The Rams Have Solved the Offense. Fantasy Managers Have Not Solved the Price.

There is a particular kind of disappointment in fantasy football that occurs when you spend several hours researching a team, uncover a bunch of encouraging statistics, compare everything to ten years of history and arrive at the devastating conclusion that…

everyone else noticed too.

Welcome to the 2026 Los Angeles Rams.

This would be easier if 2025 looked fluky.

It did not.

Los Angeles went 12–5, won two road playoff games and reached the NFC Championship. The Rams had the NFL's highest-scoring offense. Matthew Stafford produced the best season of his 17-year career. Puka Nacua became a first-team All-Pro. The running game was historically efficient.

Then Seattle ended it, 31–27, one game short of the Super Bowl despite Stafford throwing for 374 yards and three touchdowns and Nacua going for 165 yards and a score.

So now fantasy managers arrive at the Rams with a fairly reasonable thought:

Yes. More of that, please.

Unfortunately, the people setting draft prices also watched football last year.

2025 was not some random scoring binge

The Rams didn't simply stumble into a few 40-point afternoons.

They built one of the best offenses in football.

Stafford threw for 4,707 yards and 46 touchdowns against eight interceptions in the regular season. Puka caught 129 passes for 1,715 yards and 10 touchdowns. Kyren Williams ran for 1,252 yards and 10 scores, while Davante Adams added 14 receiving touchdowns in only 14 games.

This was an offense where basically every fantasy manager got to feel smart simultaneously.

A rare public service.

More importantly, the underlying efficiency backed it up.

Los Angeles ranked first in EPA per play and first in offensive success rate. Its success rate on designed running back carries was the highest recorded in the Next Gen Stats era. Kyren and Blake Corum ranked fourth and second, respectively, among qualifying backs in rushing success rate.

The Rams also did something much more interesting than simply “Sean McVay remains good at offense.”

They changed.

Los Angeles used 13 personnel on 30.5% of its plays, more than double any other NFL team and easily the highest rate tracked by Next Gen Stats. Out of that grouping, the Rams averaged 6.2 yards per play and scored 32 touchdowns.

Their tight ends went from 51 catches, 459 yards and three touchdowns in 2024 to 103 catches, 1,128 yards and 17 touchdowns in 2025.

That's not regression noise.

That's an offense discovering another room in the house.

And Stafford was standing in the middle of all of it throwing touchdowns.

The model believes the Rams remain good. Just not that good.

The AutoDraftYears data has Los Angeles at 30.0 points per game in 2025.

The 2026 projection:

24.7.

That's a 5.3-point decline.

It sounds enormous until you remember where we're starting.

The model isn't forecasting offensive ruin.

It ranks the Rams:

The weakest environment is quarterback.

It ranks 12th.

If the worst restaurant on vacation is still good, you don't have a restaurant problem.

Projected pass rate drops modestly from 56.7% to 55.4%, while snaps fall from 63.3 to 60.6 per game.

The model is basically saying:

Last season was extraordinary.

This season can merely be very good.

Historical comps agree.

The 30 offenses from 2016–2025 most similar to the Rams' projected scoring, pass rate, snaps and red-zone usage averaged 3.1 fantasy starters.

Leaguewide average across the 320-team sample:

2.6.

This is still an offense we should want.

Now comes the annoying part.

Everyone wants it already

Market and Model are ranks within the position. Edge is the model's position rank against the market's, after removing the drift that affects every player at that price — so it reads as “the model likes him this many places more than it likes the typical player who costs this much.” A call needs the edge to clear the position's bar (QB 5, RB 15, WR 11, TE 5 places), set at two-thirds of that position's own spread.

Look at all those positive model differences.

Then notice that none of them actually clears the position-specific buy threshold.

The model ranks the Rams' overall fantasy roster eighth.

The market ranks it sixth.

This is not a discovered continent.

It's two people arguing over whether the same restaurant deserves four and a half stars or five while continuing to eat the fries.

Puka is expensive because Puka should be expensive

Puka might be the least interesting argument on the entire team.

ADP: 4.

Market: WR2.

Model: WR1.

Role: 82.

Risk: Low.

Projected PPG: 21.

Last year he produced one of the best receiving seasons in Rams history while also functioning as an important blocker and occasional runner in McVay's offense.

