With the NFL season officially over and redraft season still six months away, that puts us firmly in the throes of dynasty fantasy football.
Startup drafts typically occur later in the year but can happen at any time. Whether you have a draft coming up or just want to get an idea of what things look like for a future one, here is what the first two rounds of a 1QB dynasty startup draft might look like.
1.01) Ja’Marr Chase, WR
Cincinnati Bengals
It feels like the sentiment surrounding Ja’Marr Chase’s 2025 season is that it wasn’t quite up to the levels we expect from him. That speaks volumes about the caliber of player and fantasy asset the Bengals WR1 is.
Chase averaged 19.6 fantasy points per game, finishing as the overall WR4. He’s still only 25 years old and will likely be catching passes from Joe Burrow for the rest of his relevant career.
Chase has never averaged fewer than 16.4 PPG and has finished as a top-five wide receiver four out of five seasons. He remains the top asset in dynasty.
1.02) Jaxon Smith-Njigba, WR
Seattle Seahawks
This is not overreacting to one season. Jaxon Smith-Njigba is all kinds of legit.
Wide receivers who are in the 600-700 receiving yardage bucket as rookies do not often emerge into elite fantasy options, but it’s not impossible. The progression of JSN from his rookie year to his third year cannot be understated.
Smith-Njigba posted 21.2 PPG, finishing as the overall WR2. He’s 23 years old and just averaged 3.68 yards per route run. The only non-elite wide receiver to average more than 3.0 YPRR over the past decade is Brandon Aiyuk, and he’s still a very good player. Every other player on this list is certifiably elite. JSN is here to stay.
1.03) Puka Nacua, WR
Los Angeles Rams
No one should be surprised at Puka Nacua’s overall WR1 finish in 2025. From the moment he entered the NFL, he displayed elite skills.
Nacua wins at all levels. He is excellent against both man and zone. He makes contested catches. Nacua was the highest-graded wide receiver in PFSN WR Impact Score at 98.4, a staggering 3.8 points ahead of JSN.
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Situation does matter, though. Matthew Stafford is 38 years old. While he certainly looks like he could do this for another couple of years, there is still the question of whether he wants to.
Nacua is too talented to fail, especially in Sean McVay’s offense. But if 2025 taught us anything, it’s how much quarterback play matters. Even so, it’s hard to imagine Nacua being anything worse than a low WR1 in a post-Stafford world. And that won’t come until at least 2027.
1.04) Bijan Robinson, RB
Atlanta Falcons
Dynasty managers rightfully want to build their rosters around wide receivers. That’s why the top three picks are who they are. But it’s important to not force a lesser player simply because of position.
Bijan Robinson is already without a doubt one of the most gifted runners of all time. The way he moves with the football is reminiscent of Barry Sanders, and I do not make that comparison lightly.
Robinson just averaged 21.8 PPG on a Falcons offense that wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders. He’s 24 years old and now will be playing for Kevin Stefanski, who made the Browns’ rushing attack competent throughout his tenure despite never having anything even resembling a quality quarterback.
Robinson should be an elite RB1 for at least the next five years. That is plenty long enough to be the cornerstone of your dynasty roster.
1.05) Jahmyr Gibbs, RB
Detroit Lions
Easily the most explosive player in the NFL currently, Jahmyr Gibbs remains a notch below Robinson because he has a bit more of a tendency to disappear. Gibbs had four games with single-digit fantasy points.
Even so, Gibbs averaged 21.6 PPG, largely behind a sizable uptick in his passing game role. He saw a career-best 17.1% target share, and they weren’t all checkdowns. There was a deliberate effort to throw the ball to Gibbs.
David Montgomery took a firm backseat to Gibbs in 2025, and the gap should only further widen in the future, if Montgomery even returns in 2026.
At 24 years old, Gibbs has just as much time as Robinson as an elite asset. The same process applies to making him your cornerstone asset.
1.06) Malik Nabers, WR
New York Giants
If Malik Nabers didn’t tear his ACL, there’s a very good chance we’re talking about him in the same breath as the likes of Chase, JSN, and Nacua. The young Giants receiver has dealt with more injuries than we’d care to see during his two short years in the NFL. When on the field, though, he’s been nothing short of studly.
Nabers posted 18.2 PPG as a rookie playing with a combination of Daniel Jones, Tommy DeVito, and Drew Lock. Now, he has a new coaching staff that will be an upgrade on whatever Brian Daboll’s crew was doing. Plus, the Giants have their franchise quarterback in Jaxson Dart.
At 23 years old, Nabers has almost a decade of dominance in front of him.
1.07) CeeDee Lamb, WR
Dallas Cowboys
If you look at CeeDee Lamb’s raw numbers, his 14.4 PPG average looks quite disappointing. He’s 27 years old. Still firmly in his prime, but with the arrival of George Pickens, perhaps the guy who averaged 23.7 PPG in 2023 is no longer there. A deeper dive tells a different story.
Did Lamb really only average 14.4 PPG? That number includes his 0.0 fantasy points in Week 3 when he sprained his ankle on his first touch. Let’s take that out of the equation.
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We should also remove his 1.4 points in Week 18 when the Cowboys pulled starters at halftime and weren’t really trying to begin with. That gives us 16.7 PPG, a much more respectable output.
Brian Schottenheimer is an offensive-minded head coach. Dak Prescott remains one of the better quarterbacks in the league. Lamb is still the WR1 above Pickens. Dynasty managers should feel great about Lamb as their WR1.
