2026 NFL Rookie Wide Receiver Dynasty Rankings: Carnell Tate leads the way, Jordyn Tyson isn't far behind

If it isn’t clear, Tate is the old school, outside WR1. He barely played in the slot and earned targets at a lower rate than the other two. As evidenced by his YPRR, Tate more than offset his modest target total by earning those looks farther downfield. More importantly, his target-earning was greatly impacted by Jeremiah Smith. The phenom wideout can already be penciled in as a top-five draft pick in 2027. That level of target competition is extremely rare, and Tate also played behind Emeka Egbuka and Marvin Harrison Jr. early in his career. At 6’3/192, Tate’s 4.5 40-yard dash was almost concerning. Scouts never mentioned an inability to separate though, and the data confirms this. His 19.9 percent career contested target rate is really strong for a player with a 12.9 aDOT. For reference, MHJ had a 24.6 percent contested target rate at an aDOt one yard higher. Tate also brought down 68.8 percent of his contested targets, a mark that dwarfs MHJ’s contested catch rate. This isn’t to say he’s a better prospect than MHJ, only that how Tate wins might translate more seamlessly.

Tyson is somewhere between Tate and Lemon in terms of where he wins. He split his snaps almost evenly between the slot and out wide in 2024, which was his best season. He then moved to the outside for 74.7 percent of his routes in 2025. His YPRR dropped to 2.4, though ASU’s plummeting passing efficiency is largely to blame there. His PFF receiving grade actually jumped to 85.3. A hamstring issue in 2025 also limited him to seven games. The injury lingered into the offseason and he was unable to work out at the NFL Combine or his Pro Day. He suffered multiple torn ligaments in his knee in 2022 that cost him the entire season. Then he missed the end of the 2024 season with a collarbone injury that required surgery. I’m not willing to call him injury-prone, but I bet some NFL teams are.

At his best, Tyson eats man coverage alive with crisp routes and elite short-area speed. He ranked top-five in YPRR and receiving grade against man coverage in 2024. Even in his down 2025 season, Tyson earned a top-10 receiving grade against man. As early as his freshman season, it was easy to see that Tyson was going to be a star. He appeared in nine games and accounted for 29 percent of his team’s receiving yards and 57 percent of their passing touchdowns in those contests. Analytically, this is probably the best profile in the class. I reserve the right to rank him as my WR1 in my post-draft rankings.

The last of the big three receivers in this class, Lemon may be the most projectable. He doesn’t have any injury concerns and he wins where the modern NFL is played: in the short to intermediate portions of the field. He generated 487 yards on targets thrown shorter than 10 yards downfield with a receiving grade of 83.5. Those marks ranked 11th and fifth in the country last year. Lemon isn’t just a slot receiver though. On over 100 routes from a wide alignment, he averaged 3.31 YPRR, the second-highest mark in the country. That was actually a bit ahead of his YPRR from the slot, which was still over three. Lemon also ranked top-five in yards gained on throws 20+ yards downfield. The downside to all of this is that he stands at 5’11/192 and his 6.4 YAC per catch in 2025, while better than the other two receivers I’ve talked about, ranked 91st in the country. Amon-Ra St. Brown is the common pro comparison for Lemon and that would be a great ceiling outcome for him. I see the previous two wideouts with slightly higher ceilings, but there’s a reason I struggled so much in solidifying my top three.

4. KC Concepcion, Texas A&M

Aside from my first three wideouts, I didn’t break out this article into tiers. Had I done so, Concepcion would be in the second tier by himself. As a true freshman at NC State, Concepcion went for 839 yards and 10 scores. That was good for 33 percent of the team’s passing yards and an absurd 53 percent of their touchdowns. The Wolfpack had no ground game to speak of, so they simply let Concepcion do that too. He ran 41 times for 320 yards, which trailed only NC State’s quarterback. His star came crashing down as a sophomore when NC State’s quarterback, Grayson McCall, only appeared in four games because of concussion issues. Their passing efficiency tanked and with it went Concepcion’s receiving production. With only 459 yards to his name in 2024, Concepcion jumped ship for Texas A&M, where he immediately got back on track. His market share numbers rose and his efficiency hit new highs. He averaged 2.46 yards per route and ranked top-50 in YPRR and PFF receiving grade against man and zone coverage. Those are solid numbers, but his ability to move the chains is uncanny. Concepcion averaged .12 first downs per route run. That ranked 10th in the country among wideouts with at least 200 routes last year.

