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Wyatt McClintock's early-round fantasy football draft targets and must-have league-winners for 2026. High-upside draft targets, including Brock Bowers.
Every year, only a few players end up becoming legit difference-makers in the fantasy football season. Not to say sleepers and late-round picks don’t matter, but they don’t move the needle as much as we make them out to.
ESPN data showed that only five players were found on 20 percent or more of championship rosters in 2025. That list included Puka Nacua (29.1%), Jaxon Smith-Njigba (25.2%), Bijan Robinson (23.8%), Trey McBride (22.4%), and Christian McCaffrey (20.1%).
Today, we’re throwing out ADP and values to look at five players who could dominate and land on the most championship rosters in 2026.
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Bijan Robinson, RB - Atlanta Falcons
Only a limited number of managers will be able to draft Bijan Robinson in redraft leagues this season. The young, talented back is entering his prime and has yet to have a statement season that puts his name into the all-time elite conversation.
BIJAN ROBINSON. TOUCHDOWN.
FOX | NFL+ pic.twitter.com/1G2hEDZgXw
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) September 7, 2025
Robinson led the league in scrimmage yards last season, rushing for 1,478 yards with 820 receiving yards. However, he only had seven rushing touchdowns and didn’t even lead his own team in that department.
Tyler Allgeier led the team in rushing touchdowns and vultured eight rushing touchdowns, which was very frustrating to watch as a Robinson stakeholder. If those eight touchdowns had gone to Robinson, he would have had 19 total touchdowns, been the RB1 in overall scoring, and had 24.6 PPR fantasy points per game.
That would have been good enough to be the No. 2 scoring fantasy running back in PPR scoring since 2013, only behind Christian McCaffrey’s historic 2019 season.
We will finally get to see Robinson operate in an offense without Allgeier, with him departing for Arizona in free agency. It is within Robinson’s range of outcomes to have 1,500 rushing yards, 1,000 receiving yards, 100 catches, and 20 combined touchdowns in any given season. That would put him right with McCaffrey's 471.2-point season in 2019.
Robinson offers a rare ceiling with his unique talent, making him the clear No. 1 in all fantasy drafts in my book.
Omarion Hampton, RB - Los Angeles Chargers
Omarion Hampton has been a popular player for fantasy experts to plant their flag on this year for many good reasons. He is a talented young back in his own right and will be running for Mike McDaniel in 2026.
Omarion Hampton finds the end zone to extend the Chargers lead
LACvsDAL on FOX/FOX Onehttps://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/SR9MHL7Ge9
— NFL (@NFL) December 21, 2025
Hampton finished as the RB12 in fantasy points per game (15.1) out of running backs who played in at least nine games. The 23-year-old was an RB1 in PPR fantasy points per game despite running behind one of the worst blocking offensive lines. The Chargers ranked 32nd in run blocking (PFF) and 31st in ESPN's Run Block Win Rate.
This season, he will run behind a much-improved line with Pro Bowl tackles Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt fully healthy.
More importantly, McDaniel will be running the Chargers offense this season. McDaniel has produced a top-5 fantasy running back in each of the last three seasons, with four running backs averaging over 17 fantasy points per game.
The offensive guru has also weaponized the running back spot in the passing game. During his tenure in Miami, the position had a target share of at least 20 percent each season, according to CBS Sports. Furthermore, De'Von Achane has seen 85-plus targets, totaled 480-plus receiving yards, and caught at least four receiving touchdowns in each of his last two seasons.
McDaniel managed to piece together one of the league's most explosive offenses with Tua Tagovailoa playing behind a shaky offensive line. It will be fun to see how much more creative and explosive his offense can be with a quarterback like Justin Herbert at the helm behind a good offensive line.
Hampton could catapult himself into the top-5 running back conversation by the end of the year, and I am actively drafting him to make sure I have as much exposure to him as possible this season.
Brock Bowers, TE - Las Vegas Raiders
There is one guy who can ultimately tilt fantasy in managers' favor every single week, and his name is Brock Bowers.
“He’s kind of a football robot in a good way,” HC Klint Kubiak told team reporters. “He's a football robot from heaven; he's a Cadillac out there. We got to get the most out of Brock.”
