With the NFL scouting combine on the schedule this week, the entire football world can no longer resist its tempting calls. NFL Draft season has begun. As we officially turn the page to the extended process that seemingly gets elongated every year, I’m ready to rip off some early — I cannot emphasize that word enough — thoughts on the crop of wide receivers in the 2026 NFL Draft class.
The wideouts in this class are a fascinating bunch. While I’m still searching for an elite option to emerge from my charting process like the ones we saw at the top of the draft two years ago, there is real appeal to the top options this season. Better yet, the top five guys, in my view, are all of completely different archetypes and flavors. That will make for some circuitous and needless preference debates from those of us on the outside, but could provide some real clarity for teams when they go to make selections that benefit their individual rooms early in the draft.
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Remember, at wide receiver, particularly, intra-positional archetypes matter so much, and destination can so often be destiny. This is especially true when forecasting their production for the first three seasons of their career. While we won’t know those destinations until the end of April, it benefits us to get an early understanding of what types of wideouts these five are as we prepare to rank them pre- and post-draft.
Again, all of these views and opinions are not conclusions yet, but a rough draft written merely in pencil. It’s February; I’m still working through my charting process for these players using Reception Perception, and we have months to go before we need to file final answers. For now, let’s dive into an early primer on the class, including the group of five prospects at the top who, based on what I’ve studied thus far, I’m comfortable taking in the first round.
Makai Lemon, USC
Makai Lemon is just a downright baller. He has elite ball skills, tracking ability down the field and is as tough a receiver as you’ll find. The key for Lemon will be getting confirmed measurables on him, as he ran primarily out of the slot for USC. Teams are hesitant to take a slot-only option high in the draft, especially in a league that’s playing more 12-personnel and other heavier packages.
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Yet, I personally don’t think Lemon has to be limited to an interior menu as a receiver. He beats man coverage and wins down the field, both as a separator and in tight coverage. I particularly love the way he throttles down and works back to the quarterback in man-to-man reps. He explodes out of cuts to create separation and can adjust to the ball in the air if it’s an errant throw.
It’s both just a two-horse race and an ultra-close call between Lemon and the next player on this list as to who has the best hands in the class.
From a production standpoint, I think Lemon has the highest ceiling in the class because he could go absolutely insane in the proper environment. Not only should he be a high-end starter as a slot option from Day 1 with the ability to get open and be a trusty target, but the right coaching staff could also use him as a flanker in two-receiver sets, or even a condensed X-receiver to mimic slot situations. This is how the Seahawks took Jaxon Smith-Njigba from being a slot-heavy receiver to the most productive downfield outside option in 2025.
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It should also be noted that there is some risk that if Lemon goes to a team that is a little less progressive in its offensive structure, he might be limited to more of an old-school bunny-hop slot route tree. That’s a floor outcome, and it’s pretty unlikely, but something to consider throughout the process.
Carnell Tate, Ohio State
Carnell Tate is the latest in a long line of excellent receiver prospects to come out of Ohio State. Like many before him, there is a ton to admire about his profile.
Unlike Lemon, Tate is a perimeter wideout who shows all the classic X-receiver traits, with potential to blend his game into a more diverse pre-snap option. He’s at his best when working against man coverage on the outside. He has an extremely vertical route tree and you just get rep after rep of him eating up man coverage on downfield patterns.
Tate is a pro-ready starter who has a refined game as a route runner and a sense of how to get open with both savvy and athleticism. He can fit into any NFL offense.
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While Tate shows plenty of potential to shine as a separator, his best trait may be his hands. He simply doesn’t drop passes and is as dominant as any prospect in this class, or the last few, at winning contested catches. Tate isn’t a huge wideout but he fully extends his hands and has an elite sense of positioning that allows him to play bigger than his size.
The negatives with Tate are mostly due to his lack of yards after the catch and his good but not great ability to settle down against zone coverage. Some of that is just due to his near-exclusive outside alignment and downfield-heavy route tree; we often forget YAC metrics are dependent on deployment.
KC Concepcion, Texas A&M
To be fully transparent here, wide receivers with KC Conception’s game are easy for me to fall in love with as someone who charts them on a route-by-route basis. He’s a special separator who demolishes corners at all levels of the field.
