It’s tampering time! While they can’t sign on the dotted line to make it official until Wednesday, the teams and pending free agents were allowed to tamper and agree to deals. It’s the first step to truly let us know that the 2026 NFL Season is going to begin!
That means there are going to be some big winners and losers to this free agency period, listed below in alphabetical order. So let’s see who won and who lost after Day 1 of free agency and tampering time.
NFL 2026 Free Agency Fantasy Football Winners & Losers (Day 1)
Fantasy Football Winners (Day 1)
Mike Evans (WR, San Francisco 49ers)
To the Buccaneers fans, I will say this quote from Dr. Seuss: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” I get it. It’s going to be hard to see Mike Evans on a different team after playing for Tampa Bay since 2014. But things have to change, and after letting Brandon Aiyuk and Jauan Jennings walk in free agency, there was a huge void to fill at wide receiver for the 49ers. Why wouldn’t you get the wide receiver who’s had 1,000+ receiving yards in 11 consecutive seasons, and possibly could’ve made it 12 if not for injury last year?
Now, Brock Purdy has Evans in his arsenal alongside Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle. Mike Evans is a future Hall-of-Fame inductee who has not finished lower than WR17 in Points Per Reception (PPR) leagues or scored fewer than five-plus touchdowns from 2016 to 2024. He should pair up nicely alongside Ricky Pearsall in the wide receiver core as well.
Chris Godwin (WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
With Mike Evans gone, there are some big shoes to fill. The Buccaneers have to look at the next man up, and that happens to be Chris Godwin. Yes, you could argue that Emeka Egbuka, Jalen McMillan or even Tez Johnson are also winners, but I think Godwin is the biggest winner here, with Egbuka coming in a close second. Those 84 receptions and 144 targets per 17-game average that Evans is leaving behind have to go somewhere!
To help project Tampa’s new offense, we already saw a three-game sample size from Weeks 12-14 last year when Evans was hurt. In that sample size, there are some caveats, of course; Godwin was coming back from injury, Egbuka was hitting that “rookie struggle wall” and McMillan had not yet returned. Now, in that span, Egbuka did see more targets (25) than Godwin (17), which is a good sign for future Egbuka, but Godwin finished with more receptions and yards. I could’ve used the Weeks 4-5 sample, too, in which Egbuka had big games and ended with stat lines of 4-101-1 and 7-163-1, but you can tell that Godwin was rushed back and put in a position where he was not 100%, which he should be coming into the 2026 season. With an offseason to reconfigure the wide receiver room, Chris Godwin should easily emerge as the leader.
Bijan Robinson (RB, Atlanta Falcons)
Bijan Robinson was already a superstar, but now the Falcons are doing everything in their power to showcase it. The Falcons let Tyler Allgeier walk, a relief for all fantasy football managers who’ve watched Allgeier steal Robinson’s goal-line work. The departing back was also stealing some of Robinson’s carries, as Allgeier had 137 or more in all three years in Atlanta. But that’s just the running part of his game; Bijan Robinson can catch the ball too, ending the 2025 season with the second-most receptions (79), targets (103) and receiving yards (820) for the running back position last year.
The Falcons also took advantage of free agency at the quarterback position and signed Tua Tagovailoa to a one-year deal. However, it remains unclear whether this is a bridge quarterback situation while Michael Penix Jr. recovers from a torn ACL suffered in November, or whether there will be a starting quarterback controversy. Either way, it’s a win for Robinson’s receiving game. Among running backs in Weeks 1–11 last year, when both Tagovailoa and Penix were starting, Robinson ranked third in targets and receptions, and second in receiving yards. The other two he was behind? Christian McCaffrey and De’Von Achane. If Tagovailoa gets the starting job, he’s bound to feed Bijan Robinson like he fed Achane in Miami, especially without Tyler Allgeier behind to steal carries.
