Fantasy Football Today - FFT Express - What Did the Playoffs Change? Early 2026 Fantasy Rankings & Overreactions! (02/11 Fantasy Football Podcast)

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Starting point is 00:01:02 answering big questions for 2026 right now with Jamie Eisenberg. And I'm Adam Azer and let's dive into it. So we've got some questions for next year. And we're kind of related to what we saw in the NFL playoffs. Jalen Hertz struggled. He continued to struggle. Where does he fall in your early fantasy quarterback rankings and how much were that change if A.J. Brown were traded?

Starting point is 00:01:31 it would obviously change a lot, especially if Dallas Goddard leaves as a free agent. But I think you're looking at Jalen Hertz as probably something is going to be great value. I still think there's a lot to offer. He obviously has proven to be one of the better running quarterbacks during his tenure as a starter for the Eagles. And I don't think necessarily the coordinator change is a bad thing. I think losing Petulow and hopefully getting a new voice and new system will help. But yeah, if he loses AJ Brown, that's going to be tough to swallow. So right now he's right now QB9 for me.

Starting point is 00:01:59 that group of six through 10 continues to shuffle around. But I like Justin Herbert better, for example, just with the addition of Mike McDaniel. I'm trying to think something like I like better. Jay and Daniels coming back from injury, I think is a little bit better gamble just based on what his upside is and what he showed in his rookie campaign. Like Jackson Dart better than Jalen Hertz right now,

Starting point is 00:02:20 just with, again, what he showed in his rookie campaign and what, you know, hopefully will be a good system for him as well with coordinator change and certainly coaching change. So, again, I think Jalen Hertz is going to be still a top 10 quarterback and end up being great value for 2026. All right. Question number two. Which young quarterback are you most excited for in fantasy out of this group? Caleb Williams, Bo Nix, Drake May.

Starting point is 00:02:50 It's Drake May, but Caleb Williams not far behind. I do want to see what the Patriots do to enhance this receiving core, you know, whether that's bringbacks to find. Diggs or completely overhaul it and move on from Diggs and, you know, bring in, you know, hopefully somebody that's, that's even better and hopefully, and maybe younger, you know, so A.J. Brown can be on the move there for all we know. But May showed with this group that he can be a pretty special fantasy quarterback. He still has the ability to make some plays with his legs. But Caleb Williams is not far behind. I think with what he can do in year two for Ben Johnson, I like that a lot. I think what it upsets me, upsets me is there nothing wrong. When I look at comparing Caleb Williams

Starting point is 00:03:26 to Drake May, Drake May averaged almost. three more fantasy points per game and six point per pass in touchdown leagues. But Drake May had 103 rush attempts. And Caleb Williams had 77 in the regular season. They both played 17 games, but Drake May barely played in week 18, as I recall. He just runs more. I wish we could see that from Caleb Williams. It's such a great athlete.

Starting point is 00:03:47 I wish he would run a little bit more. Can't complain about 383 rushing yards, but he's got the potential to be a 500 rushing guard kind of guy. Drake may rushed for 450 yards and four touchdowns. I wonder in the second half of the season what their fantasy points per game would be. Because Williams really started to perform better down the stretch. And certainly we're going to get a full year of a healthy Colston-Love and least that's the hope. Like when you look at the two, you definitely would take the Bears receiving core over the Patriots receiving core hands down. There's no, right.

Starting point is 00:04:19 It seems like a silly question because everyone in the world is taking Drake May over Caleb Williams. but you could just see a scenario where Caleb's better. And all right, so I won't count week nine because he played the Bengals and he scored 45 fantasy points against such a bad defense. So let's go weeks 10 through 17. We won't count week 18. And in those games, well, they were back to back overall,

Starting point is 00:04:48 but Drake may have a buy in there. So Caleb Williams averaged 21.3 and Drake May averaged 24.7. So a big edge to Drake Mae. 13 touchdown passes for him. Caleb also had 13. What was the difference? Must have been rushing. Again, it was just, I guess kind of similar stats, but Drake May did it in one fewer game.

Starting point is 00:05:13 All right. Next question for you, Jamie. We'll come after this commercial break. We'll take a break on FFD Express and we'll be right back. All right, great question. You're Ken Walker wins Super Bowl MVP, and we just did a draft earlier today, and he went in the third round,

Starting point is 00:05:26 the middle of the third round. And the question is, what range do you have Ken Walker going, heading into the next season? Just wrote a whole story on Ken Walker and what to expect this off season, whether he stays or whether he goes. I made the case that he's a second round pick.