Concepcion ran 66 percent of his routes from out wide last year, but sitting at just under six feet tall and 200 pounds, he will likely spend more time in the slot in the pros. He was solid out of the slot in 2025, averaging just over two yards per route run, but I hope his future team doesn’t see his size and think of him as a slot-only player. Concepcion also skipped athletic testing and scouts don’t love his top-end speed, so I’m not banking on him being a special athlete. Concepcion has a lot of the green flags that DJ Moore entered the NFL with, and even some of the same red flags.

5. Denzel Boston, Washington

Boston spent two years parked behind Rome Odunze, Ja’Lynn Polk, and Jalen McMillan before breaking out as a junior with 834 yards and nine scores. The breakout was heavily weighted toward touchdown production as he accounted for nearly half of his team’s passing scores. He upped his share of every counting stat in 2025 with 33 percent of the yards and half of the touchdowns via a 62-881-11 receiving line. Boston wasn’t awfully efficient as a senior, but he boosted his YPRR to 2.44 in 2025, bringing his career average just over two. Arguably the biggest change in his game from 2024 to 2025 was his improved route running. For a 6’4/212 wideout, Boston became incredibly smooth in his routes, leaving corners in the dust far more often in his second season as a starter. His contested target rate went from 22.4 percent to 13.9 percent, but he also improved his contested catch rate from 54.5 percent to a stellar 76.9 percent. Pro Football Focus graded Boston as a top-10 wideout against man and press coverage.

With middling career efficiency and an upperclassman breakout, Boston doesn’t have all of the telltale signs of a future NFL star, but does look like a long-term starter. Michael Pittman is the comparison most scouts lean on, but I see him occupying more of a downfield role in the pros. I compare him closer to Marques Colston or Courtland Sutton.

6. Omar Cooper Jr., Indiana

Cooper redshirted as a freshman and didn’t see much run as a sophomore. He finally made a name for himself in 2024 by leading the Big 10 in yards per reception at 21.2 while scoring seven receiving touchdowns, plus an eighth on the ground. He ran over 90 percent of his routes from out wide and had an aDOT of 16.0. Despite this, he still managed 7.5 YAC per catch. Then, in 2025, he moved almost exclusively into the slot. His aDOT dropped below 10 and he went for 937 yards and 13 scores with another rushing touchdown for good measure. Cooper’s share of the passing game increased to nearly 30 percent and he forced 28 missed tackles, the fourth-most in the country.

Cooper is going to be a first-round receiver from a powerhouse school with a solid and well-rounded profile. What’s not to like? Well, there is one thing. Cooper feasted against weak competition and wasn’t the same player against Power 4 schools. Over the past three years, Cooper averaged 3.79 YPRR and 73.3 yards per game against G5 or FCS opponents. Nearly a quarter of his career receiving yards came against FCS schools and even 75 of his 97 rushing are from a single run against Kennesaw State, a program in their second season in the FBS. Only one of his four 100-yard games came against a Big 10 opponent and he averaged 2.02 YPRR against P4 teams.

Draftniks tend to compare Cooper to Deebo Samuel because of his YAC production and rushing numbers. Samuel averaged more YAC at a far lower career aDOT in college. He also ran for seven touchdowns and scored four kick return TDs. Samuel is one of one. If anything, his former teammate Brandon Aiyuk shares more similarities with Cooper. Both players saw more work on intermediate and deep routes than Samuel while doing less on carries or return duties.

