Anomaly or New Norm? What to Make of QB Outliers for 2026 (Fantasy Football)
Every fantasy football season, players put up statistical numbers inconsistent with their preseason expectations or career averages. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad, but it almost always leads to reactions, often overreactions, in the next season’s fantasy drafts.
So, how do we know whether these unanticipated performances signal that the player’s skill has changed or are just aberrations that will self-correct? As with most things in fantasy football, there isn’t an easy answer, and a lot of nuance is involved when trying to figure it out.
In this article series, I will explore players who had what appeared to be outlier seasons in 2025. I will examine the player’s history, team situation, and any other factors that may have led to the massive improvement or decline. I will then determine whether last season was an anomaly we should expect to regress to the mean, or the new norm we should expect moving forward.
First up, QBs.
2025 Recap
Last year’s edition produced mixed results. Joe Burrow continued his elite efficiency, at least when he was healthy. Baker Mayfield regressed as expected, though injuries may have played a role. Dak Prescott once again beat his ADP. My optimism on Tua Tagovailoa proved misplaced. That is the challenge with identifying anomalies. Usually, the regression comes; sometimes it does not.
On to 2026.
The Stats
W will be looking at efficiency stats throughout this series. While no single metric tells the whole story, per-attempt, per-game, and rate stats provide a clearer picture of a QB’s efficiency than raw volume alone. Since players score fantasy points through yards and TDs, I am primarily using efficiency metrics based on those stats. For QBs, I chose to examine TD rate, attempts/game, yards/attempt, and average depth of target (aDOT), with a few others sprinkled in.
The table below shows the averages of these stats since I began writing this series in 2023.
| Stat | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 3-Year Avg. |
| Attempts/Game | 32.3 | 30.3 | 30.4 | 31.0 |
| Yards/Attempt | 7.1 | 7.2 | 7.2 | 7.2 |
| Completion % | 65.0% | 65.3% | 65.0% | 65.1% |
| aDOT* | 7.7 | 7.7 | 7.7 | 7.7 |
| TD Rate | 4.2% | 4.6% | 4.9% | 4.6% |
| INT Rate | 2.1% | 2.3% | 2.1% | 2.2% |
*For consistency, the stats in this article are all from Pro Football Reference. They use “Intended Air Yards”, but I will be referring to it by the more familiar name of “aDOT”.
These are league averages among qualified QBs. While that does include rookies who meet the qualifications, I will not single out any of them in this article, as we only have one season to examine. Just know that if I did, Cam Ward’s season would show up as anomalously poor. However, it is too early to say after the number one overall NFL Draft pick only has one season under his belt.
So with no further ado, here are the QBs who were on the extreme ends of the stats last season.
Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images
Matthew Stafford: 7.7% TD Rate, 9.0 Yard aDOT
Even before his 2025 MVP season, Stafford was on a Hall of Fame trajectory. He headed into the season ranked 10th all-time in both passing yards and TDs. However, there was plenty of trepidation surrounding the veteran QB, as training camp narratives surrounding his ailing back filled social media.
Then he went out and produced one of the most efficient QB seasons in NFL history. He became just one of three QBs with a TD rate above 7.5% and a 9.0-yard aDOT. Of the three, his 597 pass attempts were the most. For a better visual, you can reference the table below.
| Player | Season | Attempts | TD% | aDOT |
| Matthew Stafford | 2025 | 597 | 7.7% | 9.0 |
| Patrick Mahomes | 2018 | 580 | 8.6% | 9.1 |
| Russell Wilson | 2018 | 427 | 8.2% | 9.0 |
Anomaly or New Norm?
Stafford is no spring chicken as he heads into his 18th NFL season, and the 7.7% TD rate from last season was a career high. He had topped a 6% rate in four previous seasons, and it dropped in each consecutive season. He is highly likely to regress closer to his career average of 4.8%.
It is probably safe to bet on Stafford’s 2025 season to stand out as an anomaly, but that does not necessarily mean you need to fade him for fantasy football in 2026. Fantasy managers have gotten wiser. In the past, a QB coming off a performance like Stafford’s 2025 season would skyrocket up draft boards the following season. Instead, he is currently being drafted as the QB15 in the 10th round. Expect regression, but do not assume regression makes Stafford a bad value. His current QB15 price already reflects much of that downside.
Paul Rutherford-Imagn Images
Drake Maye: 8.9 Yards/Attempt, 72% Completion Rate, 9.1 Yard aDOT
Maye made a massive leap in his second NFL season. His 8.9 yards/attempt led the league and was a full 1.0 yard/attempt ahead of MVP Matthew Stafford. He was also the only QB to top a 70% completion rate, and he did so while leading the league in aDOT. He is the only player since 2018 to complete over 70% of his passes while having an aDOT above 9.0 yards. That combination almost never exists because deep passing usually lowers completion percentage.
