Mattek Fantasy FootballSource
Mattek Fantasy Football artwork
VideoFrom Mattek Fantasy Football

Brock Bowers Has One Comp (It's Insane)

STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this video and kept the full transcript here for context.

10 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Jun 17, 2026
Published
Wed, June 17, 2026
0
Player insights
0
Players mentioned
Player analysis

Player insights

0
No player insights have been extracted for this episode yet.
Full transcript

Episode Transcript

279
0:00I'm going to save you from the single
0:01biggest mistake you can make in fantasy
0:03football in 2026. Brock Bowers did have
0:05a down year in 2025. Geno Smith was his
0:09quarterback. He did get injured, played
0:11some of those games injured, which is
0:12going to skew his career numbers. But,
0:14I'm convinced, and I think by the end of
0:16this video, you are going to be
0:17convinced that Brock Bowers is going to
0:19be the story of fantasy football in
0:212026. Looking back on his career 17-game
0:25pace, he has averaged 15.7 career
0:28fantasy points per game. So, that is
0:29stripping out weeks 2, 3, 4 from last
0:32year, and obviously not including the
0:33games that he did not play. This would
0:35be a 17-game pace over the course of his
0:37entire career. 106 catches, 1,100 yards,
0:41and eight touchdowns. That's a very good
0:43tight end season. That's a very good
0:44wide receiver season. Keep in mind,
0:46though, we have only seen age 22 and age
0:4923 Brock Bowers. This is someone who, as
0:51of this recording, has still not turned
0:5324 heading into a totally rejuvenated
0:57Las Vegas Raiders team with a brand-new
0:59quarterback, number one overall,
1:00Fernando Mendoza, and Clint Kubiak, who
1:03just won a Super Bowl, heavily targeting
1:05Jackson Smith-Njigba in Seattle. Bowers
1:08handled 26% of the team's targets for
1:11the Raiders when he was a rookie.
1:14His 153 targets led all tight ends.
1:17Again, keeping in mind, this is an age
1:1922 season. This is a sort of target
1:21dominance that basically doesn't exist
1:23in the NFL right now. The only other
1:25tight ends who are even close to what he
1:27has put on the field were peak Travis
1:29Kelce and Trey McBride. Those are the
1:31only two tight ends who have played kind
1:33of in the modern version of the NFL who
1:36are even close. And the way that Bowers
1:37is being treated by drafters right now,
1:39to me, does seem a little bit insane.
1:42Anywhere that you can draft fantasy
1:43football
1:44CBS, Yahoo, Underdog, doesn't matter. He
1:47is going right now as a second-round
1:49pick, sometimes even a third-round pick,
1:51which is kind of just catastrophic. And
1:53I think the scheme is going to to the
1:55big upgrade from what we saw from year
1:58two Bowers because, you know, look, I'm
2:00going to be honest with you guys. I did
2:02definitely think that there was a chance
2:04that Chip Kelly and Pete Carroll were
2:06going to reinvigorate the Raiders. That
2:07is not what happened. The offensive line
2:09was horrible. Pete Carroll hired his
2:11kids to be the offensive line coaches. I
2:14mean, it's one of the worst ideas of all
2:15time. Chip Kelly got fired. Things did
2:17get a little bit better actually after
2:19Chip Kelly got fired. The team smartly
2:22totally cleaned house, brought in
2:23basically the most sought-after
2:26offensive in all of football in Clint
2:27Kubiak. Remember how good Kubiak was
2:29with the Saints before Derek Carr and
2:31everyone started to get injured.
2:33What we've seen when Kubiak has been a
2:35play caller is the number one option
2:38absolutely gets fed. Justin Jefferson
2:41had 167 targets with Kubiak calling
2:44plays on the offensive quality control
2:46side of the ball. Jackson Smith-Njigba
2:48in 2025 is the number one option on the
2:51Seattle Seahawks had a 33% target share.
2:54When Kubiak is the guy calling plays,
2:57when he is deciding who gets the ball
2:59and when they get it, one guy gets fed.
3:01In fact, I think that Kubiak actually
