Fantasy Football Outlook For Lamar Jackson In 2026

One of the best quarterbacks in fantasy football for years has been Lamar Jackson. Jackson broke out in 2019 with 27.7 PPG, which to this day is the best mark of his career.

From 2019 to 2024, Jackson scored at least 19.5 PPG in every single season and had at least 20.5 in all but one. Recently, Jackson had a huge 2024 season.

In 2024, Jackson had 25.3 PPG, which was the second most of his fantasy football career, from 4,172 passing yards, 41 touchdowns, and four interceptions. It’s not just the passing stats that make Jackson so dominant, but it’s what he can do on the ground.

Rushing quarterbacks are elite in fantasy football, which is why Jackson constantly has such a high floor and ceiling. During the 2024 season, Jackson also had 915 rushing yards and four touchdowns.

That said, in 2025, those numbers would drop dramatically as Jackson went down to 16.5 PPG in 13 games. Jackson hadn’t scored that few PPG since his rookie season with 9.8 PPG on 170 passing attempts.

Context does need to be added though, as Jackson suffered both a hamstring and back injury in 2025. There are two sides to this.

One is that since Jackson wasn’t healthy for the full year, it’s easy to say that he should be an elite quarterback again once he’s fully healthy. On the other hand, Jackson is coming off a season where his play was clearly affected by injury, and he only ran for a career low 349 rushing yards.

With Jackson getting a bit older at 29 years old, there’s no guarantee that this number will drastically go up.

Lamar Jackson Fantasy Football Outlook in 2026

The good news for Jackson is he still has Zay Flowers and Derrick Henry, who are fantastic players. That said, Jackson also now has a few new wide receivers from the 2026 NFL Draft.

With Mark Andrews finishing second on the team in yards with just 422 last year, this was a much needed move. Ja'Kobi Lane was drafted 80th overall, and Elijah Sarratt was drafted 115th overall, which is solid but not fantastic draft capital.

Still, from what I’ve seen as prospects, these two should be a notable upgrade to the Ravens wide receiver room from 2025.

Lamar Jackson 2026 Fantasy Football Ranking

Looking at the FantasyPros expert consensus rankings, they have Jackson as the QB2 with an overall rank of 31. If Jackson is going in that range at your fantasy draft, my take is to avoid him.

It’s not that Jackson can’t be a great player, but it almost feels like there’s no risk being taken into account, which just ignores the poor season and lack of rushing in 2025.

Between Jackson getting a bit older, showing that he didn’t want to run the ball as much in 2025, and also getting an upgrade at wide receiver, I’m not sure his rushing numbers will go significantly up.

It seems at this point there’s a very good chance that Jackson has a better season but still finishes around the 19 to 20 PPG range. It’s not that the fantasy football production would be bad, but I’m just not sure that Lamar Jackson will be able to deliver on those expectations if he’s being drafted around that 31st overall spot.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com