Matthew Stafford enters the 2026 fantasy football season as the reigning NFL MVP, coming off an incredible campaign that saw him finish as fantasy’s QB2 without any rushing equity. Despite those accolades, there are underlying metrics that suggest massive regression is on the horizon, making his evaluation complicated.
Should You Draft Matthew Stafford in Fantasy Football?
We’ll start with Stafford’s ADP, which sits at 94.8 in PFN’s Free Fantasy Mock Draft Simulator. His positional rank, which is a consensus of my colleague Kyle Soppe and me, is QB15, which projects him for 15.85 fantasy points per game.
Let’s start with the obvious. That QB15 rank is low, we acknowledge it’s low, and he is almost certainly going to outperform his expectation based upon that rank. With that said, we are not necessarily ranking players in the order in which we think they are going to finish. We are ranking them in the order we think you should draft them, and that involves the combination of floor and ceiling.
Stafford was incredible last season. He was the overall QB3. He averaged well over 20 fantasy points per game, and he was one of the best picks in fantasy that you could make. That was 20.6 fantasy points per game last season. This was his first season with 17-plus fantasy points per game since 2021.
What happened in 2021? That was the legendary Cooper Kupp Triple Crown Super Bowl MVP year, when Stafford architected the greatest wide receiver season of all time, because that is what he does. In 2021, Stafford’s touchdown rate was 6.8%. His career touchdown rate is 4.8%. Last year, his touchdown rate was over 7%.
You’re going to see a theme here. Every time Stafford’s touchdown rate spikes to an outlier number, it regresses. We can go way back to 2011, when it was 6.2%. What happened in 2012? It was 2.8%. In 2019, his touchdown rate was 6.5%. In 2020, it was 4.9%. Then, with the aforementioned 6.8% in 2021, what happened in 2022? It was 3.3%. It’s a consistent pattern, and it’s a predictable one that we have tons of data on. Anytime we see quarterbacks spike to a touchdown rate of 6% or higher, they tend to regress more toward their career average the next year.
By no means am I suggesting that Stafford is done or that he’s going to be bad. This is one of the best offenses in football, this is going to be a great team, and Stafford’s going to be a fine fantasy quarterback. But if you are ranking him in a spot where you’re just expecting him to do what he did last year, look at what it took for Stafford to just barely get over 20 points per game. He needed to throw 46 touchdowns.
A perfect example of this is what happened in 2021, when he threw 41 touchdowns and nearly 5,000 yards, and he was the QB10 with 19.4 points per game. Meanwhile, that same season, you had someone like Jalen Hurts, who threw for almost 2,000 fewer yards and 25 fewer touchdowns, and he outscored Stafford, 20.8 points per game. He got him by 1.4 points per game despite Stafford blowing him away statistically. Why? Rushing.
Stafford does not run. In fact, last season Stafford had negative 1.7% of his fantasy points come from rushing. He is not even a zero on the ground. He’s worse than that.
We are asking Stafford for just another outlier touchdown season. That is not something that’s predictable, not something that you can bet on in fantasy football. If you wait on quarterback and Stafford is there in the QB12 to QB13 range, absolutely, he’s a perfectly fine option. You should probably pair him with a younger upside quarterback, maybe someone like Malik Willis or Kyler Murray. But regardless, you’ll be just fine with Stafford.
This is more pushing back on the notion that Stafford should be ranked based upon what he did last year, which is absolutely not the case. We have too much data telling us that Stafford’s not going to do what he did last year again this year. He’s not a full fade. He’s just someone who isn’t worth drafting based upon his last season’s performance.
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Matthew Stafford’s Week 1 Fantasy Outlook
Analysis provided by PFN Analyst Kyle Soppe.
Football isn’t an easy game, but my goodness did it look that way when the reigning MVP got a look at this 49ers defense.
Of course, there were injuries and game scripts to consider, but over 25 fantasy points in both meetings with 669 passing yards, 7 touchdowns, and not a single interception is impressive no matter the circumstances.
I’d be careful not to blindly copy-paste those numbers into this matchup.
Six of those 7 touchdowns came on balls thrown less than 5 yards downfield, and while he can obviously have success in that area given the team around him, they could also be Kyren Williams’ TD plunges.
And then what?
There’s more risk than those gaudy numbers suggest, but this is a 49ers defense that ranked 30th in pressure rate when not blitzing a season ago (topping just the Panthers and Jets). If Stafford is comfortable in the pocket, he’s going to kill you.
If you blitz, he’s also going to kill you.
Against the Blitz, 2025
126.2 Passer Rating
30 Touchdowns
1 Interception
I like Stafford in this spot to return strong numbers, but I do think I’ll be lower on him over the next month (vs. Giants, at Broncos, at Eagles, vs. Bills) than the rest of the industry will be.
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Where Stafford Ranks Among 2026 Quarterbacks
- Dak Prescott | DAL
- Bo Nix | DEN
- Patrick Mahomes II | KC
- Brock Purdy | SF
- Jordan Love | GB
- Matthew Stafford | LAR
- Kyler Murray | MIN
- Jared Goff | DET
- Tyler Shough | NO
- Malik Willis | MIA
- Baker Mayfield | TB
See PFN’s 2026 PPR Quarterback Rankings for more.
