Fantasy Football Sleepers, Busts & Predictions: 2026 Las Vegas Raiders
· Yahoo Sports
The Raiders have been the ultimate coaching carousel in recent history. The team hasn’t had the same head coach in consecutive full seasons since Jon Gruden captained the ship in 2019 and 2020 (and, not that it applies to on-field results, those two seasons didn’t even share a home city). Since then, it was Gruden and Rich Bisaccia in 2021, Josh McDaniels in 2022, McDaniels and Antonio Pierce in 2023, Pierce in 2024, and the now-departed Pete Carroll in 2025. Enter Klint Kubiak. The Raiders hired Kubiak this offseason after he has bounced around the last few years — offensive coordinator in Minnesota in 2021, pass-game coordinator in Denver in 2022 and San Francisco in 2023, OC in New Orleans in 2024 and Seattle in 2025. He won the Super Bowl with the Seahawks last year and had the fantasy world agog with the Saints the year before prior to the team getting hit with a massive wave of injuries. No head coach is a guarantee — just look three paragraphs up for evidence. But Kubiak is a 39-year-old seen as something of a wunderkind, and the Raiders landed him this offseason. We’ll see if he can break the string of futility for the franchise — in addition to the coaching carousel, the Raiders haven’t won their division or won a playoff game since 2002 and only have two Wild Card berths since. Something’s gotta give eventually.
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2026 Sleepers, Busts & Bold Predictions: Las Vegas Raiders
Sleeper: Jalen Nailor, WR
In our transaction tracker from the start of free agency, when the Nailor signing came down, the blurb ended with “Translation: The Raiders aren’t done at receiver.” That was because, while Nailor was a nice little WR3 for Minnesota last year, Nailor is a four-year veteran who just passed 1,000 career yards in Week 15 last year, and for a team with as barren a receiver room as the Raiders had, he certainly couldn’t be the final addition. Well, all the Raiders really added after that were free agent Dareke Young (6 targets in four years; he’s a return man) and sixth-round rookie Malik Benson who never had a 750-yard season in college. So, uh, our blurb was a little wrong. It appears the Raiders are rolling into the season with a top-four at receiver, in some order, of Nailor, Tre Tucker and second-year receivers Dont’e Thornton Jr. and Jack Bech. Bech and Thornton combined for 30 receptions on 59 targets for 359 yards and 0 touchdowns last year (Thornton had a 33.3% catch rate). Tucker had one monster game, 40.9 points in Week 3 that was the 10th-best single game of the season last year. And that was more than a quarter of his season-long fantasy points — he scored two touchdowns all season outside of that game and never topped 70 yards otherwise. Nailor is a slot guy, running more than half (55.8%) of his routes out of the slot last year per FTN Stats & Charting. And having him line up in the slot allows Brock Bowers to be out wide as the de facto WR1 (the Michael Mayer experience has not worked out). So Bowers it the obvious No. 1 pass catcher in Las Vegas in 2026, but the team appears to have signed Nailor with a purpose, and that purpose is to keep him on the field. Expect career highs across the board for Nailor in 2026.
Bust: Ashton Jeanty, RB
I’m worried about the offensive line. Even with Tyler Linderbaum around now, it ranked 22nd in our offensive line rankings, and there’s at least as much downside as upside there. I’m worried about the backup. Mike Washington Jr. is blazing fast, and we just saw Klint Kubiak running a duo last year with Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet in Seattle Jeanty will get the lead work, but Washington will matter more than Raheem Mostert did last year. I’m worried about the quarterbacking. Neither Kirk Cousins nor Fernando Mendoza is likely to run enough to draw defensive attention, so Jeanty will have more men in his face than he’d have if he had a Konami QB. But you know what worries me the most about Jeanty’s 2026? Connor Heyward. The Raiders signed Heyward away from the Steelers (and away from his brother) screams that they have a plan for him, and that plan is to run Heyward as the fullback/Tush Push guy. That plan says Jeanty might not get the goal-line work we’re hoping for. So, to sum up: An excellent running back, but one who (a) might not get the goal-line carries, (b) might have a lightning to his thunder, (c) has a questionable offensive line, (d) has a coach who likes a duo, and (e) doesn’t have much in the way of a running quarterback is available as the RB5/fifth overall pick in the draft? That is not a good recipe.
Bold Prediction: Brock Bowers Tops 300 PPR Points
Six tight ends in NFL history have reached 300 PPR points in a season:
- Rob Gronkowski in 2011 (330.9)
- Jimmy Graham in 2013 (303.5)
- Travis Kelce in 2020 (312.8)
- Mark Andrews in 2021 (301.1)
- Kelce in 2022 (316.3)
- Trey McBride in 2025 (315.9)
Bowers is all set up to make it seven, and my original version of this bold prediction was that he’d set the all-time TE fantasy scoring record before I backed it down. As mentioned above, Bowers is the only significant receiving threat in this offense, and the team added a player in Jalen Nailor who can help him move outside. As mentioned above, the running game might disappoint. And as mentioned above, the team has a new offensive coordinator in Klint Kubiak. Well, Kubiak last year coordinated an offense that let its leading receiver, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, put up a higher percentage of his team’s receiving yards than any player in the 2020s … by a lot:
YearPlayerTeam% of Team’s Rec. Yards2025Jaxon Smith-NjigbaSEA44.13%2023DJ MooreCHI39.87%2021Cooper KuppLAR39.80%2023Tyreek HillMIA38.29%2022Justin JeffersonMIN37.55%2023CeeDee LambDAL37.53%2025Zay FlowersBAL36.94%2025Puka NacuaLAR36.44%2021Justin JeffersonMIN36.31%2022Davante AdamssLV36.26%Only 13 players in the last six years have even reached 35% of their teams’ receiving yards; Jaxon Smith-Njigba almost got to 45%. Everything is set up for Brock Bowers to not only be the TE1 in 2026, but to maybe be the TE1 in NFL history.