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Arizona Cardinals Fantasy Outlook 2026

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By Sean Draper · Published September 17, 2026 · Last updated October 27, 2026 · Updated Tuesdays and Fridays through the season

After Week 1, Arizona ranked sixth in the NFL in offensive DVOA at 24.5% and twentieth in defensive DVOA. PFF projected the Cardinals for the fewest wins in football. Both of those things are true at once, and the gap between them is the entire fantasy argument on this page. A new head coach in Mike LaFleur, a journeyman quarterback who completed 27 of 37 without an interception, the third pick in the draft at running back, and the most-targeted tight end in the league’s opening weekend — on a team we still have finishing last. Bad teams throw. That is not a consolation; it is the mechanism, and it is why three Cardinals are on our buy list while the record stays where it is. All ranks and scoring on this page are 0.5 PPR unless stated otherwise.

Cardinals fantasy cheat sheet

Player	Pos	Where he’s going	Our verdict	Injury risk
Trey McBride	TE	TE2 in PPR, ADP 25 overall	Start every week — 12 targets, more than any Arizona receiver	Low — the Week 2 rest/back day was maintenance; no current designation
Kendrick Bourne	WR	WR173, ADP 605 — undrafted in every format	Claim — our Week 2 waiver call after he caught all eight of his Week 1 targets for 75 yards	Low
Jeremiyah Love	RB	RB15, ADP 30	Start every week — Arizona’s lead back; broke six tackles on 13 touches in Week 1	Elevated — sidelined for Weeks 6 and 7 with an ankle injury; see the Injury watch table below for his current status
Tyler Allgeier	RB	RB46, ADP 141	Keep him rostered — Love’s direct insurance; Arizona listed him first in Week 1	Low
Marvin Harrison Jr.	WR	WR31, ADP 70	No longer a Cardinal — traded to the Houston Texans on October 12, 2026; Michael Wilson and Trey McBride are Arizona’s top targets now	Low
Michael Wilson	WR	WR35, ADP 84	Hold — seven targets, second on the team, and the safer of the two receivers right now	Low
Jacoby Brissett	QB	ADP 244; no consensus QB rank published	Streamer only — 277 yards and no interceptions is his ceiling, not his floor	Low
James Conner	RB	—	IR slot — and he is not out for the season. Foot; eligible to return now, but no activation announced	Out
Cardinals D/ST	—	Unranked on our Week 2 board	Do not stream — 20th in defensive DVOA after a game it won	—

The one-line version: Kendrick Bourne was the Week 2 claim, Trey McBride is a weekly start, Jeremiyah Love is the back to start with Tyler Allgeier as his insurance, and leave the defence alone.

The backfield: the third pick in the draft is listed second, and both things are true

James Conner is on injured reserve with a foot injury; he is eligible to return, but no activation has been announced. Trey Benson reverted to injured reserve with a knee injury and is out for the season. What is left is a rookie taken third overall on a contract reported at $53 million guaranteed, and a free-agent signing on two years and $12.25 million — and in Week 1 the free-agent signing was listed first and played more.

	Tyler Allgeier	Jeremiyah Love
Week 1 depth chart	Listed RB1	Listed RB2
Week 1 snaps	44	32
Touches	19 — 17 carries for 61, plus 2 catches for 9	13
Rushing	17 for 61 (3.6 a carry), no touchdown	11 for 41, 1 TD — and 38 of the 41 yards came after contact
Forced missed tackles	—	6 on 13 touches
Context	Took stacked-box carries 29.4% of the time	Missed three to four weeks of practice with a preseason ankle sprain
ADP	141 (RB46)	30 overall (RB15)
Our verdict	Start this week	Buy for the season

Six forced missed tackles on thirteen touches, and 38 of 41 rushing yards after contact. That is the number that makes this a buy rather than a bust. Love was drafted third overall, missed most of August with a high ankle sprain, and was eased into his debut by a coaching staff that said out loud it was managing him. He still broke more tackles than anybody on the field. Allgeier, meanwhile, ran seventeen times for 3.6 a carry with almost a third of those carries into a stacked box — honest, replaceable work.