Bhayshul Tuten (RB, Jacksonville Jaguars)
Last year, we were talking about Bhayshul Tuten in a completely different way. We were trying to sort out the Jaguars’ three-headed running back room between him, Travis Etienne and Tank Bigsby. A year later, we have our answer, and it’s Bhayshul Tuten. In fact, he’s actually the only one left in that Jaguars running back room from last year, as Bigsby was traded to the Eagles in the middle of the season and Etienne signed with the Saints. Let us not forget that Travis Etienne finished as RB10 and averaged 14.9 fantasy points in PPR scoring last year with the Jaguars. Then Tuten showed flashes last season, finishing higher than RB25 three times.
Although it’s expected the Jaguars will add another running back either in the next few days in free agency and/or next month during the NFL Draft, most of the free-agent running backs who could impact him have signed elsewhere. Looking at the running backs of the 2026 NFL Draft, aside from Jeremiyah Love, the draft class takes a nosedive, meaning weak competition at best.
Kenneth Walker III (RB, Kansas City Chiefs)
Gone are the days of hoping a free-agent running back will land with the Chiefs, because the Chiefs did that in the first hour of the tampering period, signing Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III. That now means that the Chiefs will have Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes, when he’s fully recovered from his torn ACL, feeding the ball to another Super Bowl MVP.
From a fantasy football perspective, we no longer have to worry about Walker being in a committee. Yes, Brashard Smith will likely handle some pass-catching work, but it won’t come close to the split work Walker and Zach Charbonnet saw in Seattle. Kenneth Walker III is expected to be the workhorse in Kansas City. For proof, look no further than the playoffs, during which he averaged 21.7 carries, 104.3 rushing yards and 1.3 rushing touchdowns per game, while also averaging three receptions for 34.7 yards in the postseason. This is a massive win for the MVP.
Other Notable Winners:
- Emeka Egbuka (WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers): I said Chris Godwin was the big winner, but Emeka Egbuka came as the close second. Egbuka has to get past that rookie wall that he hit last year and consistently bring the production of Weeks 1-5.
- RJ Harvey (RB, Denver Broncos): It was no secret that the Broncos wanted to go after another running back in free agency. Then they re-signed J.K. Dobbins, which was the best-case scenario for RJ Harvey. Yes, it’ll be a committee between the two and Dobbins will still be the 1A, but with Harvey’s pass-catching abilities and Dobbins’ health (not playing more than 13 games in his last four seasons), you can see why it’s the best-case scenario for Harvey.
- Ashton Jeanty (RB, Las Vegas Raiders): The Raiders went and grabbed the best offensive lineman out there in free agency in Tyler Linderbaum, which should greatly help Ashton Jeanty improve his atrocious 3.7 yards per carry.
- Isaiah Likely (TE, New York Giants): Isaiah Likely followed John Harbaugh to the Giants, emerging from the shadows behind Mark Andrews on the depth chart. Likely is a TE1 who has shown potential time and time again, and now he can fully showcase it in New York.
- Trey McBride (TE, Arizona Cardinals): The Cardinals are reportedly going with Jacoby Brissett as their starter next season. It’s not like Trey McBride averaged eight receptions on 10.5 targets for 80.3 yards, 0.8 touchdowns and 21.1 fantasy points when Brissett was the starter… Wait, he did!
- Wan’Dale Robinson (WR, Tennessee Titans): I did say, Meet the Robinson that Remembers the Titans. Now, Wan’Dale Robinson rejoins Brian Daboll in Tennessee, where they needed another weapon for Cam Ward. They got that in a receiver who has 92+ receptions, 140 targets and 699+ receiving yards in back-to-back seasons.
Fantasy Football Losers (Day 1)
Trey Benson (RB, Arizona Cardinals)
Let us remember the good ol’ days when Trey Benson had scored eight-plus fantasy points in each of the first four weeks of the season last year before he never appeared on the field again. Yeah, we all tend to forget that Benson was averaging 56 scrimmage yards per game for 8.8 PPR fantasy points as the 1B to James Conner last season.
