We Break Down the 2026 Wideouts & Edge Rushers

The wide receiver market is interesting to me, Albert, because again, I don't know that there's, there's not your AJ Green, there's not your Julio Jones, but I could see as many as 6 of these guys going in the first round.

Yeah, and I think that that's, uh, that, that to me is like the interesting thing about like this group is that, and it feels like most people will tell you there's like good depth in the 2nd and 3rd rounds there.

So, uh, you know, the guys at the top of the list, I think the 3 that most people have been talking about are Carnell Tate from Ohio State, Jordan Tyson from Arizona State.

He's got some injury stuff, but, you know, I mean, physically he's talented.

As any of these guys, and then Makai Lemon from um the Politnikov Award winner, I believe, from, from, uh from USC.

So you have those three, and those three probably go in the top 20.

And then, I mean, you're talking about Casey Concepcion from Texas A&M, Omar Cooper, who a lot of people really like from Indiana.

Uh, Denzel Boston from the University of Washington.

So, uh, you know, I, I like, I think that this is one of those groups where You know, I, you remember 2019, right?

Like where 2019, and I'll pull it up, but in 2019, you had like, it was an interesting year in that like the And I'm gonna pull this up now, um.

At the, so the, the top receivers, hold on a second here, um, So And the draft tracker isn't working for me here.

What the heck?

Hold on.

I wish this was technical difficulty standing by yeah, so.

You know what I'll do is I'll do a receiver draft history.

How about that?

And that'll make it easier.

Um, yeah, so, so this, this will make it way easier.

So if you look at 2019 in the first round you had.

You had Hollywood Brown and Ni'eil Harry, OK.

Then after that, you had Debo Samuel, AJ Brown in the 2nd round, Nicole Hardman, JJ Arcaga-Whiteside, Paris Campbell, Andy Isabella, and DK Metcalf.

So that was the 2nd round, right?

And then in the 3rd round, you had Deonta Johnson.

Jalen Herd, Terry McLaurin, and Miles Boykin.

So my point is that like this could be one of those classes without the super prospects where it's a really good class, but it's gonna take skill to pluck the right ones out, you know what I mean?

Like, so you're looking at it and you're saying, OK, like there's not like the obvious checks every box guy.

But, you know, somewhere along the lines, somewhere along the line, you know, there's gonna be really good players for someone to, to, to pluck out of the group.

16 was another group like that, by the way, where you had You know, Michael Thomas in the 2nd round.

The first round was Corey Coleman, Will Fuller, Josh Docson, Laquan Treadwell.

So was also in the 2nd round that year.

And.

And let's be real about one thing.

I mean, Justin Jefferson was like the 22nd, 21st or 22nd pick in the draft when Jackson Smith and Jigba was drafted.

We were all like, oh, OK, like, you know what I mean?

Justin Jefferson was the 5th receiver taken, and, and not to.

Not to, I, I, I promise I'm not bringing this up to, to just to, to rile you up, Albert, but like Marvin Harrison Jr.

was supposed to change the NFL during his rookie season, and I'm like I, I'll be the first to say like hand up like I was, I was wrong.

I thought he was, and I'm not saying you were wrong.

I'm just saying no, no, no, no, but he was unbelievable, and I'm, I'm, I'm not closing the book on him after two years, but I thought it would be way better than this , you know.

So I think that there's that definitely, um, there's that element of the position, you know, now again.

I think there are some no doubters, you know, and I would have put Harrison in that group, to be fair, but De'Marr Chase was, was one of these guys, and it wound up being correct, you know what I mean?

Like AJ Green, you mentioned him, Julio Jones, Julio Calvin Johnson, like those were those guys, and that wound up being correct.

Our point here isn't that there aren't, you just don't have one of those where it's just super obvious, yeah, that guy's the one, Which I think, again, I think it creates a situation where you need to be a little bit more skillful in, in plucking guys out, which brings us to the tackles.

But I think the same thing exists because there is no Joe Walt, there is no Pena Sewell.

So, the interesting thing about the tackles to me is, you know, Francis Mauinoa from Miami, who by all accounts, dominant right tackle, but he's a right tackle.

And I think most people you talk to will tell you, he's probably just a right tackle, not a left tackle.

You've got Spencer Fano from Utah, who is also a right tackle.

And was a really, really good player.

But I think there's a little bit of an arm length question there.

Is he a left tackle in the NFL?

Can he play left tackle in the NFL?

Can he flip the way Tristan Werths flipped, you know, like I think that's an open question.