After Week 1 the verdict was split by horizon. That week we said start Allgeier: he was listed first, played twelve more snaps and took six more touches. For the season, we said buy Love. Love is currently the clear lead back, with Allgeier rostered as direct insurance; check our live injury report for the latest. LaFleur’s outside-zone scheme is the reason — it is the same system Love ran at Notre Dame for 8.4 yards a carry, and CBS Sports’ analysis of the fit is that he will “contribute on all three downs” once the practice reps accumulate. He is going at RB15. He will be a top-20 back by December or the ankle will be the reason he is not.

Where we differ from our own board, twice. First: our Week 2 rankings stated that James Conner was “out for the season.” He is not. Arizona placed him on injured reserve with a designation to return; the earliest date was Week 5, and as of October 20 our live injury report has him eligible but still on injured reserve with no activation announced. Second: that same board framed Love as the presumptive lead back — “the job should be his” — while our injury report said flatly that Arizona listed Allgeier first. This page took the injury report’s side on the Week 2 depth chart and the rankings page’s side on the season, which was not a fudge: the depth chart was a fact about that Sunday and the talent gap is a fact about January.

Target share: the best receiver on this team in Week 1 was free in every league

Jacoby Brissett threw 37 times. Here is where the ball went, and the top line is not the name anyone drafted.

	Trey McBride	Kendrick Bourne	Michael Wilson	Marvin Harrison Jr.
Position	TE	WR	WR	WR
Week 1 targets	12	8	7	3
Catches	9	8 — all of them	5	1
Yards	95, 1 TD	75	56	33 — on a single sideline catch
ADP	25 (TE2)	605 (WR173)	84 (WR35)	70 (WR31)
Our Week 2 board	TE1	Unranked	WR37	WR45
Our verdict	Start	Claim	Hold	Hold

Kendrick Bourne caught eight passes on eight targets and he is going at pick 605. There is no format in which he was drafted. He led all Arizona receivers in targets, catches and yards in his first game with the team, arriving from a San Francisco receiver room that has since been gutted by injury, and he was on waivers in every league. That made him the single highest-value action on this page in Week 2: claim him. The obvious caveat is that eight-for-eight is not repeatable and 75 yards on eight targets is a possession line, not a breakout. Fine. A free player with the team’s target lead is worth a roster spot on that basis alone.

On Marvin Harrison Jr., we are going to be boring on purpose. Three targets and one catch in a season opener is the sort of line that produces confident takes in both directions, and the explanation is mundane: the Chargers doubled him. Brissett said so afterwards — “there’s a reason why he’s double-covered… I don’t want to get into the whole overreaction of Week 1” — and CBS’s analysis of LaFleur’s scheme notes he may need “very creative” deployment to be unlocked. He was going at WR31 and our Week 2 board had him WR45 against a Seattle defence it rated second among all streaming units. Our verdict was hold, not buy and not sell. He is a better player than his Week 1 line and a worse asset than his draft price. It is now moot for this roster: Arizona traded him to the Houston Texans on October 12, 2026.

Michael Wilson is the quieter answer. Seven targets, five catches, 56 yards, second on the team, going at pick 84 — fourteen picks later than Harrison. He is not going to win you a week. In a passing game that ran through a tight end and a waiver-wire receiver in its opener, he is the most predictable of the three, and that is worth something in a 4–13 offence.

Trey McBride: twelve targets, and the only Cardinal you draft in the first three rounds

McBride drew twelve targets, caught nine for 95 yards and a touchdown, and led the team in receptions, yards and targets — with Derwin James in coverage for a meaningful share of it. He is going at pick 25 and TE2 in PPR, and he was the consensus TE1 on our Week 2 board, which noted that Brock Bowers was unsettled.

The scheme argument supports the usage rather than contradicting it. LaFleur’s tight ends in Los Angeles scored eleven touchdowns last season, and multiple-tight-end formations are a staple of the system he brought with him. A tight end out-targeting every receiver on his own team is normally a red flag about the receivers; here it is a statement about the tight end.