Starting point is 00:05:39 So you started to list off some running backs when we were in the draft. Josh Jacobs, Sequin Bark, we asked in Gentie, I think it was after you took Chase Brown. Chase Brown's the last running back I would take over Walker. He's a top 10 guy for me, assuming that he stays in Seattle and whatever the rehab

Starting point is 00:05:55 and recovery processes for Zach Sharbonnet, ESPN reported at the time of the injury that we're looking at a long road back for him. So if Charbonnet can miss potentially half the season, in the four games, including the 49ers game, which is the one that Charbonnet left. So the four games where Walker was basically the featured running back for Seattle, he averaged 23.1 p.pr. points per game. The only two players in fantasy better than him, non-quarterbacks, were Christian McCaffrey and Pooka Niccoa. So he's got that type of upside, all four games over 18 PPR points. So there's immense upside. We have to factor in his injury track record. You got to factor in the coordinator change. Clint Kubiak leaving to be the head coach of the Raiders. I just think the sky's the limit for Walker if he returned. So franchise tag, contract extension.

Starting point is 00:06:37 I think Walker could be in line, at least for 2026 to be a very special fantasy option. Here's a tough question, one to think about here. Which players postseason performance changed absolutely nothing for you? Call this the Gabe Davis of questions. That four touchdown game. But that did put him on people's radar. So I'll go negative to no change. And that would be Drake May.

Starting point is 00:07:02 He had a miserable postseason, you know, did have over 20 fantasy points in the Super Bowl, but clearly not his best stretch of games, the four games that he played against arguably four best teams. defense in the NFL of the Chargers, the Texans, the Broncos, and the Seahawks. But I'm still drafting him as a top three quarterback. I think from a... I'll say Herbert. I know it's only one game, but like just the whole end of the season for Herbert,

Starting point is 00:07:29 where I'm excusing basically everything. Yeah. You know? I agree. Yeah. Excusing or I'm sorry. I want to put some thought into the Gabe Davis side of it. maybe there's nobody that had that type of

Starting point is 00:07:42 Yeah, I mean, the only guy would be Walker, but we're not, but we definitely are believing it with Ken Walker. I mean, look, the other side of the Drake Mae equation is also, or the same side is JSN. He had one good playoff game. That's a great point. Yeah. What do you make of that?

Starting point is 00:07:58 Nothing? No, I mean, look, they didn't have to do much against San Francisco. He scored a touchdown in that game. Had a great game against the Rams, and then comes into the Super Bowl and was hurt. So I'm not going to fault him for that. Drake, maybe was pretty hurt in the Super Bowl, too, I think. Well, we don't know that for sure, but certainly was dealing with a shoulder injury.

Starting point is 00:08:16 And Will Campbell, you know, the reports coming out that he played through the, you know, came back and played through not being 100%. Yeah, absolutely. All right. I might have time for one more quick one. Yeah, how about this one? Just rank these guys. Rank the Bears wide receivers for fantasy. DJ Moore, Romo Dunez-Luther Burden.

Starting point is 00:08:32 I go Burden 1, O'Dunze, 2, Moore 3, and we'll see if Moore stays on the team. but I think you look at burden and what he hopefully will build off of that stretch that he played was without Romo Dunezay. But I think there's more upside for him for a guy that Ben Johnson drafted. O'Dunzee, I'm hoping what we saw in the beginning of the season can, you know, sort of

Starting point is 00:08:51 he can get back to that level or at least close to it, you know, dealing with the foot injury that knocked him out for the second half of the season, at least the majority of it. And DJ Moore really just did not get the targets that I think he needs. So that's why he's third. But I think all of them are going to be drafted in a similar range. All of them are outside my top 24. I have burdened at O'Donze.

Starting point is 00:09:07 right now back to back and DJ more about four or five spots behind. Okay. Yeah, I think just worth mentioning, we'll talk about this throughout the off season, but when they were all healthy at the end of the year, after Burden had already broken out, burden's snapshot was disappointing. It reminds me of Jaden Reed.

Starting point is 00:09:25 Just slot guy can't really get on the field as much as the other guys. And that's just not to be overlooked. Loveland played all the time. O'Donze and Moore, they played more than Luther Burden. And Leavlin clearly ahead of the receivers.

Starting point is 00:09:42 Yeah. All right. Well, didn't Burden go ahead of Loveland in the draft we just did like three picks or something? Actually, I think, yeah, I think he did. Maybe not. Maybe we went right after.

Starting point is 00:09:55 I think they both went in the same round. All right, anyway, find out. Jamie's going to publish the results of the draft. We can just listen to the podcast that we just did. And we'll talk to you next time on Fantasy Football Today Express. on podcasts.

Fantasy Football Today - FFT Express - What Did the Playoffs Change? Early 2026 Fantasy Rankings & Overreactions! (02/11 Fantasy Football Podcast)

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