NE · QB
Drake Maye Fantasy Outlook 2026: QB2 With Nobody Believing It Yet
Maye finished as the second quarterback in fantasy last season after the board had him at 149 overall, and the market has adjusted only halfway to what he just delivered.
Why the consensus has not caught up to last season
Our sportsbook-derived board ranks Drake Maye 47 overall and QB2 among quarterbacks with 319.0 implied PPR points. ESPN has him 56 and the draft room takes him at 51.3. That 9-pick gap between our board and ESPN's ranking is the widest disagreement at the position.
Last season he finished QB2 with 352 fantasy points and 20.7 per game across all 17 games. He threw for 4,394 yards and 31 touchdowns while adding 450 rushing yards and four rushing touchdowns. The sportsbooks had posted him at 3,300.5 passing yards with 20.5 passing touchdowns, which means he beat the passing yardage line by 1,094 yards and the touchdown line by 10.5 scores.
He led the league in both completion rate and yards per attempt, and only Josh Allen scored more fantasy points at the position. Nine of his 17 games cleared 20 PPR points and he posted zero weeks under 10, with a 32.4-point ceiling in Week 17 and a 12.1-point floor in Week 5.
He led the league in completion rate and yards per attempt while finishing QB2, and the draft room is still treating him like a mid-range starter.
What the market still doubts
The projection for 2026 is 3,800 passing yards with 26.5 passing touchdowns, plus 425 rushing yards and 3.5 rushing touchdowns. That would produce roughly 319.0 implied points, which is a downgrade from the 352 he just posted but still prices him as a top-five fantasy quarterback.
The doubt is whether the efficiency repeats. Leading the league in yards per attempt as a second-year quarterback is rare, and the typical pattern is that defenses adjust and the number regresses. The counterargument is that New England added A.J. Brown this offseason, and Maye's dual-threat profile gives him a rushing floor that survives an efficiency drop.