3:03likes to have jabronis around his star
3:06player. You know, if you look at what
3:07Seattle did last year, it was just a
3:10bunch of guys. AJ Barner, Elijah Royal,
3:12later stage Cooper Kupp. They trade for
3:15Rasheed Shaheed to add some more
3:16dynamism after Horton gets hurt, but
3:18it's clear that the entire passing game
3:20is orchestrated around one guy. That is
3:22what is going to happen with Brock
3:24Bowers in 2026. And it depends, you
3:27know, you have to sort of take this with
3:29a little bit of grain of salt. You have
3:30to do a little bit of a leap of faith.
3:31So, my friend Mike Clay has Brock Bowers
3:33projected for a 25% target share. That
3:36would be one of his most aggressive
3:38projections, keeping in mind that the
3:40job of someone doing projections is to
3:42project the median. They have to build
3:44in a floor, and they have to consider
3:46the ceiling. For us fantasy football
3:48analysts, it is very easy to to enamored
3:51by the ceilings of these players. don't
3:53get me wrong, I am very, very enamored
3:55for the ceiling of Brock Bowers. I think
3:57that he can absolutely break fantasy
3:59football.
4:00But even in what we could describe as a
4:02worst-case scenario, which is kind of
4:04what we saw Bowers play with last year,
4:06even a worst-case scenario for Bowers,
4:09he had a 100-yard game the first game of
4:11the season before he got injured. He
4:13played those three games injured that he
4:15should not have. He came back with the
4:1711th highest
4:19PPR tight end game of all time in that
4:21game against Jacksonville. That's
4:22actually true. Go look that up. The 11th
4:24highest PPR tight end points game of all
4:27time. 14 points against Denver. 22
4:30points. Finishes the tight end one twice
4:33in a season. He finishes the tight end
4:35one twice in a season where everyone
4:38thinks of it as an abject failure. I
4:41think that, I mean, not even I think, I
4:43know that if he does get to this 33%
4:46ceiling, Bowers could set all-time
4:48records. I mean, he already has the
4:50record for most receptions for a rookie
4:52in a season. I think we could have a
4:54truly insane 185 target, 130 reception
4:59season. Bowers as the engine for this
5:02Raiders offense is going to be able to
5:04go basically as high as Fernando Mendoza
5:07can take him because look at the Raiders
5:09route share. We have Trey Tucker who has
5:11never had a 15% target share, which is
5:14what he's currently being projected for.
5:15Jalen Nailor who was a not even a second
5:18fiddle, a fourth fiddle for the
5:19Minnesota Vikings. They have Michael
5:21Mayer.
5:22You could certainly argue that Michael
5:23Mayer being on the field with Bowers is
5:26actually a huge plus for Michael Mayer.
5:29In fact, I would argue that or actually
5:30a huge plus for Brock Bowers because
5:32when you play in 12 personnel, we see
5:34this with lots of other teams that play
5:36heavy 12 or 13 personnel. When you are
5:39in those formations, it is the
5:40pass-catching tight end who gets the
5:42ball. It's the blocking tight end who
5:44blocks. I mean, I think a great example
5:45of this is Travis Kelce and Noah Gray
5:48inside of Kansas City. I think AJ Barner
5:50is a pretty good example of this in that
5:52old offense where AJ Barner was out
5:54there to block. The ball was supposed to
5:57go to Jackson Smith-Njigba, but there
5:59really is no one else to feed. And by
6:00the way, I still think this is true even
6:03if the team signs Deebo, even if the
6:05team signs Diggs, like if they end up
6:06with one of these veteran wide
6:07receivers, I still think that this is
6:09true. And my mental model certainly
6:12would have Brock Bowers with higher than
6:13a 25% target share. A great a great
6:16quote from Clint Kubiak about Brock
6:19Bowers. He was asked at organized team
6:20activities and he described Brock Bowers
6:23as a football robot from heaven. Does
6:26that sound like the type of normal coach
6:28speak that we get in the off season? Uh
6:30no. No, it does not. That is someone who
