Each year, we at ESPN Fantasy endeavor to help with your fantasy football draft prep, including sleepers lists and cheat sheets. Below, you will get the best of both worlds, as ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter offers up his personal list of early-, middle- and late-round targets in 2026 fantasy drafts.
Below are some players who are poised to be fantasy standouts this season. Obviously, they aren't the only ones with a chance to excel, but this is a distinguishing part: These are some of the players who have a real chance to outperform their current average draft position (ADP). If given a choice at certain junctures in the draft, or in tiebreaker situations, these are players who will receive strong consideration.
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In this space last season, one of the middle-round recommended values was wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and some of the later-round values included quarterbacks Drake Maye and Trevor Lawrence, wide receiver Emeka Egbuka and running back Quinshon Judkins.
I am in one 12-team league, in which some of these players will not need to be drafted, and one 16-team league, in which some of them might be more valuable. But again, these players hold strong value relative to their ESPN ADPs and are in a position to have productive seasons.
I hope this list is helpful. Good luck this season.
NOTE: For the purposes of this column, the round ranges listed are based on ADP, relative to 10-team leagues: "early" refers to Rounds 1-4, "middle" to Rounds 5-11 and "later" to Rounds 12 or higher.
Quarterback
There's nothing wrong with drafting a quarterback such as Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson early. But there is so much depth at the position this year that there can be strong values found in the middle-to-late rounds. This is why you'll see no QBs listed as early-round targets below.
Middle rounds