Fantasy football: Dynasty values that could skyrocket in 2026

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The 2026 dynasty offseason is right around the corner, and a good time for fantasy managers to build on their potential dynasties and get a head start on not just a fantasy championship for this coming season, but hopefully for many more seasons to come.

In this article, we’ll take a look at some current dynasty values, based on FantasyCalc.com’s dynasty rankings, which takes data from nearly six million trades from real dynasty leagues to create a set value for each player.

With that information, we’ll try to look into the future in order to pinpoint some names that will likely be valued significantly higher coming out of the 2026 season.

WR Luther Burden III, Chicago Bears

• Current evaluation: WR22, 51st overall

As expected heading into Year 1, Burden’s rookie season started relatively uneventfully, outside of a big Week 3 performance, the former Missouri Tiger accumulated just the 83rd most PPR points at his position. This was, in large part, due to a lack of opportunities. Playing behind DJ Moore, Rome Odunze, and even Olamide Zaccheaus, Burden was averaging just under nine routes per game. Including two solid tight end options, Burden’s role was understandably minimal due to a plethora of options ahead of him, while also giving him time to acclimate to the NFL.

Once Burden started to earn a larger role in the offense in the second half of the season, he averaged 22.5 routes per game the rest of the regular season, accumulating the 28th most PPR points at the position across his final eight games. Despite still not seeing an ideal workload, he was making the most of his opportunity – even ranking among the very best in the league in terms of his efficiency. As a result, Burden finished the season with a top-five mark in yards per route run while delivering a 95th percentile mark in fantasy points over expectations. 

Heading into Year 2, fantasy managers should only expect Burden to build on his momentum gained as a rookie, especially as he gets more acclimated to the Bears’ offense. The primary expectation will be that he earns a much larger role in the offense across an entire season this time, potentially even over DJ Moore and/or Rome Odunze, as he was simply more effective with his opportunities in 2025. Combined with Burden’s high-end prospect profile, coming out of college, fantasy managers could see him earn a WR1 dynasty evaluation coming out of the 2026 season, making now still a great time to invest in him with a low-end dynasty WR2 price tag.

WR Emeka Egbuka, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

• Current evaluation: WR15, 31st overall

Egbuka already brings a high WR15 overall value, though based on how his 2025 season went and his outlook going forward, that high-end WR2 value might be considered low by this time next year. Egbuka entered into a seemingly crowded receiver corps for his rookie year, as both Mike Evans and Chris Godwin were on the roster; however, that concern faded nearly immediately after Godwin was unable to go for the start of the season, and Evans suffered an injury that caused him to miss multiple weeks. As a result, Egbuka hit the ground running, earning the fourth-most PPR points at the position through the first five weeks of the season. Obviously, if Egbuka maintained that pace for the rest of the year, his dynasty stock would likely already be too high to include on this list, but naturally, that wasn’t the case.

After his hot start, Egbuka went the next 11 games of the fantasy regular season as the PPR WR42, cooling off significantly. Part of the reason for this was Godwin's reintroduction into the lineup in Week 12 before Evans returned in Week 15. However, more target competition isn’t fully to blame, as Egbuka also suffered from just a 10th percentile catchable target rate (58.5%), which took a ton of production off the board from the 2025 first-round pick. This was a significant reason for Egbuka’s drop-off, as it led to him losing around 38 PPR points based on PFF’s fantasy points versus expected metric, and that would have been the difference between finishing as WR21 and as a top-10 PPR wide receiver. 

Heading into 2026, Egbuka immediately becomes one of the league’s top positive regression candidates thanks to that poor catchable target rate, as that metric is expected to regress to the norm at the very least given its instability. Everything else that Egbuka accomplished as a rookie, along with his high-end prospect model score, points to a player who should be much better in Year 2 and really push to become a legitimate WR1 option for the 2026 season. With Evans and Godwin not getting any younger and Egbuka entering his prime, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he comfortably cracks the top-10 dynasty wide receivers next January.

