Drake Maye enters the 2026 fantasy football season securely entrenched in my Tier 2 of quarterbacks, sitting in the elite mix alongside Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Jayden Daniels, and Caleb Williams, just trailing Josh Allen’s Tier 1 status.
Should I Draft Drake Maye in Fantasy Football?
What Maye showed as a vertical passer last year was absolutely sensational. He led the league in deep completion percentage and logged seven separate games with a 30+ yard touchdown pass. Those numbers would amaze me if you told me they were accumulated with an elite WR1 in hand, but they weren’t … and now he has such a threat in AJ Brown.
Recency bias might give some fantasy managers pause, as the last thing we saw from Maye was a struggle in the postseason/Super Bowl. After a long season of elite production, he wasn’t fully healthy, and the Seahawks had every answer defensively. It happened, but I don’t think that rough performance is even close to predictive for his 2026 outlook and doesn’t impact my ranking in the slightest.
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Ultimately, this is a quarterback entering his age-24 season with a highly well-rounded skill set and a dangerous supporting cast. In a perfect world, we get a TreVeyon Henderson breakout that allows Maye’s fluidity in the pass game to truly shine. But frankly, I don’t think Maye’s production upside is tied to how this backfield is ultimately settled. Draft him aggressively as a true difference maker.
If he was capable of putting together the film he did last season without a marquee pass catcher and without an offense that really knew what his dominating strengths were, why would we doubt this profile in 2026?
It’s been him and Burrow for me when I decide to aggressively address the QB position, and, to be honest, I have liked how those teams have turned out.
Fantasy Football QB Tiers
- Tier 1: Josh Allen
- Tier 2: Drake Maye, Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Jayden Daniels, Caleb Williams
- Tier 3: Jalen Hurts, Jaxson Dart, Justin Herbert, Trevor Lawrence, Dak Prescott, Patrick Mahomes, Bo Nix
- Tier 4: Brock Purdy, Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff, Kyler Murray, Jordan Love
- Tier 5: Tyler Shough, Baker Mayfield, C.J. Stroud, Malik Willis, Sam Darnold
Kyle Soppe’s QB Fantasy Rankings 2026
- Josh Allen | BUF
- Drake Maye | NE
- Joe Burrow | CIN
- Lamar Jackson | BAL
- Jayden Daniels | WAS
- Caleb Williams | CHI
- Justin Herbert | LAC
- Jalen Hurts | PHI
- Jaxson Dart | NYG
- Trevor Lawrence | JAX
- Dak Prescott | DAL
- Bo Nix | DEN
- Patrick Mahomes II | KC
- Brock Purdy | SF
- Matthew Stafford | LAR
- Jared Goff | DET
- Kyler Murray | MIN
- Jordan Love | GB
- Baker Mayfield | TB
- Tyler Shough | NO
- Malik Willis | MIA
- Daniel Jones | IND
- C.J. Stroud | HOU
- Sam Darnold | SEA
- Bryce Young | CAR
- Jacoby Brissett | ARI
- Cam Ward | TEN
- Aaron Rodgers | PIT
- Fernando Mendoza | LV
- Justin Fields | KC
- Kirk Cousins | LV
- Geno Smith | NYJ