Our verdict: start him every week and pay the TE2 price if you have to. One caution from Week 2: McBride did not practise on that Wednesday, listed as rest/back, alongside Budda Baker and Josh Sweat, which read like a veterans’ maintenance day. It never turned into anything, and as of October 20 he carries no injury designation.

Jacoby Brissett: efficient, and that is the whole of it

Kyler Murray was released and signed with Minnesota. Arizona’s starter is Jacoby Brissett, with rookie third-rounder Carson Beck and Gardner Minshew behind him. In Week 1 Brissett went 27 of 37 for 277 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions, added six carries for 14 yards, and beat the Chargers 26–14 on the road.

That is a good game and the ceiling of a good game. Brissett is going at pick 244 with no consensus positional rank published at all, and our Week 2 board had him QB23 with the note that Seattle’s defence was a top-two streaming unit — “which is the problem.” We agreed with the ranking and disagreed with the outcome it implied, and Seattle won 31–7; see the forecast section below. Our verdict: streamer only, in two-quarterback and superflex formats, in good matchups. The thing that matters for your roster is not Brissett’s fantasy value but his completion percentage, because 27-of-37 with no turnovers is what keeps McBride, Bourne and Wilson in the range of usable weekly starters on a bad team.

Injury watch

Jeremiyah Love is still out. He missed the Week 6 trip to the Rams and the Week 7 home loss to Denver with the same ankle injury, and as of Tue, Oct 27 our feed lists him Out heading into Week 8, with Tyler Allgeier and Zonovan Knight next in line in the backfield — Knight’s snap share has climbed to 53% with Love sidelined. James Conner remains eligible to return but is still on injured reserve with the foot injury, with no activation announced, and Trey Benson is on injured reserve for the season with a knee injury; neither directly touches the current backfield, though a Conner activation would reshape the Love-Allgeier split. Trey McBride carries no designation. The table below updates automatically from our status feed and editorial desk.

Statuses updated Nov 3, 12:26 pm EST. Status data: Sleeper.

Report current as of Tuesday, October 27, 2026. The table above refreshes automatically from our status feed.

Team forecast: why we have Arizona at 4–13

We scanned fifteen independent projections on a team that won its opener in Los Angeles as a double-digit underdog. This board is the mirror image of every other one we have published this season: the models are more than three wins above the writers, and the market sits between them. Our call lands almost exactly on the overall average, which is the least interesting thing about it — the argument is about where the wins come from.

Source	Type	Wins	Finish / Call
Opta supercomputer	Model	7.45	Last in the NFC West, 19.7% playoffs; behind all three division rivals. Superseded — see the note below this table
BetMGM (post-Week 1)	Market	5.5	Over +105
Caesars (post-Week 1)	Market	5.5	Over −105
BetRivers (post-Week 1)	Market	5.5	Over +115
ESPN FPI	Model	4.9	Best case 7–10; 1.4% to make the playoffs, 0.1% to win the NFC West
FanDuel	Market	4.5	Over +120 / Under −140
Fanatics Sportsbook	Market	4.5	Over +125 / Under −150; 60% implied on the Under
PFF season model	Model	4.33	The lowest projected win total in the entire league, on what PFF grades the toughest schedule in football
DraftKings	Market	3.5	Over −136 / Under +115; moved down from an opening 4.5. Super Bowl +50,000, NFC West +10,000
John Breech, CBS Sports	Analyst	3–14	Last in the NFC West, “far behind” the Rams and Seahawks; slots Arizona third in his 2027 draft order
Bleacher Report	Analyst	3–14	“Not a lot to like about this team… absolutely in play for the first pick in 2027”
Brett Kollman, NFL.com (via Cards Wire)	Analyst	1–16	Forecasts a 13-game losing streak to open the year, with the only win coming after the bye
R.J. White, CBS Sports	Analyst (betting)	—	No record. Recommends Arizona for fewest wins in the league at +250, calling the defence “problematic”
CBS Sports “worst to first”	Analyst	—	Ranks Arizona last of eight candidates. “The NFC West has three Super Bowl contenders — the Rams, Seahawks and 49ers — and then there’s Arizona”
FTN — Aaron Schatz DVOA	Model	—	No win projection; after Week 1, 6th in offensive DVOA at 24.5% and 20th in defensive DVOA at 5.4%
This site	Our call	4–13	4th, NFC West — out of the playoffs

