Fantasy football rookie takeaways: Is Sadiq the next Brock Bowers? Is Love overvalued?

Kenyon Sadiq's athletic profile and first-round pedigree makes him a strong bet for top-12 TE fantasy production as a rookie. Troy Wayrynen / Imagn Images Before the 2026 NFL Draft, we looked at projected landing spots. Now let's examine where the players landed and how their location could affect fantasy scoring. I'm mostly concerned with the upcoming season, but I will note their consensus mock-draft ranking, according to FantasyPros. I've listed 11 of the 12 players who are projected to be top-12 picks in rookie dynasty drafts. I didn't include Fernando Mendoza, the No. 1 overall pick, because Kirk Cousins is expected to get the nod Week 1 and The Athletic's NFL reporters believe they'll ride Cousins as long as possible, which means Mendoza's not draftable in redraft leagues. Mendoza wouldn't be a top-24 QB for me, even if he opened the season as the Raiders' starter. Jeremiyah Love, ARI: Love is the No. 1 pick in dynasty and will certainly be the top-drafted rookie in redraft leagues. But Arizona is a terrible landing spot. The Cardinals' offensive line was bad, and they drafted only one lineman in the first six rounds. Additionally, their QB play is likely to be bottom-10 in the league. Plus, Love is expected to share time with at least free-agent acquisition Tyler Allgeier, who is 17th among running backs in cash spent in 2026, according to OverTheCap. Skeptics are citing the disappointing season by last year's No. 6 pick in the NFL draft, running back Ashton Jeanty, but Jeanty wasn't terrible -- 11th in PPR points at RB and 16th in PPR/game. He basically delivered at the level of a third-round fantasy pick. He overcame his environment to a large extent, even though Geno Smith being so horrible, along with the Raiders' rebuilt offensive line, wasn't a reasonable expectation. This century, counting Jeanty, 12 of 18 (67%) top-10 overall rookie RB draft picks had over 200 PPR points in their inaugural campaign, and eight of 18 (44%) had over 246 points. Just four of 17 (24%) were flat-out busts. How did Allgeier impact Bijan Robinson as a rookie? In his first season with Atlanta, Robinson was basically identical to Jeanty last year at ninth in PPR points (246) and 17th in PPR/game (14.5). Love is a third-round pick in fantasy, though with first-round upside value (like all third-round RB picks). You'll never get him there though. So in redraft leagues, he's unlikely to be on any of my teams. And that's despite my belief that Love will probably be a No. 1 overall fantasy pick within the next few years. Jadarian Price, SEA: Price is too low in dynasty at No. 6 overall. He should be two spots higher. He was a backup (to Love) in college but now has first-round draft capital, which is all the models care about. What's stopping him from opening up the season as the starter on the Super Bowl champs given the ACL injury in the postseason to Zach Charbonnet? To me, the clear path to starting the year with the most RB touches for Seattle is key here. As for the talent, here's what Dane Brugler said in The Athletic's NFL draft guide, The Beast. A running back being a kick returner means he's viewed as explosive, and breaking three returns for touchdowns just adds to that narrative. Jonah Coleman, DEN: Coleman is a fourth-round NFL draft pick on a team with a head coach committed to a running back committee. Coleman is built like a bowling ball at 5-foot-8 and 220 pounds, but he has to be a very late-round pick in redraft leagues (he's No. 12 overall now in dynasty). Brugler on Coleman: I have Coleman as a 14th rounder in redraft leagues, in that RB50 bucket, though there is upside here. (It's faint, but I can see it if I squint.) The five first-round WRs are being drafted in dynasty exactly in the order they were drafted in reality, which is very unusual. This decade, six of 32 first-round WRs had at least 15 PPR/game as rookies. And 18 of 32 had at least 10.5 PPR/game. Last year, those marks were WR10 and WR43, respectively. Carnell Tate, TEN: Tate was the NFL draft's fourth-overall pick. Of the past 10 receivers who were top-10 picks in the NFL draft, three have scored at least 15 PPR/game and eight at least 10.5 (again, 10th and 43rd overall at WR last year, respectively). This model also applies to ... Jordyn Tyson, NO: I would draft Tate and Tyson at about WR25 in redraft leagues. I prefer Tyson because I believe in the Saints' passing game and quarterback a lot more than I do the Titans'. But it's reasonable to push back on this by saying that Tate is the No. 1 receiver on the Titans. I would push back on your pushback by noting that Tate wasn't even the best WR on his college team. Can he step into an alpha role on Sundays? And the Saints use Chris Olave as a downfield threat, so I think there's a decent chance Tyson leads the Saints in targets like we expect Tate will with