Fantasy Football 2026 Roundtable: Michael Wilson, Alec Pierce Among Biggest Surprises

We all love surprises, especially in fantasy football. Some fantasy managers wrote songs for Puka Nacua's breakout rookie season. Ja'Marr Chase's explosive 11-266-3 performance in championship week in 2021 still makes some people misty. And Derrick Henry going absolutely loco to the tune of 216 yards and 4 TDs in Week 17 this past season launched a lot of championship celebrations.

But how about some more deep cuts? We've got them for you, as Ian Hartitz, Dwain McFarland and Matthew Freedman sat around a figurative roundtable and talked about some of the biggest surprises from the just-completed season, and whether there are any actionable takeaways we can glean for the season up ahead.

Fantasy Football Roundtable: Last Season's Biggest Surprises

Who was your “I did not see that coming” surprise in 2025 that made you look back and see what you may have missed in the preseason analysis?

Dwain: The biggest surprises for me in 2025 came at the WR position. Michael Wilson and Alec Pierce both turned into significant fantasy performers as the WR17 and WR24, respectively, despite lackluster output early in their careers.

Wilson finished as the WR66 and WR59 with 7.9 and 8.7 PPR points per game (PPG) in 2024 and 2023, which he drastically improved with 13 PPG last season. Historical fantasy points are the starting point when forecasting future production. However, Wilson's lack of underlying data didn't start there. Despite the Cardinals needing weapons to step up during his first two years, he didn't stand out in any of the underlying data.

YPRR: 1.36, 1.09
Targets: 14%, 15%

Those numbers align historically with WR5 and WR6 performers. So there was nothing under the hood to suggest that he would break out. However, Wilson helped win fantasy leagues. He delivered 19.7 fantasy points per game from Week 10 to Week 18 with Marvin Harrison Jr. battling injuries.

Pierce's historical profile was very similar. He scored 7.0, 5.6, and 10.1 fantasy points per game, finishing as the WR79, WR83 and WR48 over his first three years. As with Wilson, his underlying data didn't paint an encouraging picture.

YPRR: 1.24, 0.85, 1.82
Targets: 14%, 12%, 14%

I did not see either of these seasons coming. Ultimately, it is hard to say there is anything concrete to take away from these two examples regarding how to forecast them differently in the preseason. But there is value in thinking about how quickly we react to players like this in-season on the waiver wire. We saw a similar situation with Jauan Jennings last season.

With NFL passing defenses holding offenses to their lowest passing yards per game in almost two decades, we could see an evolution regarding which types of WRs are the most valuable. I have some very interesting research on that topic that will drop soon! Playing the waiver wire more aggressively might be a viable strategy when a WR with a questionable historical profile gets hot, given the overall downward trend in PPG at the position.

Ian: I didn’t give enough credit to Giants WR Wan'Dale Robinson earning 140 targets in 2024. It wasn’t like I was oblivious to this fact—I watched all of his receptions from that mini-breakout (it was not fun) and was fully aware that he was one of a few low-ADP receivers with a quality target projection.

But guess what? I still drafted Darius f*cking Slayton over Robinson at a similar price tag because apparently, there’s still some underlying childhood trauma that I need to work through. That … or, again, I just didn’t give Robinson proper due for racking up the 12th-most targets in the NFL as a Year 3 receiver sharing the offense with a legit alpha in Malik Nabers.

New rule ahead of 2026: Let’s draft CHEAP wide receivers with a proven track record earning elite target totals and see what happens. We’ll see where Robinson ends up in free agency and how his ADP settles, but for now *one* potential buy-low (ish) candidate could be Buccaneers WR Emeka Egbuka. Despite Egbuka’s second-half struggles and potentially crowded 2026 offense, he still deserves a lot of credit for racking up the NFL’s 11th-most targets (127) as a rookie.

Which player’s underperformance surprised you the most in 2025?

Freedman: Entering 2025, I knew I was aggressive with my projection of and enthusiasm for WR Jerry Jeudy. (He was one my redraft/best ball favorites.)

As it turns out, I was way too aggressive. No. 2 WR Cedric Tillman missed four games; TE David Njoku, five. And Jeudy played every game. Even so, his year-over-year production was cut in half.

2024: 1,229 yards, 4 TDs receiving
2025: 602 yards, 2 TDs receiving

Disgusting.

QB Joe Flacco playing just four games for the team didn't help: I expected him to keep the starting job for longer. And No. 2 QB Dillon Gabriel holding onto the starting job for so long after replacing Flacco and before giving way to No. 3 QB Shedeur Sanders also hurt Jeudy's production.