Why we are at four and not seven. Opta’s 7.45 is the outlier on this board and it is grading roster talent on a schedule that PFF calls the hardest in football. Arizona plays both the NFC West — a division we have sending three teams to the playoffs — and a full AFC slate on top of it. The defence that has to survive that ranked 20th in DVOA in a game it won, and lost Calais Campbell and Dalvin Tomlinson in the offseason. A top-six offence with a bottom-third defence and the league’s hardest schedule is a four-win team, not a seven-win one.

Why we are not at one, or at three. Brett Kollman’s 1–16 and the two 3–14s were written before Arizona went to SoFi Stadium and won by twelve with a journeyman quarterback completing 73% of his throws. The offence is real: sixth in DVOA, a tight end drawing twelve targets, a top-three pick at running back who broke six tackles on thirteen touches while managing an ankle. Mike LaFleur has already beaten a playoff team in his first game as a head coach. Teams like that lose a lot of close games; they do not go 1–16.

The claim we are prepared to be graded on hardest, and the one we like least: our 4–13 has Arizona going 0–8 on the road and 3–3 inside the NFC West — the worst team in the conference splitting with the division that we say sends three teams to the playoffs. We are not going to pretend that is comfortable. It falls out of a league-wide solution rather than a team-by-team one: Arizona’s non-division schedule is brutal enough that the wins have nowhere else to go, and home division games against opponents who see you twice a year are where bad teams historically get theirs. It is legal, it happens in real seasons, and it is the single most likely place this page is wrong. If Arizona goes 1–5 or 0–6 in the division and picks up two wins in the AFC instead, the record will look right for the wrong reasons.

Where we differ from our own board. Our Week 2 rankings had the Seattle defence second among all streaming units that Sunday and flagged Jacoby Brissett, Michael Wilson and Marvin Harrison Jr. as difficult starts because of it. The game-by-game table below has Arizona winning that game. That was a direct contradiction and we named it rather than burying it: the board ranked the likely outcome off the market price, and this page published the call we are graded on. Our Seahawks outlook carries the same game as an Arizona win from the other side, so the two team pages agree with each other and disagree with our weekly board. Seattle won 31–7, so the board was right and both team pages were wrong; the miss is graded in the tracker below.

Game-by-game, and what it means for your lineup

Wk	Opponent	Site	Pick	Record
1	Los Angeles Chargers	Away	L — graded: miss	0–1
2	Seattle Seahawks	Home	W	1–1
3	San Francisco 49ers	Away	L	1–2
4	New York Giants	Away	L	1–3
5	Detroit Lions	Home	W	2–3
6	Los Angeles Rams	Away	L	2–4
7	Denver Broncos	Home	L	2–5
8	Dallas Cowboys	Away	L	2–6
9	Seattle Seahawks	Away	L	2–7
10	Los Angeles Rams	Home	W	3–7
11	Kansas City Chiefs	Away	L	3–8
12	Washington Commanders	Home	L	3–9
13	Philadelphia Eagles	Home	L	3–10
14	Bye	—	—	3–10
15	New York Jets	Home	L	3–11
16	New Orleans Saints	Away	L	3–12
17	Las Vegas Raiders	Home	L	3–13
18	San Francisco 49ers	Home	W	4–13

