Ja’Marr Chase’s 2026 Fantasy Outlook: Why He’s Still a Top Pick After an Up-and-Down 2025
Ja’Marr Chase won fantasy football’s Triple Crown in 2024. Nobody expected him to repeat that in 2025 — and he didn’t. What he did instead was survive a season that would have wrecked most receivers’ fantasy value, and he still finished as one of the most productive wideouts in the league. That’s the case for drafting him first overall in 2026.
What Actually Happened in 2025
Chase caught 125 passes for 1,412 yards and eight touchdowns in 16 games, according to Pro Football Reference. He led the NFL with 185 targets. Those numbers look like a step back from his 2024 Triple Crown season — 127 catches, 1,708 yards, 17 touchdowns, 403 fantasy points — and they were. But the drop-off had almost nothing to do with Chase himself.
Quarterback Joe Burrow suffered a Grade 3 turf toe injury in Week 2 that required surgery, according to NFL.com. He didn’t return until late in the season, missing roughly nine games. Backup Jake Browning started three games before the Bengals traded for Joe Flacco, who took over the rest of the way until Burrow was activated.
Chase also missed one game of his own. The NFL suspended him one game in mid-November for an on-field incident with Steelers cornerback Jalen Ramsey, according to Pro Football Reference. Chase appealed and lost. That, combined with the quarterback carousel, is the honest explanation for his touchdown total falling from 17 to eight — not a decline in his own play.
By target volume and target share, Chase was still the most heavily used receiver in football. FantasyPros’ final PPR standings had him finishing as the WR4, behind Puka Nacua, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Amon-Ra St. Brown, a placement reported widely across fantasy outlets. He averaged 19.6 fantasy points per game.
2024 vs. 2025, Side by Side
| Season | Receptions | Yards | Touchdowns | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 127 | 1,708 | 17 | 17 |
| 2025 | 125 | 1,412 | 8 | 16 |
The Flacco Factor
What stands out most is how Chase performed once Flacco took over. Across five games with Flacco at quarterback, Chase averaged 97.4 yards on 14.4 targets per game and produced roughly 20.3 fantasy points per outing, per RotoWire. That’s close to his career-best pace, with a 40-year-old journeyman throwing him the ball. It’s the strongest evidence available that Chase’s fantasy floor doesn’t depend on Burrow specifically — it depends on volume, and the Bengals feed him volume no matter who’s under center.
Why 2026 Still Looks Like a No. 1 Overall Case
Burrow is healthy again entering 2026, and Flacco is back as the clear backup, according to RotoWire. That gives Cincinnati a stable answer at quarterback either way. Nobody should assume another 17-touchdown season. But the target competition around Chase — Tee Higgins, a running back room, tight end depth — hasn’t materially changed, and Cincinnati’s offense under Zac Taylor remains one of the most pass-heavy in the league.
Chase currently sits around the No. 1 overall pick in most 2026 drafts, with an ADP in PPR formats behind only Jahmyr Gibbs and Bijan Robinson, according to FantasyPros’ aggregate data. Some analysts have gone as far as ranking him the true 1.01 given his target monopoly and touchdown regression candidacy — after all, an eight-touchdown season on 185 targets suggests positive regression is coming, not more decline.
The bet on Chase isn’t that he repeats 2024. It’s that even his “down” year, played with two different backup quarterbacks for half the season and without him for one game himself, still made him a top-four fantasy receiver. That’s as close to a fantasy football floor as it gets at wide receiver.
