Why players on bad teams can be good for fantasy football
By Justin Edwards, 4for4.com"Bad offense" is one of the easiest labels to slap on a fantasy football player, and it can be useful. Bad teams score fewer touchdowns, sustain fewer drives and create fewer spike-week opportunities. But fantasy football is not just "which teams are good?" It's volume, role, game script and how much of an offense flows through one player. A bad team can still create fantasy value if the touches or targets are concentrated enough. The harder part is figuring out which players can survive the environment and which ones are just getting dragged down with the rest of the offense.I looked at the bottom-five scoring offenses from each of the last five seasons and tracked how many fantasy-relevant players they produced, using half-PPR scoring and positional finish thresholds.Using the following cutoffs, I looked at how many players we actually got consistent fantasy production from despite a mostly inept offense surrounding them:QB1: top 12RB1/WR1/TE1: top 12RB2/WR2: top 24Flex-level RB/WR/TE: top 36, top 48, or top 18Below, we'll dig into what types of players can still produce on the worst offenses in the league, and how aggressively we should be attacking specific archetypes on teams we perceive to be heading into the season behind the curve.Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2026 NFL seasonBad Offenses Still Produce Fantasy StartersThat header is technically true, but it needs a pretty massive qualifier. Fantasy players can produce on bad offenses, but as you may expect, fewer points on the board equate to fewer players we can feel confident in starting in our lineups.If fantasy production were distributed evenly across the league, a 25-team sample across five seasons would be expected to produce roughly nine top-12 quarterback seasons, 19 top-24 running back seasons, 19 top-24 wide receiver seasons and nine top-12 tight end seasons. From there, we can compare how the bottom-five scoring offenses (in points per drive) actually performed against that neutral expectation. I used the last five seasons to keep the sample large enough to matter while still reflecting the modern fantasy environment.Bad Offenses, 2021-2025TeamPoints per drivetop-12 QBstop-24 RBstop-24 WRstop-12 TEs25 Browns1.31010125 Raiders1.36010125 Titans1.41000025 Jets1.53011025 Saints1.68001024 Browns1.24000124 Giants1.49001024 Patriots1.61000024 Titans1.62010024 Raiders1.65000123 Patriots1.11000023 Jets1.16010023 Panthers1.20000023 Giants1.22010023 Steelers1.58000022 Colts1.42010022 Texans1.47010022 Broncos1.48001022 Jets1.52010022 Commanders1.56001021 Giants1.36000021 Jaguars1.39000021 Texans1.43001021 Panthers1.55010021 Bears1.630100Totaln/a01164FLEX Totaln/a013195As you can see in the table, the bottom-five offenses failed to even come close to the expected number of fantasy-relevant players; notching zero of our nine "even distribution" top-12 quarterbacks, 11 out of 19 running backs, six of our 19 wide receivers and four of our nine tight ends. In 2022, Russell Wilson was QB16 in total points and QB18 in points per game, which was the closest any quarterback in the sample came to sniffing consistent fantasy relevance.If we expanded this out to include FLEX options (top-36 RBs, top-48 WRs, top-18 TEs), it gets better, but, obviously, this is not where we want a majority of our fantasy points to come from. Interestingly, the sample slightly exceeded expectations when considering only additional flex-level players. But that is not quite as encouraging as it sounds. Those extra RB3/WR4/TE2 finishes did not make up for the massive shortfall in actual starters, which is why bad offenses still force us to be very careful about price.Finish TypeExpectedActualDifferenceTop-12 QB9.40-9.4Top-24 RB18.811-7.8Top-24 WR18.86-12.8Top-12 TE9.44-5.4Additional Flex Options32.8374.2The good news is that we at least know the worst-of-the-worst teams don't have to be completely ignored when looking for fantasy relevance. And the names that popped up even provided us with a blueprint of what type of player to look for when digging at the bottom of the barrel.The Archetypes That WorkVolume-Monopoly Running BacksThese are the cleanest bets. Underperforming offenses hurt ceilings, but if you're taking a vast majority of the snaps, your volume is still going to buoy you up the leaderboard. David Montgomery (74.3% snap rate, '21), Jonathan Taylor (69.7%, '22), Saquon Barkley (79.9%, '23) and Tony Pollard (68.9%, '25) are among the players from our five-year sample that rode incredible volume to easy starter-level finishes. If you think that is something that can't be projected, look no further than Ashton Jeanty last year, who notched a 77.9% snap rate.Target-Hog Wide Receivers at Discounted PricesThis one is probably the most intuitively obvious. These guys can survive because they are getting absolutely peppered with the ball, but pay attention to the price you have to pay to lock in that certainty. Bad offenses can easily turn them into WR2/WR3/FLEX options. Garrett Wilson (30.4% target share), Chris Olave (27.2%), and Malik Nabers (32.2%) are the guys that fit this bill, but even Nabers' 2024 season shows the push-pull. He led the league in expected fantasy points per game (20.3) but finished as the WR8 in actual fantasy points per game (14.6).Tight Ends with Barren Target CompetitionThis is a pretty small sample size we're working with, but one through-line is a weaker receiving group outside (and potentially including) the WR1. The leading non-WR1 on teams with our nine qualifying "bad team tight ends" averaged only 4.81 targets per game. And this was with seven of those nine teams finishing in the top half of the league in dropbacks, including the 2024 Browns and Raiders, who finished first and third, respectively.Maybe this just means the tight ends were straight-up better than that team's WR2, which is likely true in a lot of cases, but it also adds credence that we should be aiming for TEs that can be their team's No. 2 pass-catching option, particularly if they're on what projects to be a poor offense. [Visit 4for4 for more fantasy football analysis]The Archetypes That Usually FailAlmost Every QBSad, but true. One of our favorite go-to's in fantasy is aiming for rushing