{"id":787482,"date":"2026-03-02T20:53:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T20:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/787482\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T20:53:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T20:53:33","slug":"fantasy-football-2026-nfc-east-burning-questions-for-your-draft-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/787482\/","title":{"rendered":"Fantasy Football 2026: NFC East burning questions for your draft planning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to another season of fantasy football coverage here at Big Blue View! After a brief hiatus, I\u2019m excited to be behind the keyboard again.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s rare for the NFL to give way to another sport or sporting event, but the Winter Olympics was able to do just that, with the NFL mostly going dark for a few weeks after the Super Bowl. That was then, and this is now. The Scouting Combine is here, the start of the free agency period is just around the corner, and the NFL Draft is less than two months away. Football is back!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m starting this year\u2019s content with an early, team-by-team fantasy look-ahead, in the form of what I see as the biggest question for each NFL squad from a fantasy standpoint. A record 10 NFL teams have new Head Coaches for the 2026 season, and an astounding 21 teams have new offensive coordinators, so a bunch of offenses could look very different this season. Throw in the personnel changes that will come with free agency, the draft, trades, and roster cuts, and there will be many more alterations to consider before fantasy draft season rolls around for redraft leagues in August. We\u2019ll tackle all of that as the offseason rolls on. For today, I\u2019m asking questions based on the information we know now.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to break this down by division, and since this is Big Blue View I\u2019ll start with the NFC East, and it\u2019ll get its own column. It\u2019s a division that should have plenty of fantasy firepower, including four quarterbacks who could all be Top-10 options in 2026. You can\u2019t say that for any other division. Teams are listed in order of finish from last season. All fantasy rankings are for Half-PPR scoring, on a fantasy points per game basis (FPPG), with Week 18 excluded. OK, enough preamble. Let\u2019s get to it.<\/p>\n

\"Saquon<\/a><\/p>\n

Saquon struggled to find running room in 2025 Getty Images<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Can this offense fly again?<\/p>\n

The Eagles were a fantasy bonanza in their Super Bowl season of 2024, but everything fell off in 2025. The O-Line was banged up and that was a big part of the problem, but there was more to it. OC Kevin Patullo was shown the door after a season in which Philadelphia\u2019s loaded offense was predictable and stagnant for long stretches, and finished in the bottom half of the league in total offense, scoring, rushing and passing, even though Jalen Hurts and his main weapons stayed pretty healthy. How many times last season did people ask \u201cwhat\u2019s wrong with Philadelphia\u2019s offense?\u201d The answer is, a lot.<\/p>\n

Regardless of whether A.J. Brown returns, the birds\u2019 offense has serious questions to answer, after a precipitous decline across the board in 2025. These are the fantasy rankings of the Eagles main pieces in 2024 and then 2025: Hurts \u2013 QB6 (21.3 FPPG), QB9 (19.1 FPPG); Barkley \u2013 RB1 (21.2 FPPG), RB14 (13.4 FPPG); A.J. Brown \u2013 WR11 (14.4 FPPG), WR12 (12.1 FPPG); Devonta Smith \u2013 WR16 (12.7 FPPG), WR 31 (9.8 FPPG); Dallas Goedert — TE 10 (8.3 FPPG), TE5 (10.3 FPPG). Only Goedert improved, while Barkley and Smith fell off the most.<\/p>\n

It sounds like the Tush Push is here to stay, so Hurts should again have a high floor that makes him a Top-5 option at QB. But fantasy managers are going to have some hard decisions when it comes to drafting the rest of the Eagles at cost.<\/p>\n

\"Here<\/a><\/p>\n

Here come the Cowboys Getty Images<\/p>\n

QUESTION: How high should you draft CeeDee Lamb, and should he go before George Pickens?<\/p>\n

As expected, the Cowboys put the Franchise Tag on George Pickens, so Dallas will boast one of the league\u2019s scariest wide receiver duos again in 2026. CeeDee Lamb missed three games with injuries early in 2025, and that opened the door to Pickens outscoring him for the season (Pickens: WR6, 15.3 FPPG, Lamb: WR11, 12.5 FPPG).<\/p>\n

