Fantasy Football: Who will start for Browns, Falcons, Cardinals among biggest QB questions going into NFL training camps
NFL training camps open up this week, which means the fantasy football season is fast approaching. While most teams know who will be the starting QB come Week 1, others will be figuring that out in heated competitions. Yahoo analyst Matt Harmon poses the biggest QB questions for fantasy going into training camps. Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2026 NFL season Of all the quarterback battles we’ll discuss here, the one taking place in Minnesota is the least likely, in my view, to be a real competition. The Vikings are insistent that J.J. McCarthy will get an even shot to be the QB1 over Kyler Murray but I’m highly skeptical. My sentiment isn’t unique. Maybe Murray doesn’t hit as the starter; perhaps McCarthy can improve over an all-out flop season in his first showing as a pro. At this current moment, Murray, while a flawed player, is a better option heading into Week 1. McCarthy’s 4.31 adjusted net yards per pass attempt in 2025 ranked 40th out of 45 passers with 100-plus attempts. Murray ranked 37th with 4.72, by far the lowest mark of his career. Even in his worst season as a pro in a far inferior environment, Murray was objectively better than McCarthy. Unless McCarthy is just a dramatically improved version of the player we saw last year, I expect Murray to start the vast majority, if not all, of the games in 2026. As the starter, his rushing chops alone make him a clear QB1 candidate in fantasy but he’s also a strong fit in a Vikings’ passing game that’s extremely downfield oriented, even if he won’t access the middle of the field as much as Sam Darnold did for Kevin O’Connell in 2024. The Browns attempted to soft-launch the idea that Deshaun Watson would get another crack as their starter in 2026, despite missing all of last season. Coming out of OTAs, it sounds like Shedeur Sanders has closed the gap. That probably says more about Watson’s current lack of potency, which should be no shock considering how the last few years have gone for him. Now, Sanders wasn’t great in his own right last season. His 35.5% dropback success rate ranked 43rd out of 45 qualifying passers last season, besting only Jets UDFA rookie Brady Cook and his teammate Dillon Gabriel . I can hear an argument that he’s slightly better than those numbers and could even take a step forward with improved talent around him and a better play-caller in Todd Monken installed as the head coach. My guess is we see both Watson and Sanders make starts for Cleveland this season. We may even get a Taylen Green start toward the end of the season if the Browns want to take a look at the highly-athletic quarterback; get ready to see him in sicko waiver wire columns, if so. All this means is the Browns don’t have their 2027 quarterback on the roster but we should still track this situation since they do suddenly have an abundance of interesting young weapons. Other than the fact they’re both left-handed, it’s hard to get two more different stylistic passers than Tua Tagovailoa and Michael Penix Jr. Tagovailoa gets rid of the ball quickly and operates well over the middle, despite obvious arm strength limitations. Penix doesn’t throw over the middle much and has a laborious throwing motion but can access deep outside-the-numbers throws thanks to his aggressive mindset and howitzer of an arm. That sets the Falcons up for a quietly intriguing quarterback battle in camp, if Penix is healthy enough to push for the QB1 gig coming off an ACL tear. I’d bet that Tagovailoa opens the season as the starter, but we see Penix at some point. Given their disparate approaches to playing quarterback, it would be hard to argue that the specific starter won’t have an effect on how players like Drake London , Bijan Robinson and Kyle Pitts Sr. score fantasy points this season. It’s a little bizarre that we’re set to open training camps and the Cardinals still don’t have an agreement in place that satisfies both their desires and what Jacoby Brissett wants [... truncated ...]