Tennessee. (I would also take Tyson over Tate in dynasty, as I guess I'm still a Cam Ward skeptic.) Makai Lemon, PHI: You have to project Lemon assuming that A.J. Brown is ticketed out of town. This is a very undersized WR receiving group for the Eagles. Lemon is viewed as a slot receiver and those types need to operate between the numbers, where Jalen Hurts doesn't like to throw it (23rd last year in attempts between the numbers vs. eighth in attempts outside the numbers, according to TruMedia). The past two years, the Eagles are 28th in passing yards and tied for 12th in passing touchdowns (50), just six ahead of the 26th-ranked Texans. Lemon also has a crowded receiving room and could finish anywhere from second to fifth in targets (depending on how much Saquon Barkley is involved as a receiver). KC Concepcion and Denzel Boston, CLE: If forced to choose, I think Boston is the pick over Concepcion. Right now in dynasty, Concepcion is the fifth pick and Boston the 11th. I hardly ever recommend coloring this far outside the lines of the real-life draft order. But Concepcion is more of a slot receiver and is faster than Boston, so he'll probably run more downfield routes to open up the offense. Slot guys generally have trouble scoring near the goal line since teams do not like risking picks by throwing over the middle at close range of the end zone. Downfield guys are more QB dependent, though Concepcion proved to be a great weapon in turning short throws into big plays, so it's tricky. Boston, who is 6-foot-3, is definitely more an outside receiver and bigger. In the red zone, bigger is better. Plus, the outside guys get the fades. Note that no one is going to make you take Concepcion over Boston. Omar Cooper, NYJ: I don't get Concepcion over Cooper since Cooper was a higher-rated prospect (not by Brugler, I'd note, but also according to consensus rankings). And I still think Geno Smith is better than any of the Browns' QBs. I think Cooper has a better chance of reaching the first-round WR benchmarks than Concepcion (or Boston). My view is that other than the two top-10 guys, all the rookie first-round WRs are in the WR50 bucket and I'll just take the last one, which is probably going to be Cooper. I know that Garrett Wilson is the Jets' de facto alpha. Cooper probably needs Smith to threaten 4,000 passing yards (no Jets QB has done that since Joe Namath, the only one ever to do it before the schedule changed to 16 games). I give Smith about a 35% chance of having a 4,000-yard season . Kenyon Sadiq, NYJ: Sadiq was the only first-round TE, and he's an all-time athletic freak at the position with a 4.39 40 and 99th percentile vertical and broad jump skills. This decade, every first-round TE has averaged at least 9.4 PPR/game as a rookie, led by Brock Bowers at 15.5 PPG in 2024. There is no comparison between Sadiq and the bevy of second-round TEs. They are on different planets when it comes to modeling. In terms of college production, Bowers had a receiving line of 56-714-6 his final year in college. Sadiq finished with 51-560-8. You could argue that Bowers was a more accomplished receiver coming into the league, so that Bowers-level of upside is unlikely for Sadiq. But I'd set Sadiq's over/under at 10.5 PPG, which was TE14 last year and less than a point away from TE9. If you're worried about Geno Smith, Bowers averaged 14.7 points per game with Smith starting 15 games for the Raiders in 2025 -- that was second best among TEs. While the Jets have another TE who was the fourth-most productive second-round rookie this decade (Mason Taylor), Sadiq is projected to basically be a slot receiver for New York. Sadiq is the eighth overall pick in dynasty. Eli Stowers, PHI: Stowers is going one spot after Sadiq in dynasty and the "LOL Jets" meme crowd is so strong I bet he goes earlier in a lot of those formats and in a fair number of redraft leagues, too. This decade, of the 12 TEs drafted in Round 2, just two had more than 7.0 PPR/game as a rookie -- Sam LaPorta (14.1) and Pat Freiermuth (9.5). That's a hit rate of around 16%. Stowers would be a certifiable athletic freak if it wasn't for Sadiq. Stowers is 95th percentile athleticism for a TE but he is in a low-volume passing offense behind a solid veteran who owns the red zone in Dallas Goedert. For dynasty considerations, Goedert has only a one-year contract. But for this year, expect Stowers to be basically Isaiah Likely last year in Baltimore, where he was 44th in TE PPR/game. You want to go crazy and say Stowers can pull TE20 out of this bad hand, that's fine; it's still not draftable in one-TE leagues. Starting in 2027, and with Hurts still at QB, expect Stowers to have a role similar to Goedert, who was TE6, 24 and 14, respectively, in PPR/game the past three years. That's the range in his future with Hurts at the helm. Tight ends need to dominate the hash area of the field and, again, Hurts hates throwing there.