So those have been the consensus top two guys.

And then you got guys like Morgan Freeling from, from, from Georgia, who like has, like, I got, I think gone through the roof, shot up.

Um, in that he was not a starter before this year, but became a starter and now he looks like a very real left tackle prospect.

Caleb Lommu is one that's really interesting too, who played opposite Spencer Fno at, at Utah, was the left tackle at Utah, and there's a reason he was the left tackle at Utah because he does have all the physical traits, but he's a little more raw.

Um, so this is a position that generally comes off fast, you know, and guys get pushed up because it's such an important position.

And so, how, how those guys are drafted, it's gonna be really, really interesting.

I think this is a good, um, it's, it, it, it's, it's not quite the Jockel Fisher draft, but it's a good draft for to continue.

Like I remember talking to Jeff Schwartz about this.

Um, I remember talking to Andrew Whitworth about this.

We need to stop, you know, projecting the offensive line as the safe pick , as the smart pick, as like, this is gonna, you know, you draft a left tackle and it's gonna be fine and he's gonna be your left tackle for 10 years.

Like, I, I don't know where that came from and like if you look at the history of the pick, they're just As many busts at offensive line at left tackle as there are at any other place or right tackle, and these guys get misdrafted.

They get put in the wrong positions, all that kind of stuff.

I think this is a good draft for people to kind of log back in and to realize like, oh, you know, there, like there is no safe haven for a draft regardless of what you're doing, but especially offensive line.

It's not like investing in real estate or something like that.

And it used to be that that was the thing is like I think if you go back 20 years like.

If you took Jonathan Ogden at the top of the draft, it was like Orlando Pace, right?

It was just like, all right, like, you know, you have your left tackle for the next 15 years.

It's just, I think because the way the game's evolved, it's not like that anymore, um, you know, I remember the first one for me that was like, you know, this is before I was even covering the league, but the first one for me like that where it was like the guy didn't live up to what, what, what everybody thought he would be coming out of college was Robert Gallery.

Out of Iowa and um it turns out I think he had some other issues like some off-field stuff that he dealt story by Dan Pompeii about that if you wanted yeah yeah but he was like he was like the one that I remember that was like whoa he didn't actually make it because I remember at the time it was considered such a safe thing.

Um, and I think since we've seen the game evolve, it's even like, you know, we talk about plucking the right guy out.

Tristan Werfs was what, like the 3rd or 4th tackle that year and wound up being by far the best one behind Makai Beckton, no.

I think that's right.

Mackai Beckton was Andrew Thomas the 4th pick in that draft, Is that right?

Yes, there's lots of Googling going on in this edition of the podcast.

Frantic.

I, I apologize to everybody.

Thank God for Verizon, uh, 1 gig speed.

Uh, uh, Andrew Thomas was the 4th pick.

Um, Jedrick Wills was the 10th pick.

Makai Beckton was the 11th pick.

And then Worfs was the 13th pick.

So Worfs was the 4th tackle.

I mean, you're talking about a guy who is, I think.

Slowly, surely building maybe like a Hall of Fame case, you know what I mean?

Like Kristen Werfs has been an excellent, excellent, excellent player, and Andrew Thomas was not great at first, wound up being really good, right?

Like wound up being really good, but it took some time, and then Wills and Beckton washed out.

So I think it's kind of an example of how, you know, there's, there's definitely even at the top of the draft of skill to picking the right one.

I think in that sense, Joe Walt was probably the outlier.

Pena Sewell was a little bit of an outlier where it was a little bit more of a sure thing.

But those guys were coming from more pro-style systems too, which is another piece of all of this that we don't need to dive into, which like is, is tough to draft, you know, tackles coming out of, out of some of the spread systems in college now, right?

And I, and I think that again, I mean, you mentioned it a little bit, but for example, an outside zone system.

is going to ask, you know, if you, if you run it the right way, it's going to make life for a tackle easier, but there's also a lot of steps and a lot of movements that they have to make that might contribute to their careers ending a little sooner than you would like, you know, and so, uh, there's some wear and tear factor to that.

I mean, that's just a very popular system right now, you know, and, and I think that's just one of a couple, right?

And then you consider what these guys are doing in college coming out.

Um, it's, it's, it's a little bit of a disaster.

So that's why , guys, uh, that's 54 minutes to explain why we decided to make up a fight about Ty Simpson and Fernando Mendoza, because there's literally nothing else that I know, I'm kidding.

Uh, um, that battle has been waged, uh, in a bunch of different arenas this week.