Fantasy Football 2026: One weird trick for finding breakouts

Banking on hyper-efficiency is almost always a thin bet.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes you find an undervalued player in the middle of final rounds of your various fantasy drafts who turns limited opportunity into a an embarrassment of statistical riches (almost) every Sunday. That's nice. It'll make you feel like a god dang genius too. It's also, to reiterate, not a great bet.

This is a long and overwrought way of saying a team's offensive snap volume matters. Sometimes, if that play volume is extremely high or extremely low, it matters a lot, probably more than you would like because maybe you see fantasy football as a game based entirely on identifying talent. That's part of it. But ours is a game within a game; offensive environment — including the numbers of snaps and drop backs and rushes a team has every week — drives the opportunity that makes or breaks a player's season. My longtime friend and excellent fantasy analyst Patrick Thorman has been singing this song since the zoomers were in diapers. You'll read Pat's stuff if you know what's good for you.

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Below is a quick look at every teams' 2025 offensive snaps totals. The league leaders benefited from what amounts to an extra two games worth of offensive plays compared to the bottom dwellers. That sort of thing matters quite a bit in fantasy football.

And here's a look at teams' offensive play counts with a lead in 2025. This, like overall offensive play volume, often regresses year over year. It matters because teams are (far) more likely to run the football while holding a lead, inflating rush volume and knocking pass volume.

That NFL offenses that run a particularly high or low number of offensive plays often regress the following year might go without saying. I'll say it anyway because there is untapped statistical upside in an offense that was miserably low volume last season but likely to see a play volume boost this season. Conversely, some players might be overvalued in drafts based in large part of the volume that fed their prior year production — volume they might not see in 2026. Below is a look at offenses that will probably see (good and bad) offensive play regression this season.

Last year we saw the Jaguars offense run the league's fourth most plays after running the fewest offensive plays in 2024. In a slightly less dramatic case, the Houston offense was second in snaps in 2025 after ranking 17th in 2024. The Browns offense had the most offensive snaps in 2024; they had the tenth fewest in 2025. The Dolphins went from ninth on offensive plays in 2024 to dead last in 2025. So it goes.

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▶ Positive Regression Candidates

Las Vegas Raiders

The Carroll family make-work program didn't do much for Raiders fantasy options in 2025. Maybe you drafted Ashton Jeanty or Brock Bowers and you know this in your bones and it eats you alive on the inside. Or maybe that's just me.

Anyway, with a new head coach who understands modern football (Klint Kubiak) and a pretty solid offseason, I expect the Raiders to see at least something in the way of positive offensive snap regression in 2026. The reasons for the Raiders running so few plays in 2025 were many, but primarily it was because teams could bludgeon them on the ground and Geno Smith and company could not keep drives going. Only three teams last year had a lower third down conversion rate (34 percent) than the Silver and Black. Only the Browns had a lower EPA on early downs. The Raiders never had a chance.

A jump in offensive snaps for Vegas will obviously benefit Bowers and Jeanty. It could also bring fantasy viability to a third Raiders skill player, maybe someone like Jalen Nailor , who — as I wrote about in May — ran ice cold in Minnesota last season and profiles as the Raiders' No. 1 wideout for now.

Washington Commanders

Jayden Daniels , in my studied opinion, will make a difference for the 2026 Washington offense, now coached by first-time OC David Blough. With Daniels cooking in 2024, the Commanders led the NFL in offensive snaps, operating at the tenth quickest pace.

With Daniels sidelined for much of the 2025 season, the Commanders ranked 26th in offensive plays (though the team's offensive pace didn't change all that much). The difference, as Commanders faithful might know, was third-down efficiency. Washington in 2024 had one of the highest third down conversion rates in the league (46 percent). Last year they converted 37 percent of their third down attempts. That's a big gap.

More plays for Daniels and company will obviously be beneficial for Daniels himself, along with Terry McLaurin , Stefon Diggs , and perhaps Chig Okonkwo . If Diggs runs something close to an 80 percent routes rate with inflated play volume, he has a shot to be one of fantasy's most pleasant surprises.

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▶ Negative Regression Candidates

Jacksonville Jaguars

Liam Coen's first year at the helm, looking more and more like a fella who knows a lot about alligators , saw the Jags rank fifth in offensive snaps despite being the 11th slowest offense in the NFL.

The spike in offensive snaps for Jacksonville helped to fuel the fantasy campaigns of a few players, including Parker Washington after he took over as the team's WR1. While I'm not backing off of Parker's perfectly reasonable redraft ADP, I'm more than a...

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