Deshaun Watson enters the 2026 season as a highly volatile quarterback option tethered to a rebuilding franchise. His declining metrics and lack of job security make him a fade in standard fantasy leagues without much question.
Should You Draft Deshaun Watson in Fantasy Football?
This is tricky.
In PFN’s Free Fantasy Mock Draft Simulator, Watson currently has an ADP of 274 right on the nose. That’s undrafted in most leagues. PFN’s fantasy experts Kyle Soppe and Jason Katz aren’t too high on him either. They currently have him as the 284th overall player on their rankings. That comes out to QB33, with a projected 12.36 points per game in fantasy.
Looking at what he’s done the last couple of years hasn’t been all that great. He was QB36 in fantasy in 2022, QB36 in 2023, and QB40 in 2024. He missed last year due to injury, but whether it’s injuries or just poor play, he’s only played in 19 games for the Browns in four seasons.
Needless to say, they haven’t gotten what they paid for as far as the draft capital to get him and the salary they’re paying him. They haven’t gotten a good return on investment at all. His career-most touchdowns thrown in a single season with the Browns so far is just 7. Not great.
Yes, there are leagues where maybe you’re in a superflex league and it’s worth having a backup quarterback on your roster. But even then, you can run the chance that Watson’s going to get benched eventually in favor of Shedeur Sanders, which feels like a realistic possibility given how bad Watson has been. They’re giving him the reins to start the year. I don’t anticipate he’s going to finish the year as the Browns’ starting quarterback.
The only way that I would draft Watson is if you’re in a superflex league, and even then I wouldn’t draft him as a starter. I’d draft him as purely a backup and work the waiver wire, maybe between Shedeur Sanders or any of the other quarterbacks that are in a QB battle. Not necessarily an ongoing QB battle, but if the Vikings, the Raiders, the Falcons, or any of those teams change quarterbacks, then you can work the waiver wire for one of those guys.
Honestly, I don’t think the ceiling’s very high with Watson at all. I’d just stay away from him completely in fantasy. He’s not coming back to his Texans form. He is what he is at this point, and what he is is a bad quarterback. I don’t think it’s worth rostering him. The only possible chance I could see is that maybe you want to have a backup in a superflex league behind the two quarterbacks that you already take ahead of him. But even then, I’d honestly just work the waiver wire, and I’d rather go that direction.
With Watson at his current ADP, as low as it is, I’m still saying no. I’m not going to look to roster him in my fantasy league this year.
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Deshaun Watson’s Week 1 Fantasy Outlook
Analysis provided by PFN Analyst Kyle Soppe.
The decision to go to Watson is certainly something. I don’t know if it says more about Watson, Shedeur Sanders, or the state of the franchise, but that’s a discussion for another day.
In theory, things could turn in the favor of this franchise.
Hear me out.
We have no idea what Watson has left in the tank. He ran for 24.7 yards per game in his first 6 starts of 2024 and was sacked 5.2 times per game. That’s not great, but if that’s the situation and he’s running for his life, that is one pathway to fantasy points.
Another is the randomness of this sport and the ability for things to get weird in a hurry. Last season, the Jags got caught up in shootouts with Davis Mills’ Texans and Geno Smith’s Raiders. Both of those QBs cleared 26 points against Jacksonville in games that saw over 55 total points scored.
For the record, I don’t think we have a good shot at that sort of environment in this spot, but I would have said the same thing in those instances last November too. The Browns aren’t loaded with offensive talent, but they have two unknown quantities at the receiver position, an emerging star at tight end, and a WR in Jerry Jeudy who earned multiple deep targets from Watson in 5 of 7 games where they shared the field in 2024.
My argument isn’t that Watson will be good. I don’t think he will be. It’s more one that we can’t assume that he will be awful just because we don’t like him. I think there’s a chance that, when you account for variance, the unknowns at play, and the likelihood of a passing script as a touchdown-plus underdog, he could ugly his way to top-20 numbers in his 2026 debut and prove worthy of a Superflex start.
Personally, I didn’t play with fire like this in my Superflex leagues. But if I was throwing darts, I have him ranked ahead of C.J. Stroud against a slow-moving Bills team and Geno Smith in what should be a rare spot where the Jets commit to the run for four quarters.
Maybe it’s best as a differentiator in a high-upside DFS format. I’m not sure this is the right play, but it will be different, and if you can build in a unique way around a cheap signal caller, you never know what can happen.
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Where Watson Ranks Among 2026 Quarterbacks
Watson sits outside our top 32 at quarterback. Here are the last five on the PFN Consensus Board:
- Aaron Rodgers | PIT
- Geno Smith | NYJ
- Tua Tagovailoa | ATL
- Kirk Cousins | LV
- Fernando Mendoza | LV
Want more? PFN’s 2026 PPR Rankings have 200+ players ranked.
