Kenny Gainwell firmly established his elite receiving floor last season, finishing fourth among all running backs with 73 receptions, trailing only Christian McCaffrey, Bijan Robinson, and Jahmyr Gibbs. While his former quarterback Aaron Rodgers certainly deserves a lot of the credit for fueling that high-volume production, his new offensive environment is quietly perfectly suited to maintain it, and there is role upside should Bucky Irving’s 2026 mirror his 2025 and not his 2024.
Should You Draft Kenny Gainwell in Fantasy Football?
We’ll start with Gainwell’s ADP, which is 103.4 in PFN’s Free Fantasy Mock Draft Simulator, and he checks in at RB31 in our consensus rankings with a projection of 10.49 fantasy points per game. The consensus rankings are a combination of me and my colleague Kyle Soppe.
If you followed anything I’ve done this entire summer and offseason, you already know how I feel about Gainwell. He is probably my No. 1 target at running back this season. A big part of that is a fade of Bucky Irving.
I want to caveat this. By the time you read this, we’re going to know whether Sean Tucker was cut. A big part of my Bucky Irving fade is centered around the premise that he’s not getting goal-line work. If Tucker does get cut, then I do believe Bucky will get that goal-line work, and maybe he’s not as much of a fade. But that also helps Gainwell, because I don’t necessarily think it’s going to be all Bucky at the goal line every time. It increases Gainwell’s upside as well.
Regardless of whether I move off the Bucky fade, I’m still in on Gainwell because I love his standalone role. In 8 career games with over 15 touches, Gainwell averages 19.7 fantasy points per game. Last year, he earned a 16.3% target share, which was fifth in the league. Yes, it was a product of Aaron Rodgers constantly checking it down, but I think that Gainwell was brought in to play the Rachaad White role, and he’s just better than Rachaad White at everything. I think he’s a standalone RB3 at worst, and he has RB2, maybe even borderline RB1 upside if Bucky were to get hurt.
Last year, he averaged 1.59 yards per route run, seventh among running backs, 4.32 yards created per touch, fourth in the league, and 5.5 yards per touch, sixth in the league. I have been taking him so much all summer in best ball, and I am really excited to draft him in my managed leagues as well.
Gainwell has a lot more upside than he’s getting credit for, and I think the Bucs offense as a whole could be a lot better this year. A lot went wrong last year between the Bucky injury, the Mike Evans injury, Chris Godwin not being healthy, Emeka Egbuka playing through injury, and Baker Mayfield’s messed-up shoulder that clearly affected him. I think we’re going to see everything better with the Bucs this season.
Even if Bucky ends up being better than I expect, both of these backs have room to produce high-end fantasy RB2 numbers. They can work alongside each other. Maybe I’m reading too much into the preseason, but we saw Bucky Irving come in, and he is the starter for sure. He played, I think, 3 or 4 snaps, and then immediately Gainwell came in. I really think we may get much more of a timeshare, more of an early-down timeshare and more of coming in and out, with both these guys kind of playing the same 1A role, more than fantasy managers may realize. That has me really bullish on Gainwell this season. He’s one of my favorite picks in the later rounds.
FANTASY RANKINGS: PFN’s FREE Fantasy PPR, Half-PPR, and Non-PPR Rankings
Kenny Gainwell’s Week 1 Fantasy Outlook
Analysis provided by PFN Analyst Kyle Soppe.
Last season, the Bucs had Bucky Irving (7 DNPs) and Rachaad White combine for 70 catches on 80 targets, a role that you’d think would be Gainwell’s for the taking in 2026.
If that’s truly the case, we are looking at a weekly PPR flex, and that’s without much in the way of running work in his projection. He caught 73 balls a season ago after catching a total of 102 in his four seasons with the Eagles: I don’t think he just developed this skill set as much as it’s being seen as more valuable across the league.
The moving piece here, naturally, is the health of Irving. As a rookie, he looked like the next big thing at the position, a versatile back that could run for 1,300 yards and catch 60 passes in the same season. A shoulder injury, among other things, limited him in 2025, but reports have trended up as we prepare to open this season.
If he’s right, I don’t think Gainwell is a usable piece on a weekly basis. If not, we could be looking at a league winner at cost considering that he also averaged 4.7 yards per carry with the Steelers.
For now, I’m assuming reasonable health for Irving and thus penciling him in as the lead back. This is a good matchup, and if he looks like he did in his first season on Sunday, your Gainwell shares could be in trouble. But if he’s the worst per-carry runner in the league, you’re sitting on gold.
I’m not starting Gainwell this week. With no teams on a bye and relatively few injuries, you don’t need to take on that level of risk.
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Where Gainwell Ranks Among 2026 Running Backs
- Jaylen Warren | PIT
- Rhamondre Stevenson | NE
- TreVeyon Henderson | NE
- Chuba Hubbard | CAR
- Tony Pollard | TEN
- Kenny Gainwell | TB
- Jonathon Brooks | CAR
- Jacory Croskey-Merritt | WAS
- MarShawn Lloyd | GB
- Rico Dowdle | PIT
- Blake Corum | LAR
More rankings can be found in PFN's PPR Running Back Rankings.