1.08) Justin Jefferson, WR
Minnesota Vikings
Before the 2025 season, I proudly proclaimed how I wasn’t scared of Justin Jefferson playing with yet another quarterback. After all, he managed to survive after Kirk Cousins tore his ACL and he had to catch passes from the likes of Josh Dobbs, Jaren Hall, and Nick Mullens. Surely, J.J. McCarthy couldn’t be worse.
I was wrong. Very wrong.
It’s common for even the most elite receivers to have down years with bad QB play. It’s extremely rare for a receiver as proven as Jefferson to go from quite literally never finishing worse than WR9 to averaging 11.9 PPG and finishing as the WR25.
As infuriating as it was to roster Jefferson in 2025, we’re talking about a 26-year-old mega talent still firmly in his prime.
Jefferson still saw a 30.3% target share. The talent didn’t go away. Even if it’s McCarthy again in 2026, you have to figure Kevin O’Connell does a better job at getting the ball to his best player. Maybe we reunite him with Cousins as a bridge to the QB of the future in 2027.
1.09) Ashton Jeanty, RB
Las Vegas Raiders
Did you draft Ashton Jeanty last season and feel cheated? You shouldn’t. This notion that Jeanty was somehow a bust as a rookie is not supported by the data.
Yes, of course, he underperformed. Any running back going at the 1/2 turn is expected to produce in the realm of 16 PPG. Jeanty failed to reach that, but not by much. Jeanty’s 14.4 PPG was disappointing for sure, but that’s not a total disaster like the managers who took Justin Jefferson or Brian Thomas Jr. You know who else averaged 14.5 PPG as a rookie? Bijan Robinson.
Jeanty’s usage was incredible. He led the league with an 84.3% opportunity share. His 14.8% target share may have resulted in inefficient receptions, but it proves his value as a receiver.
Look at the graph below. The most efficient players are all running backs on good teams, and Jeanty. He did everything he could playing for one of the worst coaching staffs of all time behind one of the worst offensive lines of all time with some of the worst QB play this century.
Jeanty is 22 years old. The Raiders are expected to select Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. New head coach Klint Kubiak was responsible for the offense that made both Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet stand out in the chart above. The year-two ascent is coming for Jeanty.
1.10) Amon-Ra St. Brown, WR
Detroit Lions
Simply put, Amon-Ra St. Brown is a machine. While he lacks the gamebreaking ceiling of guys like Chase, Nacua, JSN, Jefferson, Lamb, and London, to name a few, it’s fair to say no wide receiver has a higher floor.
St. Brown has been between 16.7 and 20.7 PPG for four straight seasons. Even in a year where the Lions struggled offensively compared to what we’ve come to expect from them, St. Brown still managed 19.1 PPG.
If you watched the Lions play all season, you know that he should’ve been even better. St. Brown was a drops machine. Whether an incomplete pass is truly a drop does come with a ton of subjectivity.
Watching St. Brown, it felt like every week he committed at least one truly astonishing drop that often cost his team. If he can clean that up, we could easily see him tick back up to 18-19 PPG. He’s still just 26 years old.
1.11) De’Von Achane, RB
Miami Dolphins
How much of De’Von Achane’s elite production was due to Mike McDaniel? We’re about to find out.
There’s certainly a greater level of risk with Achane given that we don’t know how this new-look Dolphins offense will operate. They have a new coaching staff and will have a new quarterback. I, for one, am pretty confident Achane will be just fine.
Robinson, Gibbs, and Christian McCaffrey received all of the fanfare after their incredible 2025 seasons. But do you know who the best running back on a week-to-week basis truly was? De’Von Achane.
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There was only one player in all of fantasy who posted 12+ fantasy points in every single game. There was only one player in all of fantasy who posted 15 weeks with 16+ fantasy points. He is the starting running back for the Dolphins.
Achane is 24 years old. For all the injury concerns, he hasn’t missed a game in two straight seasons (I do not count Week 18 when the Dolphins gave up). He just averaged 20.2 PPG and did so with only 12 touchdowns. Imagine when he has that outlier scoring year where he gets to 16+.
Achane will presumably not be playing for a bad team forever. Even if the volume dips a bit, an increase in offensive quality would present more scoring opportunities and allow for greater efficiency. Draft him with confidence.
1.12) Drake London, WR
Atlanta Falcons
One of the more unheralded takeaways from the 2025 season is that you don’t mess with PCL sprains. Ricky Pearsall missed two months with his and then never truly got over it. Drake London missed a month and returned to a shell of his former self. If he never got hurt, London might be even higher on this list.
London averaged 16.8 PPG. Anyone drafting him would’ve signed for that before the year. But he was actually even better, as he posted 5.7 and 1.4 fantasy points in Weeks 16 and 17, his first two games back from his knee injury while playing with Kirk Cousins.
Michael Penix Jr. has his own injury concerns as he is recovering from yet another ACL tear. But when he gets back, we know the chemistry is there.
London averaged 19.9 PPG in nine games with Penix last season compared to 8.3 PPG with Cousins. This is an elite talent entering his fifth NFL season at just 25 years old.
Round 2
2.01) Brock Bowers, TE, Las Vegas Raiders
2.02) Trey McBride, TE, Arizona Cardinals
2.03) Omarion Hampton, RB, Los Angeles Chargers
2.04) Nico Collins, WR, Houston Texans
2.05) George Pickens, WR, Dallas Cowboys
2.06) Jonathan Taylor, RB, Indianapolis Colts
2.07) James Cook, RB, Buffalo Bills
2.08) Tetairoa McMillan, WR, Carolina Panthers
2.09) Josh Allen, QB, Buffalo Bills
2.10) Rashee Rice, WR, Kansas City Chiefs
2.11) Drake Maye, QB, New England Patriots
2.12) Chris Olave, WR, New Orleans Saints
