Courtland Sutton led the NFL in targets in 2026 with 124 targets, the top mark heading into 2026 fantasy drafts.
Targets are the single most predictive metric in fantasy football analytics. A target represents an opportunity, and opportunities are the only thing a player can earn on his own. Catches depend on accuracy, yards depend on defender positioning, touchdowns depend on game script, but a target is what the offensive coordinator and quarterback decide together before the ball is snapped. Target share is stickier year over year than any other skill-position stat, which makes this leaderboard the most predictive of next year's fantasy production.
The alpha receivers on this leaderboard are commanding 25%-plus of their team's passing targets. That kind of workload is the defining feature of a fantasy WR1 and is almost always held by a small handful of players each season. If your target candidate does not crack the top 20 on this list, he is almost certainly not a true WR1, no matter how efficient his box score looks in a given year.
When cross-referencing this leaderboard with the receiving yards and receptions boards, look for the rare players who lead all three categories simultaneously. Those are the consensus league-winners and usually go in round one of every draft. Players who lead targets but trail on yards are ball-controlled possession receivers whose ceiling caps lower than you would hope. Players who trail targets but lead yards are efficient deep threats whose floor is shakier than their top-line production suggests. The target leaderboard separates the sustainable production from the one-year fluke.