2026 Rookie Class Preview: Pre-NFL Draft

If you’re at the “how do I pronounce these names?” stage of your rookie draft prep, this is the article for you. Well, not literally; an article isn’t the best format to help with name pronunciation. But what I will do is provide an overview of the players we’re likely to care about in our rookie drafts. There will be landing spots that make us fall in love, and players taken well above consensus. But at the moment, in the simplest terms possible, there are nine players in this class that I feel are solid bets. And only one of them is a QB, with that name unlikely to surprise you.

2026 Mock Drafts: Scott Smith’s 1.0 | Ryan Noonan 1.0 |

QB Preview

I’ll save you from most of the boring, nerdy stuff, but the tables in this article by position are the output of machine learning models. They look at a ton of variables starting from the 2015 college season, weed out those that aren’t predictive, weight the remaining variables appropriately, handle non-linear relationships, and ensure that we’re not overfitting on small samples. And they ultimately try to predict a player’s average half-PPR fantasy points per game in their first three NFL seasons.

The highlighted values on the tables shine light on the inner workings of the models and indicate where a player hit (green), partially hit (yellow), or missed (no color) an important value cutoff. But the models are just tools to help us in our rookie drafts. They are not perfect, and every player requires additional context, much of which I won’t get into in this preview.

With that out of the way, let’s dig into the results for the 2026 QB class. And…it’s not great. I’d argue Fernando Mendoza is the only QB really worth targeting in our rookie drafts. I doubt this is surprising to anyone, but that’s where we’re at with this class. QB is the analytically toughest model to build, in terms of delivering value beyond draft capital. By far the most important variables are draft pick, rookie year ADP, and Lance Zierlein’s film grade. And Mendoza checks all of those boxes. Mendoza is one of only 20 QBs with a film grade above 6.50 since 2016. And this is absolutely not a knock on Zierlein, but it’s a mixed bag. There are big hits like Joe Burrow, but also big misses like Paxton Lynch.

And then PFF’s variables that only evaluate QB performance under pressure move into the next tier of importance. Ultimately, Mendoza is just ok on those. The graph below only shows QBs drafted in round one. It has college-career pressure yards per attempt (YPA) on the x-axis and fantasy points per game in a player’s first three NFL seasons on the y-axis. Only Lamar Jackson was a big ceiling hit early in his career, with a college pressure YPA below seven yards. The other seven players with 20+ fantasy points per game were above that seven-yard mark.

And Mendoza was close but not quite above seven. He’s certainly not a slam-dunk pick, but we’re pretty bad at evaluating QBs. I think he’s a perfectly fine pick starting at the 1.02 in rookie drafts. Let’s turn to the clear 1.01.

RB Preview

Unfortunately, as with QB, there is only one RB in the class who is a very safe bet. And it’s Jeremiyah Love, who should be the 1.01 in every rookie draft, regardless of format. He checks every single box. He’ll get insane draft capital, and he’s almost a first-round pick in seasonal drafts before we even know his team. He’s got great production, PFF run grades, yards per route run (YPRR), rushing TD rate, and speed score. Just to focus on one of those for a second, every RB with a final-season YPRR above 1.70 drafted in rounds one or two of the NFL draft has been a massive hit since 2016.

Moving down the board, Jadarian Price is hanging on to the number two spot in the model. He didn’t do himself any favors at the combine. He checked in both smaller and slower than I expected. And the production wasn’t there in college. Now, there is the very important context that he played at the same school as the consensus 1.01 in Love, but we’re projecting here more than we already are with any other player. Price got a really solid film grade from Zierlein, and I do think that’s more valuable than the analytics for Price. But he’s not someone I’m personally really excited to draft.

Alternatively, Mike Washington Jr. is screaming up the consensus big board. He’s getting closer to second-round draft capital by the day. He showed out in a massive way at the combine, hitting a 126.9 speed score, or the 2nd-best value for an RB since 2016. But I do worry about the lack of production. He had the worst career PFF run grade of the top 10 RBs, a YPRR that missed an important threshold, and a low career rushing TD rate. But the athleticism is obvious.

The RB I’m likely to be most ahead of the market on is Nicholas Singleton. Singleton, unfortunately, broke his foot during a Senior Bowl practice and had surgery in February. He wasn’t able to participate in the on-field drills during the NFL Combine because of that foot injury. That has seemingly hurt the amount of excitement around him. But we ultimately want RBs that catch passes, score TDs, and create explosives. Singleton checks all of those boxes with his 1.52 YPRR, nearly 8% career rushing TD rate, and his estimated speed score.

Landing spot matters for every position, but I found something both interesting and intuitive for RBs. The RBs that land on teams with good passing efficiency and bad rushing efficiency from the prior year do the best in a vacuum. We likely have a team with a good QB, who made drafting an RB a priority, and they were inefficient in the rushing game last season. That means the existing RB isn’t cutting it, but the situation isn’t necessarily bad for an RB with talent.