But really the fault lies with Jeudy (and my expectations). It was unreasonable for me to expect Jeudy's career-high 2024 usage to persist into 2025.

For the first four years of his career (2020-23), he averaged 6.2 targets per game. In 2024, that number jumped up to 8.5. What do you think that number did in 2025?

It dropped right back down to 6.2.

Brutal … but predictable. I should've expected Jeudy to regress strongly to his career baseline.

Here's the issue: Jeudy's efficiency also dropped off a cliff.

2020-24: 8.5 yards per target
2025: 5.7 yards per target

I didn't expect that: I thought HC Kevin Stefanski (a two-time COY winner) would be able to keep the offense respectable.

I underestimated the risk of a QB room consisting of a 40-year old journeyman and two rookies.

I shouldn't have been surprised by Jeudy's terrible 2025 performance … but I was.

Of all the things that you didn’t foresee this season, which is the one you’re willing to look past as just weird circumstances or situation/coordinator/coach, etc.?

Dwain: Ashton Jeanty finished as the RB16 with 14.3 PPG. That doesn't feel great after spending a Round 2 pick on the highly lauded rookie RB. Jeanty is the second-highest rated RB in the history of the Rookie Super Model, which dates back to 2017. Historically, his comparisons have all finished in the top 6 in fantasy in their first three seasons.

We should also see a massive overhaul in Las Vegas. Klint Kubiak is the leader in the clubhouse to take over as head coach and probably handle play-calling duties. The Raiders have the first pick in the NFL Draft, plus the second-most available cap space at $91.5M, according to Over The Cap. That likely means significant improvements to their QB room and offensive line.

Jeanty is the type of profile I want to remain high on. He is one of the few backs with his kind of draft capital—the team wants a return on its investment—who is capable of handling an every-down role. The Boise State product flashed high receiving upside in his sophomore year of college and ranked seventh in RB target share (14%) as a rookie.

I will be in on Jeanty again in 2026.

Did someone surprise you to the point you said, “alright, lesson learned, no more _______”?

Ian: While I wouldn’t say I expected Justin Fields to 100% start all 17 games for the Jets with good health, I obviously didn’t give enough weight to the potential for him to get benched sooner rather than later—and especially not by mid-November. Fields wasn’t exactly the world’s most-expensive QB in fantasy land last August, but he was still priced around Year 2 breakouts like Drake Maye and Caleb Williams, as well as PAID franchise signal-callers like Jordan Love and Trevor Lawrence.

Look, it’s 2026. We all realize just how impactful rushing QBs are in fantasy football land. It’s a helluva drug, and Fields has racked up production on the ground better than just about anyone other than Lamar Jackson during his time in the league. Still, in hindsight, expecting anything close to a long leash for any mercenary quarterback who had already fallen out of favor at several previous stops and now joined … the Jets … simply wasn’t smart thinking.

We’ll see how things settle in the free agent/trade QB streets this offseason, but at a minimum, we should be cautious about potential fantasy-friendly bridge quarterbacks like Fields, Kyler Murray and Marcus Mariota getting a full season to show what they can do with their 2026 employer.

Freedman: Honestly … not really. Every player is investable and rosterable at the right price. But I will say that 2025 was a good reminder that people can get carried away with their positive expectations for young players with little/no NFL experience.

Just shooting from the hip, here's a list of guys who likely disappointed their fantasy investors in 2025:

QB: J.J. McCarthy, Michael Penix
RB: Ashton Jeanty, Omarion Hampton, TreVeyon Henderson, RJ Harvey, Kaleb Johnson
WR: Travis Hunter, Matthew Golden
TE: Colston Loveland, Tyler Warren

Not all of these players had bad seasons. Some of them were injured. Some of them were inconsistent. Some of them merely went a couple rounds too early. And some of them will be superstars in the future, perhaps as early as 2026.

Plus, not all 2025 rookies played poorly. QBs Jaxson Dart and Tyler Shough outperformed expectations, as did WRs Tetairoa McMillan and Emeka Egbuka.

But, overall, 2025 felt like a bad year for those who bet on the upside of the unknown.

I'm not saying that drafters shouldn't be aggressive in targeting the ceiling potential of young players in 2026, especially when they're available in the later rounds. I am saying, though, that when it comes to baseline assumptions and projections for rookies, investors should probably be more circumspect and conservative this year than they were last year.