Ranking WR, TE, RB groups for 2026: Best and worst NFL teams

You don't need a dominant set of playmakers to win the Super Bowl, but it sure helps to have a few along the way. Ask the Seahawks, who had Jaxon Smith-Njigba put the finishing touches on a career season by going for 153 yards and a touchdown in the NFC Championship Game. During a stop-start Super Bowl, the Seahawks were able to kick field goals and build an early lead on the back of Kenneth Walker III, whose explosive gains in the middle of a 135-yard day were enough to earn the lead back Super Bowl MVP honors.

Of course, Walker is now on the Chiefs, joining key playmakers such as A.J. Brown, Mike Evans and Jaylen Waddle in moving to new teams this offseason. Teams like the Bears and Saints, full of young standouts, are hoping to break through on the backs of their playmakers. And stalwarts like the Rams and Bengals can and will expect elite play from their skill position players.

But who has the best set of playmakers in football? In a perennial arms race to make life easier for quarterbacks around the NFL, which team has done the most to stock the cupboard with dominant runners and pass catchers?

Today -- as I do every year -- I will try to answer that question by stacking offensive playmaker groups around the NFL from No. 32 to No. 1. Keep in mind that this is not a ranking of NFL offenses. I'm attempting to evaluate each team's playmakers independent of their surroundings. In other words, if each team had the same quarterback, offensive line, playcaller and offensive architect, along with identical health and bouncing-ball luck, which one would then have the best offense?

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Before we get started, let's lay out a few ground rules:

This is only about 2026 on-field performance. Each player's contract and future outlook do not matter. I'm simply focused on what each player might project to do over the full 2026 season. While every player is different, I'm using traditional player aging curves to estimate how each player might improve or decline from their existing level of play this season. I'm also using generic returns from draft picks in years past to get a sense of how they might project to perform in 2026. I'm comparing Carnell Tate to typical first-round picks and Jonah Coleman to typical fourth-rounders. Injuries count. It's impossible to reliably project injuries, but it would be naive to ignore history in building broad projections of how likely it would be to see each player line up for 17 games in 2026. Backs like Christian McCaffrey and J.K. Dobbins have well-established injury concerns in their past, and it's natural to be nervous about their chances of staying healthy all season, even if McCaffrey was able to do that a year ago for the 49ers. There are also players recovering from injuries entering the season. Even if George Kittle and Malik Nabers are able to return early in the year from their serious 2025 injuries, it's tough to count on those stars being their usual selves in 2026. And for someone like Zach Charbonnet, who is expected to miss most of the season with a torn ACL, it's more realistic to project 2026 as something close to a wasted season. Wide receivers are weighted more heavily than running backs or tight ends. NFL teams have clearly emphasized wide receivers over their brethren at the other skill positions. At $20.6 million, Saquon Barkley is the only running back or tight end making more than $20 million per season on his current contract, whereas 25 different WRs are averaging $20 million or more on their existing contracts, including the likes of Smith-Njigba and Ja'Marr Chase (who are up over $40 million). As a result, our rankings prioritize teams with great wide receivers over those who have better options at RB and TE. The focus is on elite players and a team's top five contributors. At the end of the day, the most valuable playmaker in football is the guy who can create a big play when everybody in the stadium knows the ball is going his way. If your team has one of those guys, it's going to propel it up the charts. Most organizations would rather have the wide receiver worth $40 million per year than spread that money around four average-or-worse wideouts who each make $10 million per season. While depth down the roster was a tiebreaker, my focus is on the best five-man unit each team can create with its playmakers, given that each offense can line up five eligible receivers on any given snap alongside the QB and offensive linemen. I won't mention every potential playmaker in each of the 32 blurbs below, so if an expected starter's name doesn't appear, know that he was still considered as part of the evaluation. As I often do, I relied on data and my own film evaluation to help measure player performance and separate out their talents from the surrounding context. I've also used ESPN's receiver scores and NFL Next Gen Stats as further evidence of player performance.