There weren’t many teams with great passing but below-average rushing last year. And three of the four teams in the bottom-right quadrant of the graph below have clear, established starters. The most interesting team to me is the Seahawks. Kenneth Walker is now on the Chiefs, and Zach Charbonnet might not be ready to start the season. It’s a great spot if they opt to draft an RB in the middle rounds of the NFL draft. But it's possible the signing of Emanuel Wilson takes them out of that market.

WR Preview

Here we have the strength of this class. Five of the nine players to really care about in rookie drafts are WRs. I’m a bit surprised that Denzel Boston came out first in the group, as I wouldn’t actually take him before Carnell Tate or Makai Lemon. But we’re splitting hairs given how close the fantasy point predictions came out among the top five.

Boston groups nicely with both Lemon and Jordyn Tyson in terms of having the college production to match their projected draft capital. All three had great career receiving yards per team pass attempt and earned a first down on 12% or more of their routes. One near-flag for Boston is his very low slot rate. We like our WRs to have the skill to win on the outside, but the offensive focus to be put into the slot. Anything below 10% is a pretty big red flag, and Boston’s at 15%. It’s a related story at aDoT, where target depths above 15 yards are a red flag, and Boston is sitting at 13 yards. I’ll be interested to see if the film experts think Boston can win on the inside and if Boston maintains solid draft capital, as that’s been slipping recently.

Lemon almost has the opposite problem as Boston, with a 78% career slot rate. But his aDoT is pretty high given that context, and the draft capital, film grade, and production are all fantastic. I would put him as the WR2 in the class behind Tate at the moment. Tate has almost identical slot rates and aDoTs as Boston, meaning he wins on the outside. But what he doesn’t have is the same level of production. The model is adjusting for teammate competition, but it’s using historical values for that adjustment. And I wonder if Tate competing against multiple first-round NFL draft picks isn’t fully baked in. I think that’s especially true for someone like Jeremiah Smith, who we’re pretty sure will be a top-five draft pick but isn’t even draft-eligible yet. I’d argue that additional context is needed for Tate even beyond what the model is doing on its own.

Overall, though, I feel pretty good about the four mentioned WRs in addition to KC Concepcion. I have them lumped closer together than what I’ve seen from other fantasy folks, meaning I’ll likely be overweight on Boston and Concepcion, who are often seen as a full tier below Tate, Tyson, and Lemon. But especially Boston for me.

TE Preview

The final two solid-bet players are at TE in Kenyon Sadiq and Eli Stowers. Sadiq absolutely crushed the NFL Combine. He now owns the highest speed score among all WRs and TEs since at least 2016, narrowly beating out DK Metcalf. And that athleticism shows up in his excellent career tackle avoidance. But his production is lacking for a slam-dunk TE prospect. His career receiving yards per team pass attempt (RYPTA) is just ok, along with a sub-20% career target per route run (TPRR) rate. Athleticism really matters for TEs to hit their ceiling outcome, and Sadiq has that in spades. But the lack of production is concerning.

The TE I’ll be overweight on is Stowers. Stowers’ excellent combine performance was overshadowed a bit by Sadiq. But his speed score and tackle avoidance are both fantastic. And Stowers has the career college production to back it up. He has the best RYPTA and TPRR among relevant TEs in the class, and his draft capital continues to rise. While draft capital is important for TEs, it’s arguably the least important for any position, as we’ve seen hits from ultra-athletic pass-catching options in the past that were overlooked by NFL teams. Stowers is a priority for me in TE-premium leagues.

Bottom Line

• We’re still early in the process, but at least for now, nine players from the 2026 draft class seem like solid bets.

• At QB, that’s just Fernando Mendoza.

• We’re generally pretty bad at QB evaluation, but he doesn’t quite check the boxes in performance against pressure that we’d like to see.

• At RB, it’s just Jeremiyah Love.

• Love is the 1.01 in every rookie draft, regardless of format. He checks every box. He’ll get insane draft capital, and he’s almost a first-round pick in seasonal drafts before we even know his team. He’s got great production, PFF run grades, YPRR, rushing TD rate, and speed score.

• Nicholas Singleton is the RB I’m highest on relative to the market, as he checks a lot of those same boxes but lacks recent hype because of a foot injury that prevented him from testing at the NFL Combine.

• There are five WRs that I really like in the class, and I see them as closer together than most people in the fantasy space.

• Those WRs are Carnell Tate, Makai Lemon, Jordyn Tyson, Denzel Boston, and KC Concepcion.

• And finally, at TE, we have Kenyon Sadiq and Eli Stowers.

• I’ll be highest on Stowers relative to the market because, while his athleticism isn’t quite as insane as Sadiq’s, it’s still very good, and he has the college production to match.