2026 NFL season: New coach-player scheme pairings to watch
Can Brian Daboll take Cam Ward's game to another level? How will Sean Payton scheme up Jaylen Waddle? Is the Chris Shula-Myles Garrett combo unstoppable?
NFLDenver BroncosTennessee Titans
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Have you ever looked up at the stars and wondered what the Broncos' offense would look like with a truly dangerous YAC threat and field stretcher? Or have you just started pondering how good Jeffery Simmons could be in a true one-gapping role? I sure have. And in a few months, I won't have to wonder any longer.
Today's NFL has more offseason movement than ever, and with that movement comes an abundance of new coach-player pairings. Half of the league has a new offensive playcaller this year, which in turn puts many incumbent playmakers in reimagined roles. Bigger names are traded more willingly as the salary cap balloons upward, which allows near-contenders to handpick the perfect missing players to push their teams over the edge.
I highlighted eight new coach-player pairings across the league that I'm excited to see in 2026. There are truly hundreds to choose from, and many interesting duos didn't make this cut. (How will Sean Mannion use DeVonta Smith in A.J. Brown's absence? How will Kenneth Walker III change how Andy Reid calls the Chiefs' offense?) But these are the eight that I think have the most potential -- and also the most mystery.
No, Payton is no longer calling the plays in Denver. Yes, I'm still excited to see Waddle in what is largely still Payton's offense.
In Denver's two years with Bo Nix at quarterback, the Broncos had an acceptable receiver room. Veteran Courtland Sutton is an average WR1, and various rookie contract players (Marvin Mims Jr., Troy Franklin, Pat Bryant, Devaughn Vele) have had their days in the sun. Payton has always kept a deep receiver room with a variety of body types, not to mention a similarly deep tight end group that bites into the total receiver snaps available.
With that deep room comes distributed production. Payton has been the head coach of an NFL team for 17 seasons -- 14 in New Orleans and three more in Denver. Only once has he had a receiver account for more than 30% of the team's targets (something that happened on four teams last season), and only twice has a receiver accounted for more than 30% of the team's receiving yards (eight teams last season).
The league is increasingly moving toward more consolidated receiver rooms, as coaches become better at funneling high-quality looks to their star receivers. As an example, we could highlight the prime Mike McDaniel Dolphins, who were force-feeding their two star receivers: Tyreek Hill and Waddle. Across 2022 and 2023, Hill led all receivers with 37.1% of the team's receiving yards -- an enormous number. But Waddle was 22nd at 25.0%, the highest that any teammate ranked. That 25.0% is about the market share Sutton has had as the Broncos' WR1 in the past two seasons.
With Sutton and Waddle sharing the field and bringing different skill sets, the Broncos can become a little more star-dependent with their distribution of receiver touches. Payton's surprising surrender of playcalling to new offensive coordinator Davis Webb is another sign that the Broncos want to narrow their receiver rotation and target shares. But even if Waddle carries only 20% of that production, it's that different skill set he provides that is most exciting.
In Nix's career so far, Denver has had a bit of a zone-coverage issue. Among 35 qualified quarterbacks, Nix is 31st in dropback success rate against zone coverage and 11th against man coverage -- an enormous difference. Every major quarterbacking metric takes a big hit when Nix faces zone defense.
Bo Nix vs. different coverages
Against zone looks, Nix has generally been asked to throw to big-bodied receivers, as incumbent quicksters Mims and Franklin don't have the trustworthy hands and toughness necessary to earn routes over the middle of the field. This isn't great for Nix, who much prefers to air out deep vertical throws than drive throws into rapidly closing windows on deep-breaking routes. Waddle gives the Broncos a far more legitimate threat to blow by a safety, which doesn't just give Nix his preferred answer against zone coverages but also stretches out those coverages, making the tight intermediate windows a little bigger for other WRs.
Waddle also has plenty of experience on quick-breaking routes over the middle of the field from his time in Miami. These routes were sight-adjusted and settled in voids, making them easy answers against zone coverage for a quarterback in Tua Tagovailoa who, like Nix, wasn't the best at drilling accurate lasers between zone defenders. If Waddle can earn Nix's trust quickly, that pair can start accessing those anticipation throws that are, at their best, nearly indefensible.
We haven't even talked about wide receiver screens, of which Nix has thrown more than any quarterback, save for Caleb Williams, since he entered the league. With Mims specifically, Denver has experimented with WR-in-the-backfield formations that easily break defensive rules and create free explosives. Payton is so stupendously good at his job that it's easy to see the Waddle trade as a high-floor/high-ceiling move. At worst, he makes the existing Mims and Franklin roles more dangerous. At best, he brings such a radical dimension to the offense that it alleviates some of the coverage problems.
