heath included.
All right, we'll take a break and get a few more.
breakouts after this.
So we've got three
tight ends, three running backs,
and who's the middle?
Oh, Jaden Daniels?
All right. Anyone else do you want to talk about it?
We've got a couple wide receivers. I'm not sure
Rashi Rice should actually count,
but he's never finished better than wide receiver
27 in total fantasy points
in a year. So I do think
that we have to, the fact that the chiefs
really did nothing to add target
competition for him means
that the past three seasons, when he's been
the top 12 wide receiver in parts of each season should be our full season expectation.
He actually comes out at wide receiver five in my projections,
and he has the chance to be a top two or three guy if he plays 17 games.
Yeah, it is just making him do it over a full season.
Jamie didn't really seem bothered by this stat that I gave on Friday's show on CBS Sports Network,
but he had three games last year against the Chargers,
Texans and Broncos.
And he did not crack.
I think the most points he scored was 12.4.
And in every other game, he was over 18 fantasy points per game.
The Chiefs have, he's got a pretty tough schedule.
Obviously, he faces the Chargers and the Broncos twice.
I don't remember if they play the Texans.
But he's got a tough schedule, a lot of good corners.
Does it bother you at all to see him with a difficult schedule?
I don't like it.
And maybe it's a reason to take Drake,
London over him, but it's, I don't think my questions about Rushie Rice's schedule are as pressing
as my questions about Drake London's quarterback.
What about your questions about Rushie Rice's quarterback? Do you have any of those?
Not for his, for himself, yes. I'm sure Patrick Mahomes was on my bus list because I have my
expectation is we're going to get to training camp and he's going to be healthy and everybody's
going to start drafting him to be Patrick Mahomes. But the reason I'm not excited about him is because
I think the rushing could disappear. And I don't think that's worse for Rushie Rice.
Okay, fair point.
Is that it?
Last wide receiver, Luther Burden, he's a top 20 wide receiver.
His 2.71 yards per route run was one of the best marks ever last year.
DJ Moore's gone.
Alameda Ziggias, he shouldn't have mattered anyways, but he's gone.
Hopefully Caleb Williams takes a step in his second year with Ben Johnson.
I think it's possible if they just really concentrate this target share that Burden,
Odunzei, and Loveland could all be good.
But Burden and Loveland look like much more effective.
efficient past catchers last year than what we've gotten from a Dune's A so far.
So those are the guys I want to bet on.
Okay.
I'm just going to check one thing here.
I wanted to know how you feel about a team that ran, I think they ran the second most plays.
But now I'm looking at the year before the Lions ran the most plays.
And the year before that, the Lions ran the second most plays.
So that's pretty good in terms of Ben Johnson's track record with running a lot of places.
Do you project that for the bears?
I have them projected to be amongst the league leaders.
I always regress that play volume a little bit in the projections
because it's not super sticky year over year,
but it's been pretty sticky for Ben Johnson.
I think he's, yeah, that is a definite factor.
His offenses have averaged 1119 plays per season.
Last year, the NFL median was 1052,
so it's almost a full game's worth of plays more than average.
You know what?
I think I'm stupid.
I was doing the wrong search,
but it ended up giving me basically the same results.
Okay, so each of the last three seasons,
Ben Johnson's offenses were first or second in plays run.
Yep, be cool.
Thank you, Heath.
Thank you all for watching and listening.
This is Fantasy Football Today Express.
We'll talk to you next time on FF2.