RB Trey Benson, Arizona Cardinals

• Current evaluation: RB30, 103rd overall

The Cardinals’ backfield was not the most fantasy-friendly unit in 2025, in large part, due to James Conner suffering a season-ending foot injury in Week 3, while his backup Benson went down for the year just one week later. Heading into 2026, both Conner and Benson are expected to be fully healthy and ready to go; however, with Conner turning 31 years old before the start of the season and potentially going through the usual decline we see from 30-plus-aged running backs, Benson has a real shot to take over this backfield. Benson comes with Day 2 draft capital in 2024, designed to be Conner’s immediate successor, which has a real shot to happen this coming season.

Benson has had very limited opportunities since entering the league in 2024, though there have been flashes of strong fantasy potential within those touches, including this past season when he averaged 5.5 yards per carry and was earning 3.5 targets per game. Benson also owned a strong prospect profile coming out of Florida State, putting him among the top 90th percentile of running back prospects since 2017. This put him in a 24-player bucket with a current hit rate of 50% top-12 finishers at the position, 75% top-24, and 92% at top-36 — of which he has yet to deliver on any so far. A large part of that has been his opportunity to do so, and just being able to stay healthy, but that’s exactly what we’ll be banking on for the 2026 season. Hopefully, he can take control of that backfield over an aging Conner and deliver at least a top-20 running back season.

Benson comes in as RB30 and just outside the top-100 dynasty players right now, which gives us a decent price tag to gamble on for this coming season, one that can hit in a big way if things go as expected in Year 3. 

RB Jonathon Brooks, Carolina Panthers

• Current evaluation: RB46, 141st overall

Brooks has been limited in his opportunities through two seasons in the NFL, entirely due to injuries. As a result, he has fallen significantly down the dynasty ranks to just RB46, and it would be shocking to see him continue to fall down those ranks and not improve on his value, assuming he’s healthy for Year 3. All signs point to Brooks currently being healthy and ready to go for the start of the 2026 season, coming off an ACL injury, and if that’s the case, then he has a great shot to lead the Panthers’ backfield in 2026 and beyond.

This was a backfield led by Chuba Hubbard and Rico Dowdle in 2025, but with Hubbard losing that starting job to Dowdle, and Dowdle now a pending free agent, Brooks' path to RB1 in Carolina becomes a lot less daunting. As the first running back drafted in 2024, there is still hope for Brooks to deliver on his fantasy potential, and while he didn’t score as highly as Benson in the prospect model (7.96), he’s still in a favorable position to be fantasy relevant and greatly improve on his current evaluation that pushes him well outside of that range.

For dynasty managers looking to take a low-cost/high-reward shot at the running back position this offseason, Brooks might be the best option of the bunch. His current dynasty managers have been unable to use him for two years, are likely frustrated, and with at least some ambiguity for his projection going forward, he should be one of the easier acquisitions on this list.

RB Cam Skattebo, New York Giants

• Current evaluation: RB16, 41st overall

Skattebo is coming off a season-ending injury, which kept his evaluation relatively in check. He is still the most valuable back on this list at RB16, but as a big believer in Skattebo, that value has the potential to reach top-10 dynasty running back levels if he returns fully healthy for 2026.

Skattebo was a personal favorite prospect from the 2025 NFL Draft class, thanks to elite rushing and receiving metrics for his college career, and he delivered on that potential immediately in the NFL prior to his injury. Despite both Tyrone Tracy and Devin Singletary serving as backfield competition, and Skattebo being just a Day 3 rookie, that didn’t stop him from earning his way up the depth chart quickly, as he looked the part of a true RB1 once he got his shot in Week 2. Skattebo averaged a high-end 18.1 opportunities per game from Week 2 to Week 8, as the overall RB7 in PPR during that stretch.

Skattebo’s injury obviously hurt his value a fair bit, though it also opened a minor window to acquire him at a better value than what he could/should be worth in the 2026 season. With a new coaching staff coming in and the offense expected to be improved as Jaxson Dart enters Year 2, and with the return of Malik Nabers as well, a healthy Skattebo should be a big part of that offense and a legitimate RB1 candidate going forward.