6:32has come in. I would imagine that part
6:35of the reason that Clint Kubiak wanted
6:36to take this Raiders job outside of
6:38wanting to be a head coach in general is
6:40that he very much wants to get the ball
6:43to Brock Bowers 150 times, maybe more
6:46because he knows what Brock Bowers is
6:47capable of. So, it's time
6:49to talk about why I think that Brock
6:52Bowers could be the definition of
6:54fantasy football in 2026. The best age
6:5722 tight end seasons ever in the history
7:00of fantasy football are owned by one,
7:02Rob Gronkowski, and two, Brock Bowers.
7:04The only other guy who is even
7:06comparable to them is a name that some
7:08of you guys, in fact most of you guys,
7:10are probably too young to know, Mike
7:12Ditka. He really is the only one.
7:14Imagine that unicorn Kyle Pitts season,
7:17but about 20% better. That is what Brock
7:20Bowers did as a rookie setting multiple
7:22records. Now, obviously, the team
7:24context for Bowers when he scored 15 and
7:26a half fantasy points per game much
7:27worse than Rob Gronkowski. Wasn't
7:29playing with a first ballot Hall of Fame
7:31quarterback. He was playing with Geno
7:33Smith, Aidan O'Connell, and a bunch of
7:34other absolute jokers at quarterback. I
7:37think there's going to be a clear
7:39upgrade there. My opinion on Fernando
7:41Mendoza is that he might not be a great
7:43quarterback right away, but I think he's
7:45going to be a big step up. I think Clint
7:46Kubiak is going to be a huge huge step
7:50up from what was happening in the
7:51coaching room. There was a story that
7:52came out from The Athletic that Raiders
7:54players were saying they had to do film
7:56study themselves because no one on the
7:58coaching staff was even doing film
8:00study. So, if they wanted to change
8:02their protections, if they wanted the
8:03offense to improve, it was up to the
8:05players from the 2025 Raiders to have to
8:08do it. If we're looking at the
8:10statistical comparisons, Bowers actually
8:12had more receptions. He just got
8:14absolutely mugged on touchdowns. Gronk
8:16at age 22 in 16 games scored 17
8:19touchdowns. Bowers scored only five, to
8:21which I would say, "Hey, man, we've seen
8:23proof-of-concept. Bowers can do it." He
8:25had three touchdowns in that game
8:26against Jacksonville. He had two
8:27touchdowns in that game against the Los
8:29Angeles Chargers last year. I certainly
8:31think that Bowers can have a very
8:33similar goal-line style presence the way
8:36that Rob Gronkowski did while actually
8:39potentially being a better middle of the
8:41field receiver. You You did hear me
8:43right. I did say better middle field
8:45receiver.
8:46So, taking a look at Bowers career
8:48fantasy points per game compared to 2026
8:51projected wide receivers, he slots in
8:54between Rashee Rice, Garrett Wilson,
8:56Nico Collins, A.J. Brown. His career
8:59fantasy points per game is already a
9:00top-10 wide receiver, but you get to
9:02slot those points in at tight end. Some
9:05people would argue that's not that
9:07valuable. I would argue it certainly is
9:09incredibly valuable. I I mean, it's
9:11incredibly valuable to be able to have
9:13those points, those wide receiver one
9:15points slotted in at your tight end
9:17position. You were going to be winning
9:19the tight end position by three points,
9:21four points, five points in projection
9:23every single week against your
9:25opponents. I think that his conservative
9:27projection is basically where he is
9:29being drafted right now. I think there's
9:31really no way to say that he is going to
9:33project worse than Trautman McBride. I
9:35think his ceiling is a Gronk, Graham
9:38style transcendent fantasy football
9:41option. If you want to get more of this
9:42analysis, obviously you can head on over
9:44to fantasyflock.com. You can use code
9:46Davis to get my rankings, to get all the
9:49awesome tools over there. But by and
9:50large, I just want you guys to remember
9:53it's Brock Bowers season.

More episodes from Mattek Fantasy Football

6