Is Jayden Daniels A Part Of Your Fantasy Football Draft Plan?

With draft season fully heating up, it’s about time we formulated our plans at the QB position.

Fortunately for us, Dwain McFarland just dropped an epic strategy guide for QBs in 2026 fantasy drafts (hot on the heels of his WR Tiers deep dive).

Some macro takeaways when thinking about QB targets:

If you want a QB who can hit 22+ points per game, you’ll likely need to grab them before Round 6.
Dual-threat QBs (5.5+ ppg rushing) remain the skeleton key for unlocking fantasy upside.
Your league settings and the unique ADP environment where you are drafting should be the biggest driver in how you approach the QB position.

With that said, here is my quick-and-dirty draft plan for QBs after digesting Dwain’s piece:

Fade Josh Allen. He goes in Round 2 on a lot of sites, including ESPN. Having to take him over guys like Kenneth Walker and Chase Brown is just too rich for my blood.
Snag Jayden Daniels and Jalen Hurts if you can get a value on them in Rounds 5 and 6. They can easily challenge the top guys and you are getting a discount relative to Allen and Lamar Jackson—who Freedman has previously cautioned us on.
Load up on RBs/WRs and then target Trevor Lawrence, Justin Herbert, Bo Nix and Kyler Murray. This is the Goldilocks zone for me with QBs this year. All of these guys are going outside the top 90 picks on ESPN and offer significant upside as both rushers and passers. Kyler, in particular—yes, he was officially named the starter—looks like an insane deal (ADP: 150.8) right now.

There are lots of ways to skin the QB cat, but the TLDR is you should be taking big, price-sensitive swings on the dual-threat guys.

In the event that they flop or get hurt, you’ll always be able to pick up a Sam Darnold-ass player on the waiver wire.

WHICH QUARTERBACKS HAVE THE HIGHEST CEILING?

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Around the Watercooler

Your favorite football nerds are back and bringing you the latest news, content and memes from the NFL universe …

💤 Looking for late-round sleepers? Adam Levitan joins Matthew to look for those league winners.

🚨 Introducing the Draft Companion. Draft day just got a lot less stressful.

↗️ Keep an eye on this WR. His ranking is on the rise.

🤕 Two names at RB1? This backfield could be a headache.

🪓 One of the beauties of Guillotine Leagues^TM … we chopped off the kickers.

🔪 Speaking of Guillotine Leagues, do you love these ADPs?

🐯 Chase Brown got quite the endorsement. Highest praise.

🚫 Don’t be that person. Stop constantly rebuilding.

🐶 We all love an underdog. New rushing champ?

🌻 Is this prop too low for this WR? He could bloom before the end of the season.

🚑️ Injury roundup. Rashod Bateman, Emeka Egbuka, Rashee Rice.

🤢 Jerry Jeudy in preseason form. Make way for the rookies.

🤔 The highest-scoring offense ever? This head coach wants it.

🎯 A rookie WR could be quite the target. Dynasty managers take notice.

🙌 Dynasty players have some options in the late rounds. Cokeheads unite!

🦸🏽 What are the super power of these WRs? And their Kryptonite.

Drafting From the 1.09: Employing Late-Round TE

When drafting from the 1.09, it’s almost necessary to adopt certain strategies in the early rounds that will lead you down a path of, hopefully, triumph. For Chris Allen in the latest installment of his great series, it meant going for an elite QB in the early rounds. It also meant pushing off that other onesie position: tight end.

When in the late rounds to pounce at the TE position is very important. It means making sure that you have depth at the RB and WR positions, since Chris had already drafted THE QB1 (Josh Allen). Looking at offensive environment is just one of the factors. ⤵️

CAN YOU WAIT TOO LONG TO DRAFT A TE?

Utilizing Matthew Berry’s Rankings in an ESPN Mock

It’s one thing to jump into a mock draft room using our Draft Champion mock draft simulator. Try it, you’ll be happy with what you see. It’s quite another to have Matthew Berry riding shotgun with you. Sorta. One of the great features of the Draft Champion is that it gives you the option of using any of our Fantasy Life experts’ rankings in your mock draft. Adam Pfeifer wanted to ride—not die—with Matthew’s rankings picking from the 1.11, and the result was … see for yourself. ⤵️

STARTING RB-RB

WR Tiers II: High-Upside WR2s & Everything After

There was so much great information to talk about WR Tiers, it had to be broken into two episodes. Part II featured Dwain McFarland continuing on the different tiers for this important position, joined by Kendall Valenzuela and Pete Overzet offering their analysis. Make sure to subscribe to the Fantasy Life Show YouTube channel to catch every episode. ⤵️

MINE THE LATE-ROUND GEMS HERE

Published Aug 13, 2026, 6:00 AM ETUpdated Aug 13, 2026, 3:10 PM ET