I would love to offer sophisticated resistance to drafting him fourth overall.

The spreadsheet declines.

He's good.

He's expensive.

These facts are related.

Puka isn't a value.

He's also not someone I want to fade because the price makes me uncomfortable.

Top-five picks are supposed to make us uncomfortable. We are spending a significant percentage of our fantasy net worth on one person's hamstrings.

That's the arrangement.

Kyren Williams may be the easiest second-round Ram to buy

Kyren is more interesting.

Market: RB16.

Model: RB10.

RB environment: 7th.

Role score: 79.

Risk: Low.

And unlike with some productive running backs, we don't have to invent a story about why the scheme works for him.

We watched it.

The Rams' designed running game was historically efficient last year, and Kyren and Corum both thrived within it.

The adjusted edge is still only +3, so this isn't an official model buy.

But among similarly priced players, Kyren is someone I'm comfortable pushing toward.

The environment, role and risk all agree.

Sometimes that's enough.

Stafford is the player the model likes more than I expected

Stafford is the fun one.

ADP: 97.

Market: QB13.

Model: QB4.

Projected PPG: 20.

Risk: Low.

Adjusted edge: +6.

Again, it doesn't quite qualify as a formal buy.

But this is probably the Rams price I find most interesting.

Stafford just led the NFL in passing yards and touchdowns, and the Rams led the league in scoring and offensive efficiency.

Now we're being asked to draft him outside the top 12 quarterbacks.

Does he have the rushing ceiling of the elite fantasy QBs?

No.

Stafford runs the football approximately as often as I voluntarily update printer drivers.

But around pick 100, I don't need him to become Josh Allen.

If the model is even directionally correct about another top-half Rams offense, QB13 gives me a reasonable late-QB bet without paying for last year's MVP-level NFL season.

I like that more than reaching for the logo earlier.

Blake Corum is the price to watch

Corum has the biggest adjusted positional edge on the team at +8.

Still below the RB buy threshold of +13.

But he's interesting for a different reason.

Los Angeles showed us last year that it actually wants two running backs involved.

At one point in December, Kyren and Corum became the first pair of teammates in modern NFL history to each record at least 70 rushing yards and a touchdown in three consecutive games. Corum finished with 782 scrimmage yards and six touchdowns.

That's useful evidence.

It does not mean the Rams suddenly support two weekly RB1s.

Historical comps did, however, produce two top-24 running backs 80% of the time.

At pick 98, I'm interested.

If Corum drifts further?

Very interested.

If August turns him into everybody's favorite “secret” and he climbs two rounds?

Then we have successfully recreated the stock market with people wearing shoulder pads.

Don't automatically chase Terrance Ferguson because of the scheme

The 13-personnel story is real.

The tight-end production was real.

Ferguson also earned a larger role as his rookie season progressed before a hamstring injury interrupted his finish.

That makes him interesting.

It does not make him TE26 automatically attractive.

The model has him TE44.

This is a good example of why team environment and individual player projection need to remain separate.

A scheme can be exciting.

The specific player can still be expensive.

Fantasy managers occasionally discover a trend and immediately try to draft the trend itself.

Sadly, Sleeper requires a human name.

So what should you actually do?

Don't fade the Rams because 2025 was too good.

The underlying offense really was excellent.

But don't assume that means 30 points per game is the new permanent setting either.

The model projects 24.7, and even at that lower level historical comps still produce around three fantasy starters.

So I'm happy taking Puka around his premium price.

I like Kyren Williams around RB16.

Davante Adams is reasonable around WR25.

And if I'm waiting at quarterback, Matthew Stafford around QB13 is probably my favorite way to buy this offense without paying full retail.

Then keep an eye on Blake Corum.

There isn't a giant Rams bargain sitting on the board right now.

That is mildly disappointing.

But sometimes research doesn't reveal that everyone else is stupid.

Sometimes it reveals that everyone is looking at the same extremely good football team.

Very inconsiderate of them.

Sources: Auto Draft Years FF Model workbook — Team Data By Year, Team Stat Ranking, 2026 Team Context; Auto Draft Years 2026 consensus board (16 authoritative market sources); Player outcomes 2016–2025, Pro Football Reference via the project dataset. Team environment grades, forecasts and player model ranks are proprietary. Every figure on this page is generated from the dataset at build time; none is typed in by hand.