Can you feel that? The excitement? The anticipation? The bloating and gassiness?
Okay, that one may just be me. I just need to stop eating at Burger King.
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With the NFL Draft long since over and the beginning of OTAs just around the corner, the 2026 fantasy iteration of draft season is ramping up. Dynasty rookie drafts and startups are starting from coast to coast. Best-ball drafts are popping like Orville Redenbacher's. Even redraft season will see its unofficial start soon—the first live Scott Fish Bowl draft is in less than a month.
Given that, fantasy drafters far and wide are fully focused on the future. On the battles to come. They are studying potential values, busts, and sleepers. They are neck-deep in study and preparation. Training hard all day, every day, so that when the big day comes, they can punch a communist right in the face and avenge Apollo Creed.
Montage!
However, before we get too far into the weeds where 2026 is concerned, it's sometimes good to pause and look back. To motivate ourselves for what's to come by reminiscing about past glories. To remember the players who had such ridiculous seasons that they propelled us to Valhalla.
To pay homage to the greatest fantasy seasons of all time.
That's what we're going to do here, with a couple of caveats. The first is that "Of All Time" means in the 21st century, because, according to young people, nothing that happened before 2000 matters.
Buncha hooligans—the lot of them.
The second is that this isn't just a list of the 10 highest-scoring fantasy seasons—because that's not how fantasy football works. Yes, getting a lot of points is great. But winning championships means finding players who don't just pile up points—they lay waste to the other players at their position so thoroughly that Genghis Khan wonders if it might be excessive.
They aren't just great. They are dominant. Finding such a player at any position can be the difference between glory and despair.
And that's a lesson from history we can all take into this year.
Quarterbacks
Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens (2019 – 415.7 PPR Points)
This actually wasn't even the best fantasy season of Jackson's career—two years ago, Jackson threw for 4,000 yards for the first time, set a career-high with 41 touchdown passes, amassed over 900 rushing yards, and logged about 20 more PPR points. But that Jackson was already an elite fantasy option—with the price tag to match.
That wasn't the case back in 2019. In his second NFL season and first as the full-time starter, Jackson set an NFL record with 1,206 rushing yards. He paced the NFL in touchdown passes with 36. Won his first MVP award. And bested the No. 2 signal-caller (Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys) by almost 60 PPR points.
Patrick Mahomes II, Kansas City Chiefs (2018 – 417.1 PPR Points)
You're going to notice a theme here. Just as with Jackson, the 2018 campaign isn't his best in terms of total points—that came in 2022, when Mahomes threw for a career-high 5,250 yards. Like Jackson, Mahomes was entering his second season when he exploded into fantasy dominance.
And what a season it was—that year, Mahomes became just the second quarterback in NFL history to throw for 5,000 yards and toss 50 touchdown passes. He won league MVP honors and would win his first Super Bowl the following season. And the No. 2 fantasy quarterback that season? Mahomes left him in the dust.
Running Backs
LaDainian Tomlinson, San Diego Chargers (2008 – 481.1 PPR Points)
Fun fact No. 2—LaDainian Tomlinson was my first-ever fantasy football pick in 2004. That season ended just fine for the Hall of Famer, but it would be a couple more seasons before "LT2" posted the best PPR finish of any player in fantasy football in the 21st century.
Tomlinson was a force of nature in 2008. He rushed for 1,815 yards that season, averaging over 113 yards per game on the ground. He also caught 56 passes for just over 500 yards. But most importantly, Tomlinson set the NFL record for total touchdowns in a season with a jaw-dropping 31. In a season where Lawrence Johnson of the Kansas City Chiefs eclipsed 2,100 total yards and scored 19 times, Tomlinson scored over 100 more PPR points.
It was the second top-five fantasy season since 2000 of Tomlinson's career as well—he had 443.8 PPR points in 2003.
Christian McCaffrey, Carolina Panthers (2019 – 471.2 PPR Points)
By the time the 2019 season came around, Christian McCaffrey had already established himself as an elite fantasy option—he flirted with 2,000 total yards, caught 107 passes, and finished just behind Saquon Barkley for the top spot among running backs. But in 2019, McCaffrey took his game to the next level—and had a historic season.
That year with the Panthers, McCaffrey became the third player in NFL history to log 1,000 rushing yards and 1,000 receiving yards, joining Roger Craig of the San Francisco 49ers and Marshall Faulk of the Los Angeles Rams. He also set a new NFL record for receptions by a running back with 116 and scored 19 touchdowns. The No. 2 running that year was Tennessee's Derrick Henry—who finished over 75 PPR points off the pace.
Marshall Faulk, St. Louis Rams (2000 – 459.9 PPR Points)
Faulk's season with both 1,000 rushing yards and 1,000 receiving yards came back in the olden days of 1999, so it has been relegated to the dustbin of history along with American Beauty and "…Baby One More Time".
Cringe and double-cringe.
But Faulk wasn't exactly chopped liver the following season. In 2000, Faulk led the league in both yards per carry (5.4) and rushing touchdowns (18) while adding 81 receptions, over 800 receiving yards, and eight more scores through the air. Faulk was named the NFL MVP, and while the Rams made an early playoff exit that year, Faulk was the runaway No. 1 running back.
