Fantasy Football: Dynasty outlooks for players with new play-callers
- Ashton Jeanty is still a bona fide RB1: Don’t be discouraged by his middle-of-the-pack rookie season. Klint Kubiak’s outside-zone scheme and the fact that the Raiders’ offense can only get better are major positives for Jeanty’s dynasty outlook.
- Can Brian Daboll get the most out of Cam Ward? It remains to be seen, obviously. Daboll has produced several QB1s for fantasy football, but things could be a bit more difficult in Tennessee.
- 2026 NFL Draft season is here: Try the best-in-class PFF Mock Draft Simulator and learn about 2026’s top prospects while trading and drafting for your favorite NFL team.
Estimated Reading Time: 7minutes
Prepare for the 2026 NFL Draft with PFF+
Your complete draft preparation toolkit
Rarely does an offensive (or defensive) coordinator remain in place for long. If one proves to be an elite play-caller, head-coaching opportunities crop up. If one routinely backs their offense into a corner, their seat grows hot.
A staggering 21 teams are set to enter the 2026 campaign with new offensive coordinators, and only five of the NFL’s 32 franchises will feature someone hired for that role before 2025. Several teams will have their new head coaches call plays, too.
We’ve seen the impact that offensive coordinators have on fantasy production. The Eagles parted ways with Kevin Patullo this offseason after a mediocre first year calling the shots, leading Saquon Barkley to go from RB2 in 2024 to RB15 in 2025 while Philadelphia tried to make up for deficits and low-scoring games through the air.
So, what should we expect in 2026 for a handful of players with new play-callers? Here are a few dynasty fantasy football outlooks for younger assets.
New Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak brought his outside-zone scheme to Seattle in his first year as the team’s offensive coordinator, and with his help, the Seahawks claimed their second Super Bowl.
While Seattle used the scheme far less (31.7%) in 2025 than in Kubiak’s one-year tenure as the Saints’ offensive coordinator (46.5%), it was still the team’s most-deployed run concept, by far.
Now, he’ll look to revive Ashton Jeanty, whose offensive line — and offense, in general — deadened his rookie-year production. The top pick in last year’s dynasty rookie drafts, despite overall struggles, flourished on zone runs, generating the seventh-most rushing yards and averaging 4.0 yards per carry. On the contrary, he averaged a league-low 2.4 yards per carry on man/gap runs.
Kubiak will undoubtedly put Jeanty in a better position. While that starts with building a better offensive line, Jeanty should generally have more opportunities to stay patient and hit holes.
He should easily improve on his RB11 PPR finish in his rookie campaign.
Outlook: Jeanty is still the RB1 he was drafted as. The Raiders’ coaching staff shake-up and revamped offense under Klint Kubiak and presumed No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza are major positives.
New Giants head coach John Harbaugh appointed Matt Nagy as his offensive coordinator, much to social media’s dismay. Nagy doesn’t exactly have a pristine record of developing young quarterbacks, as neither Mitch Trubisky nor Justin Fields flourished in his time as the Bears’ head coach and offensive play-caller. That could be bad news for Jaxson Dart, but Cam Skattebo may also quietly suffer in Nagy’s scheme.
The bruising Skattebo, who will be coming off a serious leg injury that upended his rookie season in Week 8, was a weekly top-five running back in two out of six games in which he handled at least 10 carries. He particularly thrived in man/gap concepts, where his 83.6 PFF rushing grade ranked in the 92nd percentile. On the contrary, his 70.8 PFF rushing grade in zone schemes placed him in just the 31st percentile.
As the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator (no play calling) from 2023 to 2025, Nagy helped deploy man concepts at a league-low 5% rate. His Bears offense also ranked last in the NFL from 2018 to 2021.
Now, Skattebo did thrive in both run-game concepts in college — slotting above the 90th percentile in each category across his two seasons at Arizona State — but he has yet to show as much in his brief time in the NFL. For now, his injury recovery and Nagy’s scheme lower his stock.
Outlook: New head coach John Harbaugh tends to favor the run game, but Matt Nagy’s scheme may keep Skattebo from reaching the brief heights he experienced as a rookie.
Mike McDaniel is a home-run hire as the Chargers’ offensive coordinator. Regardless of the Dolphins’ lackluster records over the past two years, McDaniel’s offense tended to catch fire in his stint as Miami’s head coach.
With Justin Herbert helming his attack, the sky is the limit.
McDaniel worked magic with Tua Tagovailoa, who managed eight weekly top-five quarterback fantasy finishes across the past four seasons. Over the same span, Herbert racked up 11.
Herbert is clearly the better quarterback of the two, having earned two season-long 90.0-plus PFF overall grades in his career despite seemingly being held back at times by a shaky supporting cast and a declining and oft-injured offensive line.
McDaniel’s offenses deploy plenty of motion. The Dolphins ranked first three times and second once (2025) in motion rate in his four seasons in Miami, shifting opposing defenses around to manufacture easier throws for Tagovailoa.
With the help of motion, Tagovailoa threw the fourth-most passes in less than 1.5 seconds in the NFL under McDaniel. They were designed to be easy completions, and Tagovailoa accumulated 1,764 yards and 13 touchdowns on those plays.
Herbert, meanwhile, logged 795 passing yards and only three passing touchdowns on the same plays over those four years.
Look for McDaniel to make things easier on the 27-year-old quarterback, boosting his dynasty stock in the process.
Outlook: 2025’s QB10 is poised to push for the top five in 2026 under McDaniel, who will likely get head-coaching offers if things go well. The Chargers’ front office could stand to give Herbert a few more proven receiving weapons, though.
QB Cam Ward, Tennessee Titans
Brian Daboll made good things happen with Josh Allen and Jaxson Dart, and even Daniel Jones at times, over the past eight years. It didn’t work out for him as the Giants’ head coach, but he is a respected offensive coordinator with the background to take Cam Ward to the next level.
Dart was the fantasy QB1 from Weeks 4-10 in 2025, the stint in which he worked with Daboll as a starter. Jones finished as the QB9 in Daboll’s first year in New York. And Allen, of course, was the QB1 in his 2020 campaign and in 2021 before Daboll departed.
In 2020, Daboll helped the Bills‘ offense generate the third-best success rate on pass plays with Allen, in his breakout third NFL season, leading the charge. That included deploying play action at the third-highest rate in the NFL, plays on which Allen led the league in passing yards (1,956) and earned the third-best PFF passing grade (91.0).
Ward was afforded the benefits of play action on only 23.5% of his dropbacks in 2025, the 10th-lowest rate in the NFL. In his final college season, his completion rate on play action was 11.8 percentage points better than his clip otherwise — one of the starkest differences in the FBS.
Daboll has never been one to shy away from letting his quarterback run, either. And Ward brings plenty of mobility to the table, having racked up more than 1,500 rushing yards in his college career. The one potential problem area is fumbles. Ward racked up 11 fumbles in 2025, Dart logged five and Allen never recorded fewer than eight in four seasons under Daboll, who will need to better balance the fruits of a running quarterback with the potential for turnovers.
The 2025 No. 1 overall pick was plenty promising as a rookie, even with his top two pass catchers also being first-year players, but his 70.7% adjusted completion rate and 22.3% uncatchable throw rate require some improvement. It led to a QB23 finish. If anyone is to get Ward to break out, it’s Daboll.
Outlook: Ward should be better than the fantasy QB23 he was as a rookie. But his dynasty value has admittedly dropped a fair amount due to the Titans’ supporting cast and his up-and-down rookie season. It will be up to Daboll to help him experience a Josh Allen-esque breakout.