To say Maye improved on his rookie season is an understatement. He got better in every statistical category. Most importantly for the readers of this article, his fantasy points/game jumped from 13.6 to 20.6. He finished last season as the overall QB3, and that’s exactly where he is being drafted right now in 2026.
Anomaly or New Norm?
Maye’s magical 2025 will almost certainly be an outlier for his career. That is not to say he will never win an MVP or finish as the QB1, but his deep ball efficiency was simply off the charts in 2025. He still has room to grow as a young QB, especially now that the Patriots have added additional WR talent in A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs. The question for fantasy managers in 2025 is, can he pay off as the QB3 off the board? Drafting Maye as the QB3 requires betting that his historic efficiency is closer to his new norm than a one-year spike.
Kara Durrette/Getty Images
Lamar Jackson: 23.2 Pass Attempts/Game, 5.2 Rush Attempts/Game
Lamar Jackson has never led the league in pass attempts, and he probably never will, but his 23.2 attempts/game in 2025 were the lowest of his career and the lowest in the league. His falloff in rushing attempts may be even more concerning, as his 5.2 rush attempts/game was more than three attempts lower than his previous career low of 8.2 in 2024.
Anomaly or New Norm?
It is easy to point to Jackson’s injuries last season as the reason for his volume plummeting. That certainly had something to do with it, but he only played less than 70% of the snaps in a game that he started all season. He had five games last season with 20 or fewer pass attempts, and he played 88% or more of the snaps in four of them.
The injuries likely had a bigger impact on his rushing, especially considering it was a hamstring injury that hampered him most of the season. However, Jackson is heading into his ninth NFL season and will turn 30 in January. Last season was the first of Jackson’s career with fewer than 100 rush attempts. The only two QBs with 100+ rush attempts at 29 years or older were Josh Allen last season and Cam Newton in 2020. Lamar is not built the same as those two.
However, there should be plenty of hope that his passing rebounds. Baltimore shook up their coaching staff by saying goodbye to the long-tenured John Harbaugh and bringing in Jesse Minter to lead the team. More importantly for Jackson, they brought in Declan Doyle from the Sean Payton and Ben Johnson coaching trees to run the offense.
Fantasy managers seem to be buying in, as he is the second QB drafted in ADP, though it is a full round or two behind Josh Allen, depending on the platform. He will be the ultimate risk/reward QB in fantasy drafts this season. If Lamar’s rushing rebounds even partially, he has overall QB1 upside. If it doesn’t, he will need more passing volume than we have seen in recent seasons to justify his price.
Bo Nix: 36 Pass Attempts/Game, 6.4 Yards/Attempt
Nix finished as the QB6 overall in 2025, behind a strange mixture of inefficiency and volume. His 36 pass attempts/game led the league, while his 4.1% TD rate ranked 27th and his 6.4 yards/attempt ranked 29th, behind the likes of J.J McCarthy (6.7). Qualified QBs with a lower yards/attempt included Bryce Young (6.3), Spencer Rattler (6.2), and Cam Ward (5.9).
Anomaly or New Norm?
Nearly all of Nix’s passing stats dropped from year one to year two. The major exception was his overall volume. There is a decent chance that the addition of Jaylen Waddle helps improve his overall efficiency, but there is an even more likely chance that his overall volume drops on a Broncos team with a strong defense and a commitment to running the ball.
That said, it is tough to doubt a QB who is two for two when it comes to being a QB1. It is no guarantee, but the risk is relatively small at his current cost of QB14 in the double-digit rounds. Anomaly or not, drafting him probably will not make or break your fantasy squad. Nix doesn’t need to repeat last year’s volume to remain fantasy relevant, but managers should not project another league-leading workload.
Patrick Mahomes: 4.6 Rush Attempts/Game, 6.6 Yards/Rush Attempt, 0.4 Rush TD/Game
Mahomes is known as a generational passer, but his throwing stats have lagged in recent years. His TD rate has been below five percent for three consecutive seasons. He topped 20 fantasy points/game last season for the first time since 2022, but much of that came on the ground. He set career highs with 422 yards and five TDs on the ground.
Anomaly or New Norm?
This one is almost certainly an anomaly, especially considering Mahomes’ season-ending ACL injury in Week 15 of last season. Mahomes was propping up his fantasy points on the ground, but that is unlikely to repeat as he recovers from the knee injury. He may be ready to play in Week 1, but unless he suddenly returns to the gunslinger we saw from 2018-2022, he will not be a must-start fantasy QB in 2026.