7. Bryce Lance, North Dakota State

Lance didn’t see much action in his first two years on campus before breaking out in 2024 with 1,054 yards and 17 (you read that correctly) touchdowns at 2.8 YPRR. He caught 24 fewer passes in 2025 but still upped his yardage total by 25 and registered a 35 percent yardage share. He did this by averaging over 21 YPC and at a blistering 3.6 YPRR. Let’s just get this out of the way: He’s Christian Watson. I know the comparison is lazy because they both went to North Dakota State. I don’t care. If you were wondering:

The above numbers are career-long. Both players are outside speedsters who dominated North Dakota State’s limited passing game. Lance was slightly more efficient, though Watson was notably more dynamic with the ball in his hands.

Of course, at the NFL Combine, Lance reached peak Watson.

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He logged a near-identical RAS, highlighted by a 4.32 40-yard dash and elite burst metrics. Also like Watson, the three-cone drill was his relative weakness.

Watson has been extremely efficient in the pros, though he has never earned a true No. 1 role in Green Bay. A similar fate likely awaits Lance, which isn’t a bad outcome. If Lance simply finds a team willing to throw more than the Packers, he could be a fantasy WR2 down the line.

8. Chris Bell, Louisville

Bell “broke out” with 737 yards as a junior, but he accounted for just 21 percent of the Cardinals’ yards at an underwhelming 1.79 YPRR. His senior season was a different story. He made the leap to 2.55 YPRR with a 36 percent yardage share, plus a monster 46 percent touchdown share. Even though his 72-917-6 receiving line doesn't look impressive, it was a step forward in the context of Louisville’s mediocre offense.

At 6’2/222, Bell was designed in a lab to bully cornerbacks, and that’s exactly what he did in 2025. He ranked 35th in the country in YPRR against man coverage (3.25) and finished second in the nation in YPRR versus press coverage (3.18). Bell brought down a respectable 55.9 percent of his contested targets, which comprised 26.5 percent of his overall looks. At his best, Bell seems to be unguardable. From Week 4 to Week 6 of the college football season, Bell totaled 31 catches for 441 yards and five scores, including a monster performance versus the National Champion runner-up Hurricanes.

Bell was barreling toward a first-round selection before suffering a torn ACL late in the season. It will likely keep him off the field early in his rookie campaign. Even after considering the long-term risk of his knee injury, I’m comfortable swinging for upside with him in the second round of rookie drafts.

9. Skyler Bell, UConn

A late-bloomer, Bell spent three years at Wisconsin without making too much noise. He then transferred to UConn where he was the top dog from the jump. Bell‘s 860 yards in 2024 led the team and accounted for a third of the Huskies’ passing output. That number jumped to 35 percent in 2025. With their offense also making considerable progress in his final season, Bell skyrocketed to 1,276 yards and 13 scores on 101 grabs. He did so by averaging over eight YAC per catch and 3.1 YPRR.

Bell primarily won underneath at UConn. He ranked top-five in the country in yards on throws behind the line of scrimmage (254) and yards 0-9 yards downfield (440). Bell was still a top-end producer in the intermediate range with 418 yards 10-19 yards downfield — seventh-most in the country — but he finally falls off on deep shots. Bell barely cracked the top 200 wideouts in deep yards. That’s not to say he can’t win as a downfield option; he just didn’t get the opportunity to do so in 2025. Bell boasts 4.4 wheels and registers 98th-percentile broad and vertical jumps at the combine. His 5'11 5/8" frame at 192 pounds isn’t anything to write home about, but he’s not so small that a team will pigeonhole him into screens and slants.

The biggest concern for Bell is his late breakout. He wasn’t awfully productive at Wisconsin and only popped after transferring to a school that ranked 82nd in ESPN’s FPI in 2025. It’s entirely possible that Bell was the beneficiary of facing weak competition every Saturday. Between that risk, his size, and the name, Bell shares more than a couple of similarities with Skyy Moore. On the other hand, I loved Skyy Moore.

