Watch: Josh Allen on video
For six editions of ESPN’s annual positional rankings, somebody else sat on top of the quarterback list. On Monday, Josh Allen finally took the chair. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler surveyed more than 70 league executives, coaches and scouts for the 2026 top-10 quarterback rankings, and the Buffalo Bills star edged Patrick Mahomes for the No. 1 spot — ending Mahomes’ three-year run at the top.
The margin was as thin as a special teams roster spot. Mahomes actually led all quarterbacks in first-place votes at 41.5 percent to Allen’s 34.1, but Allen won on the composite: an average ballot ranking of 2.10 to Mahomes’ 2.19. “He’s the most singularly unstoppable player at the position when you get his A-game,” one general manager told ESPN. “And he has cut down on the turnovers the past two seasons.”
Why it matters
That turnover line is the substance behind the ranking. Allen has averaged eight interceptions per season since 2024, down from 15.7 across 2021-23, and his 12 fumbles over the last two years cut his total from the previous two nearly in half. He remains the only player in NFL history with at least 200 passing touchdowns and 50 rushing touchdowns, and his three seasons with 25-plus passing scores and 10-plus rushing scores — all in the last three years — are the most ever. The blemish voters couldn’t ignore: two interceptions and two fumbles in January’s divisional-round loss in Denver, a one-game relapse at the worst hour.
Notable for Buffalo’s front office: multiple coaches in Fowler’s survey credited Joe Brady — Allen’s offensive coordinator the past two seasons, now his head coach — with streamlining Allen’s game and building the scheme around what he does best. The organization bet its coaching transition on exactly that continuity, and the league apparently agrees with the premise. Allen gets his first practice under Brady-the-head-coach when camp opens at St. John Fisher University, with rookies reporting July 21 and veterans July 28.
For fantasy purposes, the ranking confirms what draft boards already say: Allen is the consensus No. 1 quarterback, and the rushing-touchdown floor is the reason. Forty-one rushing scores since 2023 means his weekly floor survives even a mediocre passing day, and with Brady keeping the same offensive DNA in place, there’s no scheme-change discount to price in.