quarterbacks, even when they're on bad teams. But the thing is, if they're bad enough through the air that their team isn't scoring real-life points, they'll probably be benched anyway ('25 Justin Fields, '24 Will Levis). So keeping them in a streaming manner is probably the better path.Secondary WRs on Bad Passing OffensesOf the 25 top-48 finishers at the wide receiver position, almost none of them would be classified as their team's WR2. Forty-eight positional spots are giving a lot of leeway, and still no dice; there are simply too many good teams with multiple options clogging things up. Among the few players who would qualify would be 2023 George Pickens (WR32 - scored 53.2 half-PPR points in four games without Diontae Johnson) and 2022 Jahan Dotson (WR37 - scored 7 touchdowns on 35 catches). We don't particularly care where production comes from, but outlier seasons or chunks of the season that still only produce WR3 numbers aren't something worth chasing.Early-Down Backs Without Receiving WorkOf our 24 qualifying running backs in this subsect, not a single player fell below a 7% target share, and 13 had at least a 9% share. Backs working in this offensive environment need the added boost of the receiving work, because there are simply not as many touchdown opportunities to keep them afloat on carries alone.Applying This to the 2026 SeasonThe best way to implement this dive is to look into the teams most likely to be part of the bottom-five discussion before the season kicks off. There are no absolutes at this point in the calendar, but we can look at implied team totals derived from sportsbooks' spreads and pinpoint the teams most likely to wrap up at the bottom of NFL offenses.Bottom Seven Implied Team TotalsRankTeamAverage Implied Team Total26Tennessee Titans20.3427Carolina Panthers20.0928Las Vegas Raiders19.1129New York Jets18.9130Miami Dolphins18.8931Arizona Cardinals18.6432Cleveland Browns17.91Draft Targets Despite Low-Scoring ProjectionsWe've got some fairly obvious talents that we'll still gladly take on our fantasy squads, but we can still assume there's some risk, so it's important to be price-sensitive. Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson are no strangers to this list of "bad offenses", yet they continue to produce relevant seasons when healthy. This is mostly baked into their prices, as they are currently coming off boards as respective RB2 and WR2s. However, the closer they sneak to RB1/WR1 territory, the more we should be backing off.The Raiders also offer two obvious clicks in Ashton Jeanty and Brock Bowers, who should continue to see an outsized workload in an offense with questionable talent surrounding them. They're battling with Tre Tucker, Jalen Nailor and Jack Bech none of whom are currently projected for over 40 catches so they (Bowers/Jeanty) could very easily lead the team in all major receiving categories.A lot of the other options in this batch of teams have obvious ceilings given their talent levels, though it does take a bit of projection. Jeremiyah Love and Tetairoa McMillan would be far easier clicks if they weren't in potentially shaky environments, but it's hard to imagine either one not getting a substantial amount of usage. They are premium talents who receive an understandable downgrade in drafts, which kicks them down a notch or two.Players to Avoid Due to Low-Scoring ProjectionsOne player who did not fit very nicely into our archetype buckets is Browns running back Quinshon Judkins. While barely hitting our 7% target share threshold (7.3%), he also saw just a 50.3% snap share over his 14 games, ceding work to both Dylan Sampson and Jerome Ford. A sophomore breakout and a boost to his overall usage is very much in play, but there are enough red flags here (including a questionable offensive line) that elicit some trepidation.Secondary receivers, in general, are going to have a difficult time grasping for fantasy value in this bucket. Wan'Dale Robinson, Jalen Coker, Omar Cooper Jr./Adonai Mitchell, and Marvin Harrison Jr./Michael Wilson are hard sells at their current ADPs. It wouldn't be a huge shock if one of these options finished out the season beating their current prices, but as we've looked at in this exercise, it would make for quite the anomaly.Finally, the most painful takeaway I've got from this exercise is how rare a positive Malik Willis outcome is. Not only has a bottom-five team in points per drive not produced a top-12 quarterback in the five-year sample I used, but it hasn't happened since FTN started tracking the data in 2018. In moderately good news, it did mean I found Gardner Minshew's 2020 season when he finished as the QB14 in PPG (nine games), which was a bit better than Russell Wilson's QB16 finish, which had been the best mark. We would think the Dolphins wouldn't dare bench Willis for Quinn Ewers, but they're also neck-and-neck with the Cardinals for the lowest win total in the league. How confident can we really be?Play Yahoo's new College Fantasy Football game: Create or join a league now!Bottom LineGiven an even distribution of fantasy production, a typical NFL team should support 0.375 top-12 quarterbacks and 2.25 starter-level fantasy pieces in a given season. Across a full five-year, five-team scoring offense sample, that would work out to roughly 1.9 QB1 seasons and 11.3 starter-level players per year. Instead, the bottom-five offenses from 2021-2025 averaged zero QB1 seasons and only 4.2 starter-level fantasy pieces per year.The flex-level results were more forgiving. Based on an even distribution, we would expect the bottom five offenses to produce about 6.6 additional flex-level players per year. They actually produced 7.4, which tells us these offenses are not completely useless. The problem is that most of the value comes from depth pieces rather than true lineup anchors.The takeaway is not to ignore bad offenses entirely. It is to be ruthless about the types of players we draft from them. Chase locked-in volume, target hogs and tight ends with a real path to being the No. 2 option in the passing game. Be far more skeptical of quarterbacks, secondary receivers and early-down backs who need touchdowns from offenses that may not score enough of them.This story originally appeared on 4for4.com
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