Titans OC Brian Daboll and QB Cam Ward
Watching Ward's rookie season reminded me a lot of watching Caleb Williams' rookie season. In both cases, it was mightily difficult to see the forest through the trees. There were dysfunctional supporting casts, poor scheming and impossible score deficits. Superhero-minded quarterbacks developed bad habits as they tried to big-play their teams to improbable victories. But in both cases, the flashes were bright enough and frequent enough. I remained a strong believer in Williams before his second season, and I remain one for Ward.
Ward can sling it. He'll need to tidy up his lower-body mechanics as he plays in an offense with more timing, and he can make easy throws harder by unnecessarily changing his arm slot. But that arm is live, and it allows him to read coverages post-snap and get away with being a little late as he learns to process at NFL speeds. His combination of release speed and ball velocity is going to create explosive plays in this league for a long time.
Cam Ward was so good on Sunday. Watch how fast his throwing motion is once he realizes Proche is gonna be open in the seam. Incredible snap of the lower body. Looks like an infielder firing the ball to first. Throw beats the safety. ++ arm talent right there. pic.twitter.com/QQzbPTxuiY
Now, Williams got Ben Johnson to turn around his career -- and I'd rank Johnson near the Sean McVay/Kyle Shanahan tier of playcalling. Ward got Daboll, who is obviously not that caliber. But Daboll has done good things (helped develop Josh Allen, got splashy play out of Daniel Jones, got another splashy season out of Jaxson Dart).
Those splashy seasons in particular stand out. Daboll has used the quarterback running game to diversify his offense and play 11-on-11 football, not just with Jones and Dart but even in instances of desperation (remember Tommy DeVito?). Ward had only nine designed runs in the 2025 season, eight of which came after Brian Callahan was fired. He clearly wasn't being coached to run as a rookie, with a scramble rate of 3.7% -- well below the league average of 5.4%.
Daboll is going to change that. Ward has a thick body that's tough to drag down, and though he isn't particularly sudden, he can win a race to the corner and keep the offense ahead of schedule. He shouldn't necessarily start scrambling at Dart rates (a whopping 9.2%), but given how often Jones (7.5%) and Allen (7.3%) scrambled under Daboll, we can say with some confidence that Daboll wants his quarterbacks to tuck and run.
Some of this is also structural. Daboll's offenses rely heavily on shotgun alignments, RPOs and spread formations. Such offenses invite high scramble rates, and Daboll would do well to evolve his offense to more modern approaches from under center with condensed formations. It would certainly help his QB get hit less.
But that offensive structure also really suits Ward well at this stage in his career. The spread and the shotgun will allow him to utilize that zippy release from weird platforms. Where more robotic quarterbacks would struggle, Ward can flourish. With better receiver play -- which the Titans expect to get from Wan'Dale Robinson (who followed Daboll from New York) and Carnell Tate -- those quick targets will be a lot more fruitful.
Daboll's offense will be a shot in the arm for Ward, who needs something (anything) new and creative after the listless offense he was handed last season. Daboll's ability to sustain that initial jolt is in question, and Ward's development under Daboll is accordingly not guaranteed. But just for 2026, I'm confident in a big statistical jump from Ward, and I'm excited to see what this pairing draws out.
Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell and QB Kyler Murray
There's an idea out there that Murray is not a good fit in O'Connell's offense. It's half right.
O'Connell's offense, as we know it, has been built around pocket passers. He was the offensive coordinator under McVay in 2020 and 2021, which was the end of the Jared Goff era and beginning of the Matthew Stafford era. From there, he joined Minnesota, where he coached Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold. These offenses have been unsurprisingly similar given the shared archetypes: big frames, talented arms and a willingness to throw over the middle of the field.
This is not Murray. Like most shorter quarterbacks, Murray prefers to play from the shotgun and sink deep into the pocket during his dropbacks (it helps him see the entire field). To this point in his career, Murray has largely avoided throwing to the intermediate middle -- which the McVay/O'Connell offenses tends to feature -- in large part because shorter QBs struggle to see those throwing windows and get the ball up and over the first level of the defense. Across the past five seasons, Murray is 36th among 40 high-volume quarterbacks in the percentage of throws going 10-20 yards downfield and between the numbers. Cousins is eighth, Stafford is 10th, Goff is 11th and Darnold is 13th.
