Garrett Wilson Is Primed For A Big Season In Fantasy Football 2026
Ian Hartitz answers the question if Garrett Wilson could be headed for a WR1 season in fantasy football for the New York Jets in 2026.
"If" is a tough word in the NFL and fantasy football. It wreaks of unfulfilled potential. Though that may be a word that helps describe Garrett Wilson, who would probably be among the top WRs in football "if" he had a better QB situation. With a new QB in town, and Wilson looking far and away like the WR1 for the Jets, this could be his best season "if" he puts it all together. Ian Hartitz breaks it down as part of his New York Jets Team Preview.
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Can Garrett Wilson replicate his early 2025 success?
- WR1: Garrett Wilson (WR17 in Fantasy Life ranks)
- WR2: Omar Cooper (WR50)
- WR3: Adonai Mitchell (WR79)
- WR4: Tim Patrick
- WR5: Arian Smith
- WR6: Isaiah Williams
Most should realize Garrett Wilson is good at football. He does have the position's sixth-largest contract after all. You remember the Air Jordan catch.
And yet, it's worth going through each of the 25-year-old's four career seasons to get a full picture of just how good he's been … in less-than-ideal situations:
- 2022: 83 receptions for 1,103 yards and 4 touchdowns as a rookie catching passes from Zach Wilson, Creator of White Lotus Mike White (actually the other one) and Joe Flacco. Good for the most receiving yards by a Jet since Brandon Marshall in 2015!
- 2023: Life was supposed to be grand catching passes from Aaron Rodgers … and you know what happened. Instead, Wilson posted a 95-1,042-3 receiving line while hooping with Wilson, Trevor Siemian and Tim Boyle.
- 2024: Wilson finally gets to catch passes from A-aron, who promptly gets BFF Davante Adams to come to town. Nevertheless, Wilson catches 101 passes for 1,104 yards and 7 scores–good for a career-best 14.8 PPR points per game (WR21).
- 2025: Wilson does his best DJ Moore impressions and begins putting together the best season of his career alongside Justin Fields. Wilson posts a 36-395-4 receiving line through the first six weeks of the season—16.2 PPR points per game, WR10!—before suffering a season-ending knee injury. Sadly/hilariously, no Jets pass catcher managed to top that 395-yard mark all season.
So yeah: Wilson has spent the first four years of his career catching passes from a bunch of memes and the corpse of Aaron Rodgers … and kind of still put up good numbers anyway? I get it, the lack of target competition (aside from 2024) helped matters, but still, it's hard to deny that the former No. 10 overall pick has largely looked the part of a difference-maker at the position ever since entering the league.
Consider: ESPN's "Open Score," which measures WR separation ability on a per-route—not per-target—basis.
That's some damn good company! It's also not lost on me that Wilson's teammate Adonai Mitchell also makes the list (dozens of us still believe!).
Ultimately, Wilson has racked up 147, 169 and 154 targets in his three healthy seasons. He was on pace for 159 through six weeks of last season. I'm not saying Geno Smith is *good* in the year 2026, but if he can be a little bit better than 2025 Justin Fields, it's certainly within Garrett Wilson's range of potential outcomes to ball the hell out.
Wilson isn't cheap–his WR19 (pick 39) ADP has him going in the same range as guys like Ladd McConkey, Tetairoa McMillan, Emeka Egbuka and Luther Burden. It's tough to suggest a "Garrett Wilson no matter what" strategy despite the potential sky-high target upside due to the reality that the Jets profile as the worst offense of that group–especially down the stretch if/when we see Klubnik or, heaven forbid, Brady Cook under center. While I love the talent, I've made a bigger habit of targeting McConkey and Egbuka in this range due to Wilson's potential late-season grenade and the newfound presence of not one but two first-round pass catchers.
Also note: Mitchell's aforementioned presence among the league's top separators in the above image is especially noteworthy alongside the daily hype he's received from OTAs. Turning 24 in October, the rising third-year talent deserves credit for flashing in this sad excuse for a passing game last season, although expecting more than one somewhat high-end pass catcher from this offense is probably wishful thinking. … I wrote a full breakdown on Cooper before the draft and was particularly impressed by his ability to consistently shed would-be tacklers. There's at least some concern over his overall route tree—only Zachariah Branch had a higher percentage of targets come from screens and RPOs last season—but we did see more downfield goodness from Cooper in 2024. Ultimately, the NFL thought enough of Cooper to make him a first-round pick, making him an awfully appealing late-round option in re-draft land thanks to his awfully affordable WR59 (pick 141.1) price tag.
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