• Weeks 2 to 5 were the stretch we flagged in September, and we had Arizona 2–2 in it; they went 0–4. Home to Seattle (L 7–31), at San Francisco (L), at the Giants (L), then home to Detroit (L 21–45) in Week 5. James Conner remains eligible to return but has not been activated.
• Week 14 bye — the worst possible week for fantasy managers. It falls directly inside the window where most 12-team leagues run the first round of their playoffs. You lose Trey McBride, Jeremiyah Love and whichever receiver you are starting in the week that eliminates half your league. This is a real cost of rostering Cardinals and nobody mentions it in September. Plan it now.
• Weeks 15 to 17 are an 0–3 stretch on our board, against the Jets, at New Orleans and against the Raiders. Three eminently winnable games and we have Arizona losing all three, which is the part of this projection most likely to age badly. For fantasy purposes the read is different from the football one: those are three bottom-half defences in the weeks your league is decided, and McBride and Love should be in your lineup for all of them regardless of who wins.
• The counterintuitive one: the worst team in the NFC has one of the best offences in it, and the record is the reason to buy rather than the reason to sell. Arizona ranked sixth in offensive DVOA and twentieth in defensive DVOA after Week 1. That combination — good offence, bad defence, hardest schedule in football — is the precise recipe for a team that trails often, throws often, and loses. Managers price skill players off the standings, which is why Kendrick Bourne went undrafted in every format and Jeremiyah Love was available at a discount after Week 1 from the person who took him thirtieth. Do not confuse a bad football team with bad fantasy assets. The two things are produced by the same defence.

Frequently asked

Who is the Cardinals quarterback in 2026?

Jacoby Brissett. Kyler Murray was released by Arizona and signed a one-year deal with the Minnesota Vikings; rookie third-rounder Carson Beck and Gardner Minshew are behind Brissett on the depth chart. In Week 1 Brissett went 27 of 37 for 277 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions in a 26–14 win at the Chargers. He is going at pick 244 and FantasyPros publishes no consensus positional QB rank for him. Stream him in superflex in good matchups; our Week 2 board had him QB23 against Seattle.

Should I start Jeremiyah Love or Tyler Allgeier?

Love, when healthy — but he is currently listed Out with the ankle injury that has sidelined him since Week 6, so start Allgeier until Love is active again; check the Injury watch table on this page for his latest designation. In Week 1, Arizona’s depth chart listed Allgeier as RB1 with Love second, and Allgeier played 44 snaps to Love’s 32 with 19 touches to 13, so we started Allgeier that week. For the season, Love was always the call. He was the third pick in the draft, he broke six tackles on thirteen touches with 38 of his 41 rushing yards coming after contact, and he was doing it while managing a high ankle sprain that cost him three to four weeks of August practice. Mike LaFleur said the staff was “monitoring his usage.” Allgeier is the handcuff to keep.

Is Marvin Harrison Jr. a bust in 2026?

One game is not a verdict, and the explanation for that game is mundane: the Chargers double-covered him. He finished with one catch for 33 yards on three targets while Trey McBride drew twelve targets, Kendrick Bourne eight and Michael Wilson seven. Brissett’s own words afterwards were “there’s a reason why he’s double-covered.” He was going at WR31 and pick 70, and our Week 2 board had him WR45 that week against a Seattle defence it rated second among all streaming units. Our verdict is hold — he is a better player than the box score and a worse asset than the draft price, and buying or selling on three targets is guessing. Arizona traded him to the Houston Texans on October 12, 2026, so he is no longer part of this target tree.

Should I pick up Kendrick Bourne?

If he is still on your waiver wire, yes — he was our priority claim on this roster in Week 2. Bourne signed with Arizona from San Francisco on a two-year, $10 million deal and was going at pick 605 and WR173, which means he went undrafted in every format. In Week 1 he caught all eight of his targets for 75 yards and led every Arizona receiver in targets, catches and yards. Eight-for-eight will not repeat and 75 yards on eight targets is a possession line rather than a breakout, so treat him as a flex-and-bye-week piece, not a starter. At a cost of nothing, that is still the best value on the page.

Is James Conner out for the season?

No. Arizona placed him on injured reserve with a foot injury and a designation to return, which guaranteed he missed at least four games and put his earliest return at Week 5. As of October 20 he is eligible but still on injured reserve, with no activation announced. Hold him in an IR slot if your league has one; if it does not, he is a reasonable drop in 10-team leagues and a hold in 12-team ones, because a healthy Conner returning into a Love-Allgeier split changes all three players’ value.

When is the Cardinals bye week in 2026?

