Last season was supposed to be the year Drake London truly ascended to WR1 status. The Atlanta Falcons WR1 was well on his way to doing so before his season hit a roadblock. With a similarly expensive price in 2026 fantasy football drafts, should managers be buying London this year and beyond?
Should You Draft Drake London in Fantasy Football?
After two years of underperforming due to a combination of poor quarterback play and Arthur Smith, London had his breakout in 2024, averaging 16.5 fantasy points per game. In 2025, expectations were even greater. With a full year of Michael Penix Jr. starting, the hope from fantasy managers was that London could take the next step from WR1 to elite WR1.
For 11 weeks, London looked well on his way to doing just that. From Weeks 1-11, London averaged 19.6 PPG. That was right up there with Ja’Marr Chase’s full season, putting him firmly inside the top five wide receivers. It was happening. Then, London sprained his PCL.
One of the major takeaways from last season is that we need to take PCL sprains much more seriously. A few years back, it was a high ankle sprain. It’s an injury that takes months to fully recover from, but elite NFL athletes can typically return to play in 4-6 weeks. But they’re never really themselves until the next season. That’s how we need to treat PCL sprains.
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London missed four weeks with his PCL sprain. When he returned in Week 16, he was clearly hampered by the injury. I’m surprised he returned at all.
From Weeks 16-18, London averaged 8.3 PPG. In those first two games back, he scored 5.7 and 1.4 fantasy points. That was in Weeks 16 and 17, the two most important weeks of the fantasy football season.
Now, London didn’t suddenly become bad at football. It was pretty clear he wasn’t healthy. And this wasn’t unique to London. We saw Brock Bowers, Ricky Pearsall, and Dalton Kincaid all attempt to play through PCL sprains, and all struggled mightily in doing so.
In the season, London still technically improved. His 16.8 PPG was a career high. He earned a 30.4% target share and was targeted on 29.8% of his routes run. Both of those numbers ranked in the top six in the league. His 2.44 yards per route run ranked eighth.
London has firmly established himself as one of the best wide receivers in the game, and he is still getting better. Fantasy managers should have no concerns about his late-season struggles and chalk them up entirely to the injury.
London’s Redraft Fantasy Football Value
London has a lot going for him in 2026. There’s a new coaching staff, which has to be an improvement on Raheem Morris’ staff. Kevin Stefanski probably needed a fresh start, but his performance in Cleveland did not warrant termination. He’s a good coach and a good offensive coach.
Most importantly, London is the clear WR1 on his team with virtually no target competition. Kyle Pitts is projected to be second on the team in targets, but he plays tight end and is not a threat to London’s volume.
At WR2, it might be Jahan Dotson. It might be rookie Zachariah Branch. It might be Olamide Zaccheaus. Any one of these guys could be decent, but not one of them is threatening London. It’s a truly ideal situation where there are capable pass catchers alongside London, but no one is even close to his level. A 30% target share is very much likely once again.
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The biggest concern for London this season is the quarterback situation. Penix is coming off a torn ACL and is not a lock to be ready for the start of the season. If Penix isn’t ready (and perhaps even if he is), Tua Tagovailoa is likely to start Week 1 and make several starts this season.
I don’t think Tua will necessarily be a problem for London. We’ve seen him support elite WR1s before, specifically Tyreek Hill. With that said, London’s splits without Penix are jarring. This is from 2024-2025 so as not to include Penix’s first two seasons to skew the data.
- With Penix: 19.5 PPG
- Without Penix: 13.9 PPG
This isn’t a reason to fade London, and I most certainly am not, but it is worth noting.
London’s ADP is lofty at WR7, but remember, he was tracking to smash that last season before getting hurt. I have London at WR7 and believe he is a strong value going in the second half of the first round.
London’s Dynasty Fantasy Football Value
The most amazing part of London’s profile is that he’s going into his fifth NFL season after showing elite WR1 upside and is somehow still just 25 years old. London is just now hitting his prime and easily has another 6-8 high-end seasons in front of him.
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We have him a little lower than his redraft value in our dynasty rankings at WR9, but still firmly in the WR1 ranks.
Even if Penix and Tagovailoa are not the long-term answers at quarterback, London is still so young and has plenty of time to find himself in a better situation. Dynasty managers can and should treat him as the anchor of a wide receiver room.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.