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Concepcion knows how to toy with corners against man coverage, bringing both explosive movement skills and advanced craftsmanship to the table. His zone coverage recognition is of high caliber as well. There are plenty of reps on film where he faces press coverage as a perimeter option and fights through it with well-executed releases. Texas A&M used him as a motion receiver at the snap, so his next team has an easy set of film to watch to project his role as a weapon in the pros, where so many teams have layered those wrinkles into their offenses.
Long story short: the guy gets open at will from every alignment, at all levels of the field and across the entire route tree. Sounds like a pretty awesome player to me.
While I feel pretty settled that Concepcion is my favorite wide receiver after Tate and Lemon, we should hit on what could be two stumbling blocks in his development. The first could, in part, be assuaged by his measurables later this week in Indianapolis; a handful of teams may not think he has the frame to be an outside receiver in the league. If he gets labeled as a slot-heavy option, he could struggle to find the field in two-receiver sets, which would ultimately limit his production-based upside. I personally think there is ample evidence that he can win outside but this would not be the first time the league disagreed with my conclusion and labeled a smaller receiver as someone who separates as a slot merchant.
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Yet sharper coaches are now using condensed splits with great success to mimic slot spacing for their outside receivers, allowing former interior players to thrive at Z or even X, as we saw last year with Klint Kubiak and Smith-Njigba.
Ultimately, we won’t know if that is an issue until Concepcion gets drafted, but if he’s closer to 6-foot and 195 pounds than 5-foot-10 and 185 pounds, a wider variety of teams’ minds might be more open than closed, right or wrong.
The other concern in Concepcion’s profile is a way-too-high rate of annoying drops. He’s one of those frustrating wideouts who will make the outstanding catch in tight coverage but let the “easy ones” clank off his chest. There’s no doubt that’s frustrating. However, I tend to think right now, based on the games I’ve charted, that his issues are more focus-related rather than based on poor attack or technique screwups. We tend to overstate the risk that a good wide receiver is going to get benched or doghoused because of drops anyway, and the rest of his profile is way too good to hyper-fixate on this likely correctable problem. Still, it’s been an issue, and he does need to fix it at some point.
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Jordyn Tyson, Arizona State
The opinions on Jordyn Tyson are seemingly all over the map and based on folks I’ve talked to so far, there’s likely to be a pretty significant divide between the rankings for him based on your methodology of scouting. JJ Zachariason is the best data-based prospect analyst in the business and his model loves Tyson — I would venture to say this is the player he and I have compared notes on most over the last month. However, that’s not even to say that Tyson is purely a data versus film debate because there’s not really a consensus among tape-watchers on his game.
For me, I’ll say that he’s the player I’ve struggled most to figure out among the likely Round 1 picks through my early charting.
Tyson has pretty easy traits and skills to like, as he’s a fluid mover who can uncover with ease in the intermediate area when he’s decisive at the break point. He adjusts to the ball well in flight to win off-frame passes. He’s a smart player who is one of the better zone-beaters that I’ve seen so far.
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However, I find his overall ability to win against man and press coverage to be inconsistent. At times, I think the community mistakes twitchy moves in a phonebooth for quality route running. We call this the Jerry Jeudy phenomenon in this house, and we’ve already seen that be a comparison for Tyson. I don’t think it’s a perfect comp by any means — Tyson doesn’t have the same mental lapses against zone or at the catch point — but they both have a tendency to oversell their routes and don’t play with enough strength through contact.
Just like Jeudy, that doesn’t make Tyson a bad player, just a little frustrating, and if he doesn’t improve those details as a route runner, it will limit his path to being a WR1 in the league. I’ve always felt this type of receiver was best as a downfield Z across from a strong high-volume X and that’s sort of where I’m at with Tyson right now.
Lastly, and this seems to be where some film-based analysts are hedging bets against Tyson, he has an extensive collegiate injury history. That includes a multi-ligament knee tear in 2022 and a hamstring injury that dogged him through 2025. That hamstring injury, which last acted up months ago, is still keeping him from participating in drills at the scouting combine this week.
My current feeling is that Tyson is best bucketed with guys like Concepcion, Denzel Boston, etc. — not with Tate or Lemon. Tyson definitely presents a ton of variance, with the upside to hit big if he stays healthy and irons out some of the frustrating wrinkles in his game, or gets with a coaching staff that’s able to craft a perfect role for his strengths.
