With 18 new play-callers joining NFL teams for the 2026 season, we thought it would be wise to examine what each change means for all the offensive players that matter for Fantasy Football. Dave Richard dove into each new offense and ranked the 18 new play-callers from worst for Fantasy to best.
Up next at No. 17: Falcons offensive coordinator Tommy Rees. We'll continue counting upward until we get to our favorite new play-caller for Fantasy, so be sure to stay dialed in to CBSSports.com to see the full rankings and get a crash course in what's changed for Fantasy Football in 2026.
Who's new?
Kevin Stefanski is their new head coach, but Tommy Rees will call offensive plays, just as he did under Stefanski with the Browns for nine games last season. Rees also called plays at Notre Dame for four seasons and at Alabama for one. The system should be West Coast-based with spread concepts that best fit with their quarterbacks. Legendary offensive line coach Bill Callahan is also on the staff.
What's expected this year?
Rees has been balanced as a play-caller, having a 55.4% pass rate in Cleveland last year despite a beat-up offensive line and a lot of rookies at the skill positions, and pass rates of 49.1% and 51.7% at Alabama and Notre Dame, respectively. That's sort of unique for a former QB-turned-play-caller; usually, those guys lean into passing more.
Expect the Falcons to have plenty of run-game versatility and play-action passing. Probably plenty of quick throws off of RPOs, given who they have at quarterback. Rees' history suggests a large workload for Kyle Pitts: Last year, Browns TEs had a 31.1% target share, and at Notre Dame, tight ends saw at least a 21.9% target share annually (as high as 34% in 2022 thanks to Michael Mayer).
One area of concern: Rees leaned into his running backs in the pass game last year in Cleveland (23.9% target share), but that wasn't the case in his college stops. In fact, his highest running back target share was 17.7% at Notre Dame in 2021 when he had Kyren Williams. Certainly, Rees would be silly to not lean on Bijan Robinson in the pass game, but it might not be at the 19.8% target share he specifically had last year.
Winners and losers for Fantasy
Stefanski spoke vaguely about asking Pitts to do "a couple new things," but the passing game coordinator said he's "going to be a big piece of this thing." After running an out route on about one-third of his routes last year, the guess is that he'll be asked to level up his route tree (crossers could be on the menu to utilize his after-catch skills). Pitts is coming off career lows in average depth of target and yards per catch, but also a career-high in PPR points per game (12.4 thanks to some big games without Drake London).
London and Robinson are still expected to be big contributors, but one guy who turned heads in OTAs has been rookie Zachariah Branch, whom Tua Tagovailoa compared to Jaylen Waddle. If the Falcons are going to lean on quick throws, Branch should fit in because he caught a ton of screens and short outs at Georgia last year.