Week 14 — the worst bye in the NFC West and one of the worst in the league for fantasy purposes, because it falls inside the window where most 12-team leagues play the first round of their playoffs. Seattle and the Rams are both on bye in Week 11 and San Francisco in Week 8; Arizona is the only NFC West team whose bye collides with the bracket. If you are rostering Trey McBride or Jeremiyah Love, find their Week 14 replacement in October, not the morning of.

Prediction tracker

Updated Tuesdays and Fridays through the season. Last update: October 27, 2026 — seven games graded, and we are 3 of 7. We correctly called the Week 3 loss at San Francisco, the Week 4 loss at the Giants and the Week 7 home loss to Denver (30–16), but we missed the season-opening upset at the Chargers, the Week 2 home loss to Seattle (we had Arizona winning, they lost 31–7), the Week 5 home loss to Detroit (we had Arizona winning, they lost 21–45), and the Week 6 road win at the Rams (we had Arizona losing, they won 18–16). Arizona sits 2–5 through seven games, one game off this sheet’s own 2–4-through-six pace, and still tracking toward our preseason 4–13 call. The prediction stays as published; we mark misses, we do not re-cut them. This page is updated as news breaks; player statuses render live from our injury feed.

Metric	Predicted	Actual	Delta
Team record	4–13	2–5 through 7 games	One game off this sheet’s own 2–4-through-six pace, but the Week 7 loss to Denver was a correct call
NFC West finish	4th	— too early	—
Division record	3–3	1–1 through 7 games (L vs. Seattle, Wk 2; W at Rams, Wk 6; no division game in Week 7)	On pace for the predicted 3–3, with two of six division games complete
Road record	0–8	2–2 through 7 games (W at Chargers, L at 49ers, L at Giants, W at Rams; no road game in Week 7)	Well ahead of the predicted 0–8 pace; both road wins (Chargers, Rams) are already graded as misses on the game sheet
Playoffs	No	— too early	—
Arizona beats Seattle in Week 2	Yes	No — lost 31–7 at home	Miss
Trey McBride finishes as a top-three TE	Yes	— too early	—
Jeremiyah Love finishes as a top-20 PPR back	Yes	— too early	—
Love out-snaps Allgeier by Week 8	Yes	Trending miss — Love has missed Weeks 6 and 7 entirely with the ankle injury; Allgeier and Zonovan Knight have out-snapped him by default	Likely miss
Marvin Harrison Jr. finishes as a top-30 WR	Yes	— too early; traded to Houston Oct. 12, so this is now graded on a different team	—
Games called correctly	—	3 of 7	—

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Keep going

• Half-PPR fantasy rankings
• Start/Sit calls — head-to-head lineup decisions, published before kickoff
• 2026 team fantasy outlooks — every team we have written up so far
• Seattle Seahawks fantasy outlook — 11–6 and the No. 5 seed, with the two meetings in Weeks 2 and 9
• Los Angeles Rams fantasy outlook — 12–5 and the NFC’s No. 1 seed, beaten at State Farm Stadium in Week 10
• San Francisco 49ers fantasy outlook — 11–6 and the No. 6 seed, losing here in Week 18
• Live injury report — every Cardinals designation, refreshed four times a day
• Our track record — every call we make against consensus, graded after the games

Sources: azcardinals.com, NFL.com, ESPN, CBS Sports, FOX Sports, NBC Sports, Sports Illustrated, The Athletic, Arizona Sports, Arizona Republic, Cards Wire, Bleacher Report, USA Today, Yahoo Sports, Heavy, The Game Haus, PlayerProfiler, PFF, FTN Fantasy, FantasyPros, RotoWire, OddsShopper, VegasInsider, BetMGM, DraftKings, FanDuel, Caesars, BetRivers, Fanatics Sportsbook, Opta via The Analyst and Yahoo Sports, Wikipedia. Schedule, sites and bye week checked against NFL.com. Odds, ADP and injury data current as of September 17, 2026; practice designations current to September 16. Analysis, not betting advice. This page is updated as news breaks; player statuses render live from our injury feed.