With Ashton Jeanty battling an ankle injury, Bowers is the only fully healthy weapon in the Raiders offense. Fortunately, we saw coach Kubiak run a successful offense by funneling targets to one guy.
According to Fantasy Life’s Adam Pfeifer, Jaxon Smith-Njigba had a 44.4% first-read target share and 35% overall target share, both of which led the NFL, while his 31% targets per route run trailed only Puka Nacua.
JSN turned that into 119 catches for 1,793 yards with 10 touchdowns on 163 targets, which equates to 359.9 total PPR fantasy points and 21.2 points per game.
If Bowers produced those numbers at the tight end position, he would, on average, outscore opposing tight ends by more than 10 points per week. The top-15 tight ends who played at least 10 games combined for an average of 11.0 points per game.
Bowers would give managers a 10-point head start each week against their opponents and be the ultimate cheat code that breaks fantasy football this season.
Ladd McConkey, WR - Los Angeles Chargers
The expectations are sky-high in Los Angeles, which has another Charger landing on this list. The McDaniel effect is in full blast, and Ladd McConkey could be the biggest beneficiary.
Ladd for the lead!
LACvsMIA on CBS/Paramount+https://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/zs5tKcSPR8
— NFL (@NFL) October 12, 2025
In a disappointing sophomore campaign, McConkey still led the team in receiving yards and saw over 100 targets. His play took a major hit last season due to a lack of third-down production after Keenan Allen became Justin Herbert’s go-to target to move the chains.
Per Sharp Football Analysis, Allen had 33.6% of third-down targets last season, which was second in the league behind Amon-Ra St. Brown (37%). McConkey’s target share on third downs (18.4%) dropped significantly from 2024 (25.4%).
With Allen now in Indianapolis, he will leave 122 targets available in the offense and the third-down role. McConkey should slide back into that role and find his way into a larger target share in 2026.
In addition, McDaniel orchestrated one of the league's most explosive offenses during his tenure in Miami. His offense had the second-most total yards, the second-most passing yards, and the fourth-most points scored in 2022 and 2023 combined. The offense also led the league in passing yards in 2023.
Tyreek Hill produced his two best statistical seasons in Miami under McDaniel, posting two 1,700-plus receiving yard campaigns. At the same time, teammate Jaylen Waddle surpassed 900 yards receiving and 100 targets three times. That was all with Tua Tagovailoa conducting the offense.
Now, imagine how creative McDaniel can be when designing his offense with Justin Herbert and his elite arm talent and processing ability running the offense. McConkey will be deployed similarly to Hill and Waddle, but will have one of the league's best quarterbacks throwing him the football.
McConkey could be in line for a Jaxon Smith-Njigba breakout season with an abundance of targets available for a limited target tree and an offensive guru to call shots.
A.J. Brown, WR - New England Patriots
After many years of being off A.J. Brown, I finally gave in and jumped on the bandwagon for 2026. He’s a talented deep-threat receiver being paired with one of the best deep throwers in the league. On paper, it is a match made in heaven.
Patriots team reporter Evan Lazar noted that, per Next Gen Stats, Drake Maye completed an impressive 52.1% of his deep attempts (25-of-48) and added +1.31 expected points per drop-back on throws over 20 air yards, the second-highest EPA output of the Next Gen era (since 2016).
Despite ranking third in air yards per pass attempt (9.2), Maye led the league in completion rate (72.0%), showing how accurate he is throwing downfield.
Per NBC Boston, Brown has led the NFL in deep passing touchdowns (nine) over the last two seasons. Deep passes are defined as any pass attempt that travels in the air for 20 or more yards.
With the utmost respect, that is a lot of impressive data that Brown and Maye produced with subpar counterparts to play with. The two should be able to raise an already high floor to the next level this season.
Not to mention, Patriots OC Josh McDaniels has historically peppered his WR1s with targets over his play-calling career. So all of those previously mentioned stats could be magnified substantially.
What new Patriots WR A.J. Brown has to look forward to working with New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels: pic.twitter.com/yCMNkVHov5
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) June 2, 2026
Brown shouldn’t have time for reading books on the sideline with the elite volume heading his way in 2026.
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Below are some popular searches and comparisons from our Who To Draft tool for 2026 drafts for Bijan Robinson, Omarion Hampton, Brock Bowers, Ladd McConkey, A.J. Brown:
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