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Denzel Boston, Washington
Boston looks every bit his listed size of 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds on film. He’s a massive wideout who isn’t close to a complete zero as a separator. He may not have elite straight-line speed but he eats up ground with long strides to get down the field and makes big plays. I’m not saying he’s Mike Evans, maybe like a “Diet Coke” version at best, but the way he gets open with his strides and length as an X-receiver does remind me of the early years of the Bucs’ wideout’s career. The key for Boston will be to develop into a smooth separator along the full route tree, as Evans did, rather than just a big body.
Boston’s ability to work against zone coverage and position his body on horizontal-breaking routes makes him a candidate to not just be stuck at X-receiver, which is a big appeal to his profile in today’s game. This is especially true in his case because his press coverage ability probably isn’t yet strong enough compared to X-receivers taken in the top 15 of the draft. Yet, when you can give him a free release and a full head of steam, he’s a tough cover.
Overall, I came away with a positive view of Boston but I hope his next team shares my vision for him as a multi-position, move-around receiver, not just a static X. Tetairoa McMillan was a slightly better prospect, in my opinion, but we saw how he was best maximized when the Panthers moved their rookie WR1 around the formation last year.
Boston looks like a guy who can play a role early for his next team and watch his assignments grow with time. The right team could really send his stock rising after the draft if we’re projecting his early production.
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Quick hitters
Here’s a look at some, but not all, other relevant names, in no particular order.
Indiana WR Omar Cooper Jr. has a ton of fans out there; some of them are among my most trusted sources and colleagues alike. I’ll admit that I’m still working through his profile and, so far, have found some of his route nuances and zone coverage recognition in the intermediate area to be just acceptable rather than special. That said, he’s extremely physical both at the catch point and with the ball in his hands. My suspicion is that his easily projectable application to an NFL offense as a dynamic YAC threat in a league that’s trying to hunt explosives in that fashion, as opposed to vertical shots outside, is a big part of his fast rise. Think what the Bears got from Luther Burden III as a rookie last year. Altogether, I need to do a lot more work on Cooper before settling on his exact ranking in the class.
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Tennessee WR Chris Brazzell has real fluidity to his game, listed at 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds. He demonstrates an ability to sink his hips and get open on big-boy routes over the middle in the intermediate area of the field. However, like all of these Tennessee wideouts, he’s extremely raw, mostly lines up on one side of the field and will take some seasoning before he’s ready to become a high-usage player, if it ever happens.
Alabama WR Germie Bernard is the definition of solid but not spectacular. He’s a physical wideout who has great vision for finding creases with the ball in his hands. While he may not have the gear to get loose against man coverage consistently, he shows a real ability to sift through zone coverage. Bernard looks like a great glue guy who could be a WR3 for a team early, thanks to his ability to work out of multiple positions.
Louisville WR Chris Bell is a tough prospect to rank thanks to an ACL tear late in the 2025 season. He’s also not the cleanest technician and needs a good bit of development as a route runner. The vast majority of his patterns I charted were slants and quick in-breaking routes.
Indiana WR Elijah Sarratt grew his notoriety with a strong finish to the season for the National Championship Indiana Hoosiers squad. However, he’s not much of a separator at all at any level of the field as a pure perimeter option. He’s tough and adjusts well to the ball in-flight. He needs to convert to a big slot if he’s going to make it in the NFL, and that is merely a projection.
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Notre Dame WR Malachi Fields is a hulking X-receiver who played for Notre Dame last year after beginning his career at UVA. The production profile won’t wow you, but Fields has some real skills to translate to a starting X in the pros. His route running is rock solid, particularly against zone coverage, and he can come down with catches in traffic. Fields may not be fast enough to have a WR1 ceiling but I can see him becoming a nice complementary option at X-receiver to complete a room.
George State WR Ted Hurst reminds me a lot of Seahawks rookie WR Tory Horton, whom I loved in last year’s class. He’s a lanky wideout with speed and acceleration who gets in and out of his breaks with precision. Hurst is coming from a low level of competition at Georgia State but he stands out on film and has the traits worth taking on Day 2.
Georgia WR Zachariah Branch is going to get hype based on his ability to make explosive plays in space. Teams need to be careful with these created-touch types at wide receiver, rather than slot options who get open on their own. Branch could get a boost thanks to speed with so many teams simply looking for a body to create leverage off motion at the snap, and special teams ability.