Is Lamb worth a first-round pick? Is he a screaming value if he gets past the 1-2 turn? We know he\u2019s capable of being a Top-5 WR for fantasy, but he did drop from 14 FPPG in 2024 to around 11 in 2025. The defense should be better (it can\u2019t be any worse), meaning Dallas could end up in fewer shootouts, and Pickens just made the case that he\u2019s a legit WR1 in his own right. Lamb is one of the harder \u201ctop\u201d players to handicap for this coming season.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what the Cowboys plan to do at running back, so that\u2019s another burning question that we\u2019ll get to at a later date. And frankly, I could\u2019ve asked \u201chow early is too early for Brandon Aubrey\u201d, and especially in leagues with bonuses for longer field goals. That guy is a major weapon, in both actual football and fantasy.<\/p>\n

\"2025<\/a><\/p>\n

2025 was a lost season for the 2024 OROY Getty Images<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Where should Jayden Daniels be ranked?<\/p>\n

Heading into last season, Daniels was ranked as high as QB2 on a lot of draft boards, and he had an Average Draft Position (ADP) that put him in the elite tier of dual-threat quarterbacks, alongside Josh Allen, Hurts, and Lamar Jackson. Now? It\u2019s hard to know where to rank him.<\/p>\n

A concern with Daniels when he came out of college was whether his slight frame could stand up to the punishment of 17-game NFL seasons, and especially given how much he runs and how many hits he takes. 2025 was an injury-plagued washout for Daniels, and if you used a late second or third rounder on him last season, it probably sunk you, unless you happened to back him up with Matthew Stafford or grabbed Jaxson Dart off waivers. We know Daniels can be electric, and Washington doesn\u2019t have a strong defense and will need to score a lot to stay in games. But how much risk do you want to take, given the likely price, and other options available? Are you taking him ahead of Joe Burrow (who also missed a lot of 2025)? Or potentially safer choices like Caleb Williams, Dak Prescott, or even Trevor Lawrence? He\u2019ll be a high risk, high reward player in redraft.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a><\/p>\n

How quickly can Nabers get back to form? Photo by Todd Kirkland\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

QUESTION: How high should you draft Malik Nabers?<\/p>\n

I could ask a lot of different questions here, as a new regime under HC John Harbaugh is likely to mean changes in offensive philosophy, and the Giants think they\u2019ve found their franchise quarterback in Jaxson Dart, who finished as a Top-10 QB in his rookie campaign thanks in large part to nine rushing TDs. This could be a much-improved offense in 2026, after there was already a lot of betterment in 2025. There\u2019s plenty of optimism in East Rutherford, and the Giants should offer more to fantasy managers in 2026 than they have in quite some time (I wrote about this just after the season \u2013 see this column<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m picking Nabers as my dilemma player, and it\u2019s a similar question to the one I asked above regarding Lamb, although the reasons for asking it are different. Nabers burst onto the scene as a rookie, to the point that even with an uncertain QB situation, he was coming off boards around the 1-2 turn in redraft leagues last season.<\/p>\n

Nabers tore his ACL in Week 4 of the 2025 season, so there\u2019s a good chance he\u2019ll be ready to go Week 1. However, that Week 4 game was Dart\u2019s first NFL start, so they\u2019ve only played one half of football together. The Giants have a decision to make with Wan\u2019Dale Robinson, who benefitted from Nabers\u2019s absence and finished 2025 among the NFL\u2019s leaders in targets and receptions. We don\u2019t know what the Big Blue WR room will look like in 2026 beyond Nabers, and it could include a player taken with the 5th overall pick in April\u2019s Draft. So there\u2019s some uncertainty about target competition.<\/p>\n

As for what we can expect from Nabers, there are questions there too. It\u2019s often the season after the season after an ACL tear where players fully return to their pre-injury capabilities, and especially backs and receivers, who rely so heavily on speed and quickness. Assuming the offseason reports are good and it\u2019s clear he\u2019ll be ready Week 1, would you take Nabers over Drake London? Nico Collins? George Pickens? Rashee Rice? Trey McBride and Brock Bowers? He\u2019s going to be a very interesting and heavily discussed player heading into this coming season.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it for the NFC East. I\u2019ll likely handle two divisions at a time in the upcoming articles in this series, so keep it here!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to another season of fantasy football coverage here at Big Blue View! After a brief hiatus, I\u2019m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2067],"tags":[1999,7,519,1917,56,1870,2321,2469,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-787482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-giants","8":"tag-fantasy-football","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-giants","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-giants","13":"tag-new-york-giants-analysis","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkgiants","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116161572113472467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}