What Fantasy Players Need To Know About 2026 NFL Offensive Lines with Brandon Thorn (Episode 999)

**Adam Levitan** (0:15)
Hello, and welcome to episode 999 of the official establishtherun.com podcast. My name is Adam Levitan. I am one of the co-founders here at ETR, as always joined by fellow co-founder Evan Silva. And today, we are joined by a very, very special guest. It is the Planet's premier offensive line evaluator. He's been rubbing elbows with the NFL's best offensive lineman and defensive lineman again this off season. He's a voter in college football offensive line awards.
It is the one and only Brandon Thorn of ETR and the Trench Warfare sub stack.
Brandon, great to see you. How's it going, buddy?

**Brandon Thorn** (0:56)
Good to see you guys too. It's going great. Excited to do this as always, man. Every year I look forward to it and it feels good to have the rankings out there as of yesterday. So, yeah, big box checked and defensive line coming next.

**Adam Levitan** (1:12)
Nice. Yes. If you are a DraftKid Pro subscriber, you can access all of Brandon Thorn's offensive line rankings and write ups right now. Evan, how's it going today?

**Evan Silva** (1:21)
It's going great. A couple weeks ago, had the opportunity to drive Brandon Thorn back from New Buffalo to Chicago, just pick his brain for 90 minutes. Just a wealth of information. Sent him to P-Quads when we got to Chicago. He enjoyed it.
And now, yeah, his article, this article, I feel like this is the best article you've done. And you've been doing this, what, since we started, right? What is this, like year seven or year eight? And I think this is the most thorough article that you've written on the offensive line yet, one through 32, tons of detail. Great job, Brandon Thorn.

**Adam Levitan** (1:57)
All right. On today's show, we are going to talk 2026 offensive line outlooks and how they will affect. Fantasy Football will also take some of your listener questions that you submitted here at the end. Before we get into it here today, reminder, training camp is indeed upon us. If you have a fantasy draft coming up, we can help. Our NFL Early Bird bundle product is now live. That combines DraftKit Pro, aka Silva's Top 150, all our ETR ranks, all of my context and strategy that's coming in August, combines that with our in-season product, aka all our projections, premium shows, Silva's matchups, tons more. For details on the bundle or just DraftKit Pro, which is where Brandon's article is, head to the subscribe tab on establishtherun.com.
All right.
Let's get into it here on 2026 Offensive Lines, Brandon. I want to start with units we expect to be significantly better this season. The first one that came to mind for me was just an injury thing. We've been talking about this all off-season. When the Chargers have Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt-Healthy, the numbers are stark. Justin Herbert plays significantly better. Obviously, they will enter this year completely healthy. Brandon, I was thrilled to open up the rankings and find the Chargers at five overall.
Brandon, what do you think about this line and is everybody too excited about the Mike McDaniel, Rashawn Slater, Alt stuff going on with Chargers?

**Brandon Thorn** (3:38)
Well, no. In my opinion, I think it's warranted and you start with the tackles. I think that pairing is one of the two or three best in the league hands down.
There is some variance there obviously with both returning from season ending injuries, especially Slater's being more serious with the patella injury to his knee. But all things that I've heard is like he's going to be ready to go.
So sometimes those injuries take some time even if he's ready to go to really reclaim 100% of play strength and things like that. But even if he's 80, 85%, I think that's reasonable. 80, 85% of response later is still really, really good. So you start there and I think Beattish at center, those are the top three guys. And then the guards I think will be fine. Especially when you're talking about this system upgrade that I think they're undergoing with Mike McDaniel coming in and just how much that raises the floor of an offensive line like it did in Miami. We have the data, you know, in terms of, or the film I should say, which is the evidence of what he did in Miami, raising the floor there for that offensive line. And this is a better offensive line with a better quarterback. And, you know, so, and I'm super interested to see the dynamic between him and Harbaugh in terms of the run game. I'm sure this is going to look a little different too. So, yeah, I'm super excited about it high on this unit. And I think the floor is high because of the infrastructure and then the ceiling is high because of the personnel.