10. Elijah Sarratt, Indiana

Sarratt was a nonentity in the high school recruiting cycle, with FCS’s St. Francis being the only program to offer him a scholarship. Sarratt was laughably overqualified even as a freshman and scored 13 touchdowns with 695 yards. He joined Curti Cignetti’s program at James Madison for his sophomore season and was again his team’s best wideout with 1,191 yards and eight scores. Sarratt followed his coach to Indiana in 2024, where he led the team in all receiving categories. Even with Omar Cooper Jr. leveling up in 2025, Sarratt led the Hoosiers with 15 touchdowns. His 65 grabs and 830 yards were just behind Cooper, but Sarratt got there in two fewer games. PFF charted Sarratt as the better receiver, giving him a top-10 receiving grade while Cooper sat just behind him at 12th.

Sarrat’s athleticism doesn’t jump off the tape when you watch him, nor does it show up in his favor in the advanced numbers. A third of his targets were contested while at Indiana and he caught just 49 percent of those looks. Sarratt also averaged under two yards per route when facing press coverage, though he did succeed against man coverage in general. He chose not to participate in testing at the NFL Combine and ran a 4.53 at Indiana’s Pro Day. Sarratt did not record a single athletic measurable above the 80th percentile. At 6’2 ½” and 210 pounds, it makes sense that Sarratt played as an outside, X receiver in college. His athletic limitations, however, could land him a power slot role in the NFL. Sarratt isn’t the most exciting prospect, but he was consistently productive across multiple programs and schemes. A Michael Pittman career arc would be a reasonable outcome for him.

11. Ted Hurst, Georgia State

Hurst was a two-year producer at Valdosta State before laddering up to Georgia State for both of his upperclassmen campaigns. He proved to be the team’s best option through the air right away, accounting for 31 percent of their passing yards and a stunning 43 percent of their touchdowns via a 56-961-9 receiving line. Hurst crossed four digits through the air as a senior while accounting for 37 percent of his team’s passing yards. He also improved his YPRR to 2.4. This coincided with a far lower aDOT. He went from his average target landing 17.2 yards downfield in 2024 to just 12.6 yards in 2025. Getting the ball to him quicker also meant more opportunities for Hurst to work in space. He forced 18 missed tackles in his final season, more than doubling his 2024 mark.

Hurst attacks the ball at the catch-point, bringing in 61.1 percent of his contested targets at Georgia State. That, however, didn’t translate to his drop rate. He gave away 13 completions as a Panther. Drops aren’t awfully consistent, but it is an issue NFL teams will be wary of. Hurst will begin his pro career as a Z receiver, but at 6’4/206 with 4.42 wheels, he has the build of a potential X.

12. Chris Brazzell, Tennessee

Brazzell spent two years at Tulane, the second of which saw him reach 711 yards in the first of his two breakout seasons. He then transferred to Tennessee where he spent a year as a rotational player. Brazzell reemerged in 2025 with 1,017 yards and nine scores. As we’ve come to expect from Tennessee receivers, Brazzell’s success came on a very specific role. He played 751 offensive snaps in 2025. Of those, 713 came as the left wideout. Only one came from the right side, out wide. As the lid-lifter on the Vols’ offense, Brazzell logged an aDOT of exactly 15.7 in each of the past two years. He averaged 2.6 YPRR in his final season but wasn’t overly impressive against man coverage. Facing man, Brazzell averaged a measly 2.05 YPRR. He also brought in just 41.2 percent of his contested targets.

At 6’4/198, Brazzell could be a traditional X receiver in the pros, especially if he added a few pounds to his frame. However, his lack of physicality both before and during the catch makes him a better fit for Z duties. A 4.37 Forty-yard dash will also help with that role. Brazzell is in the DJ Chark/Robbie Anderson mold of receivers. Both of those players bit 1,000 yards at one point, though neither had the skillset to ascend beyond the boom/bust WR3 ranks.