We all still figured that he would be the RB2 behind Conner, but the Cardinals signed Tyler Allgeier in free agency. That has now made Trey Benson become the RB3, or as I call him, the RBTres (bad pun, I know), and he won’t see the field as often as he was before.
Tory Horton (WR, Seattle Seahawks)
Before Tory Horton got hurt, he was legitimately a boom-or-bust type of player. In four of his eight games played last season, he had 32+ receiving yards and scored a touchdown, even a special teams one! In his other four games, he was held to ten yards or fewer. He then suffered a season-ending shin injury and never saw the field again for the 2025 season. Granted, it would’ve been tough to do so after the Seahawks traded for Rashid Shaheed right before the trade deadline.
For fantasy purposes, I don’t think Horton wants to hear who the Seahawks re-signed in free agency. That “who” is Shaheed, meaning that Horton is the WR4 in this offense. The only opportunity he will get to see the field more often is if anything happens to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Cooper Kupp, and/or Shaheed, but for now, Tory Horton is buried in the depth chart.
Bucky Irving (RB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
We will never forget Bucky Irving‘s rookie season. We knew the Buccaneers had to get another running back somewhere after letting Rachaad White and Sean Tucker walk the plank in free agency. So, with the news that the Buccaneers have signed Kenneth Gainwell, I’d assume he’ll play the Rachaad White role of this offense, but even better.
The signing of Gainwell doesn’t impact Irving as much as others on this list, but I think it’s a big enough impact to give him the “loser” tag. Irving surprisingly got most of his fantasy points from the receiving side last year. In 2024, despite averaging only 12.2 carries, he averaged 66 rushing yards and 0.4 rushing touchdowns per game, with 2.7 receptions for 23.1 receiving yards. In 2025, his carry volume rose to 17.3 per game, but his rushing yards dipped to 58.8 and his touchdowns fell to 0.1. However, his receiving production improved slightly, with three receptions, 27.7 yards and three receiving touchdowns on the season. With Gainwell now in the mix, coming off a career-high 114 carries for 537 yards and five touchdowns, plus 73 receptions for 486 yards and three touchdowns, Bucky Irving’s overall touch count figures to take a hit.
Theo Johnson (TE, New York Giants)
From Weeks 4-16 last year, Theo Johnson quietly finished as the TE11 in PPR scoring, averaging 9.7 fantasy points during that stretch. If you happened to have him during any part of that stretch, most of the time, it paid dividends. I was excited to see what was to come in the 2026 season with the chemistry between Jaxson Dart and Johnson.
That all came to a screeching halt once the Giants signed Isaiah Likely on Monday, as Likely will likely see at least the numbers (if not better) than the numbers you saw Theo Johnson putting up with Jaxson Dart last season.
Alvin Kamara (RB, New Orleans Saints)
The Saints started to show the signs last year with Alvin Kamara, as he became a potential trade candidate around the trade deadline. The Saints kept him anyway, and he went on to post the worst statistical season of his career. We’re talking a career-low 42.8 rushing yards per game, 0.09 rushing touchdowns per game and the most telling stat of them all: he averaged a career-low 59.7 scrimmage yards per game, when he averaged at least 89 in every season before that.
Age gets the best of us, and it’s caught up to Kamara. The signs are glaring, as the Saints not only restructured Kamara’s contract, but they also used a lot of it to sign Travis Etienne from free agency. Now, the reports are coming out that his future with the Saints is “uncertain.” This is a fluid and updating situation as we speak, but the more that comes out, the bleaker it looks for Alvin Kamara.
Thanks for reading “NFL 2026 Free Agency Fantasy Football Winners and Losers (Day 1).” If you’re looking for more fantasy content like this or need help with the last-minute fantasy football start/sit decisions for your roster, you can find me on Facebook at “Fantasy Sports Start or Sit’Em Questions,” Twitter/X @FSSOSEQ or on BlueSky!
*Photo Credit: Doug Engle/Florida Times-Union – USA TODAY Sports*
