Tall Boyz, Part 2: Early day-three wide receivers in the 2026 NFL Draft

I remember when Christian Watson was in school, also at NDSU, and I was also having trouble getting a read on him for a long time. My breakthrough, as it were, came when I was watching some film on Northern Iowa’s Isaiah Weston. You may not know who Weston is, but he had one of the highest RAS scores in his class (9.67) almost on par with Watson (9.97). He was tall like Watson, extremely fast for a big man, like Watson, and fortunately for me, he played against Watson.

I’m not the greatest tape-watcher and freely admit it, and I’m not even sure how to put this to words properly but watching that game it was immediately clear just HOW much better Watson was. Weston was fast, for sure, and even caught a few bomb touchdowns, but he ran like a track star. Watson just moved differently. His change of direction, his instinctual knowledge of where to go, and his burst was just on another level. And so, I became a huge Watson fan.

I don’t really have a Weston to put up against Lance, and he’s a little smaller, but he definitely has some wiggle to his game. I don’t think he’s Watson, but he can really move, he’s great on their simple little backfield swing routes, and he hits another gear at the second level that makes everyone else look like they’re standing still. His 9.250 hands may lead to some fumbling issues, and he’ll have to learn the route tree, but he’s also not just a strict burner. He’s a mid-rounder because he’s raw, and normally 23-year-olds (who will turn 24 before the season starts) do not have ceiling left, but due to Lance’s circumstances, he likely does, and that ceiling is pretty high.

Ja’Kobi Lane: 6-4, 200. Consensus Board: 109. RAS: 9.36. SiYAA: 141

I’ll bet the consensus board is more wrong this year than it’s ever been, because this is a weird, narrow draft. There’s not a lot of star power, and just at a macro level, I think there are a ton of guys who will go in the fourth (or later!) that could easily be second rounders. Lane is currently 109th on the consensus board, which would put him in the early fourth, but in The Beast, Dane Brugler has Lane as WR24, in the fifth (pick 141 or higher). Our next entry is also all over the place in terms of rankings. It’s a weird year.

I fall in with Dane Brugler on Lane, who posted a solid RAS, with excellent explosion metrics, but he didn’t run agilities (who does?) and had a pedestrian 10/20-yard split on his 4.47 40. He also wasn’t as productive as he should have been. I’ll happily cut some slack for a lack of volume (Lane’s 18.5 team target percentage is one of the lower numbers in this draft class) playing next to Makai Lemon, but the attention Lemon draws should have resulted in better per play work from Lane, who was just 12% better than average.

It’s not all bad of course. I mentioned Lance’s tiny mitts, so I should also mention that Lane has an enormous catch radius and big paws (10.5), and he was a weapon around the end zone as a result. Unfortunately, he’s also extremely slender, he can get bullied, and if you’re looking for a willing blocker, look somewhere else. He’s likely to get thrown off his route at the next level if he doesn’t add some weight, and for a guy that already takes some time to get up to speed, weight can be a double-edged sword. I could see him working in the right role, but he’s a weird tweener, as he’s not quite a pure burner, but not always up to the task of possession receiver. Then again, if he really does fall into the fifth round, you could do much worse.

De’Zhaun Stribling: 6-2, 207. Consensus Board: 99. RAS: 9.55. SiYAA: 238

My favorite of the group is Stribling, who sits at 99 on the consensus boards, but as a second or third rounder in The Beast. In the bowels of the APC slack chat, some have accused the Ole Miss offense of being “kinda fake” and Lane Kiffin as “not playing real football,” and there’s some (fine, there’s a lot of) truth to that. However, since I just watched Bryce Lance play extremely fake football for his write-up, let me tell you, Stribling is not just running wild and free through empty secondaries schemed open by some hash-abusing college offense cheat code.

He’s a little shorter than the rest of the group, but he’s also bigger, and he carries his extra weight well. Stribling is a beast. While his highlight reel does feature the typical array of long bombs, it’s more fun to watch him do the dirty work, catching balls underneath, breaking tackles, and often being one mistake away from breaking away for a long score. He actually reminds me a bit of Romeo Doubs, who was also a violent mover in college, but Stribling is a better athlete, and if anything, some of his blocking can get a bit overzealous which is a fine problem to have. And for those fake offense concerns, before joining Ole Miss, he led Oklahoma State in receiving yards in 2024 while averaging 17 yards per reception.

There are a few other big knocks as he is a bit old at 23, but in the NIL era I care FAR less about this than I used to. He also has a pretty low team target percentage (just 15%) however, he HAS dominated targets in many other scenarios. Way back in 2022 he was Washington State’s leading receiver as well, and so his recent dominance is not just “man among boys” experience advantages, and on the target front, Ole Miss giveth, and Ole Miss taketh away.

I would happily take Stribling in the second as his tape is great, I would be over the moon to get him in the third, and anything after that would be ridiculous.