13. Antonio Williams, Clemson

Williams was a four-star receiver recruit in 2022. He quickly earned a starting role at Clemson, which he parlayed into 598 yards as a freshman. Williams then missed the majority of his second season with lower-body injuries before returning to form in 2024 with 902 yards and 11 scores. Injuries were again an issue in 2025. He appeared in 10 games and managed 604 yards. Williams’ receiving yardage share peaked at 23 percent in back-to-back seasons. He played primarily out of the slot, and his slot rate shot up to 93 percent in his final season, which was also his best by YPRR, at 2.27.

Williams had no issues getting open, and his coaches found creative ways to manufacture touches for him. He logged 20 carries for 179 yards and two touchdowns as an upperclassman. Williams even completed all three of his pass attempts for 137 yards and two scores during that stretch. The downside is that he wasn’t awfully slippery with the ball in his hands after the catch. A career mark of 5.3 YAC per catch is rather underwhelming for a slot-only player, and he averaged a missed tackle forced on just under 15 percent of his grabs. I doubt there is much ceiling here, but Williams should have a high floor for a likely Day Three pick.

14. Zachariah Branch, Georgia

Branch was the top receiver recruit in the 2023 class before committing to USC. He finished fourth on the team in receiving yards as a freshman and moved up to third in 2024. Stuck behind Makai Lemon and Ja’Kobi Lane, Branch transferred to Georgia, where he was able to operate as his team’s top wideout. Branch amassed 81 grabs for 811 yards and six scores while returning punts and kicks for the Bulldogs. He accounted for a pedestrian 25 percent of his team’s passing output.

To call Branch’s production “Mickey Mouse” would be an understatement. Branch ranked second in the country in catches (44) and yards (313) on screens in 2025. That is over half of his receptions and a third of his yards coming on screens. For his career, he earned 35.8 percent of his yards on screens. That will be the highest rate for a receiver drafted since 2018, narrowly edging out Malachi Corley and Anthony Schwartz.

At just under 5’9 and 177 pounds, Branch will be a gadget player in the pros. He has his backers in the draft community and the same will likely be true among NFL scouts. That will give him a decent shot at Day Two draft capital, keeping him in the top-15 for now. If he doesn’t go on Day Two, Branch will largely be untouchable in rookie drafts.

15. Eric McAlister, TCU

McAlister took on a part-time role at Boise State after a redshirt 2021. Though he only managed 259 yards, he did so at a stellar 3.8 YPRR as a deep-ball specialist. McAlister then took over the WR1 role and posted 873 yards. He stayed above three YPRR and three yards per team pass attempt. TCU came calling in the portal and McAlister returned to his hometown for two seasons. He played second-fiddle to Jack Bech in 2024 but still managed 762 yards. McAlister put it all together in the next season, dominating the Horned Frog’s passing game to the tune of 1,190 yards and 10 scores, both of which were over 30 percent shares. He led the country in total EPA for a receiver. McAlister is a boundary speedster who stacks corners like nobody’s business, allowing him to turn a relatively high aDOT of 12.8 at TCU into 8.3 YAC per catch, a number normally reserved for screen merchants.

McAlister’s tape is flashy and fun. At nearly 6’4, he shouldn’t be able to get downfield as quickly as he does. That’s roughly the extent of his skillset. He wasn’t asked to do much underneath, dropped 16 passes over four years, and reeled in under half of his contested targets. This profile is very similar to D’Onte Thornton if he earned more routes in college, but Jameson Williams also had some similarities coming out of Alabama.

McAlister’s production profile is worthy of a higher rank, but NFL teams won’t be evaluating him on the tape alone. In 2024, McAlister was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and terroristic threat causing fear of imminent bodily injury. He eventually pled guilty on the latter count — a misdemeanor offense — while the former was waived. I’ll wait to rank any higher until the NFL assigns him draft capital.