"Arguments Against" - The Case Against the Top 2026 Rookies
Every season, there are rookies who catch our eye. We always like to invest in the shiny new toy. By and large, I’m in favor of this; uncertainty is often what can yield some of the greatest return on investment in fantasy football. But sometimes in our excitement to draft the new and unknown, we overlook some red flags that should, maybe, have scared us off some of these players.
That’s where the idea for this article was born. I wanted to have a place where I could record the “Arguments Against” some of these rookies. I wanted to be able to go back next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and figure out which arguments against players actually mattered, and which ones were just noise. You can find last year’s column here.
Moving on to the 2026 rookies, here is a smattering of the best arguments we can make against some of this year’s top prospects:
Jeremiyah Love, RB, Cardinals. Hard to make a case against Love. He’s a stud. But here’s the best I can come up with. First, he’s arguably in a 4-way timeshare with James Conner, Tyler Allgeier, and Trey Benson. Total workload could be a question. Second, he suffered a high ankle sprain in the preseason, and those tend to linger or recur. Third, he never had as many as 200 carries in a single season at Notre Dame. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, he plays in a Nathaniel Hackett offense. Hackett is a fantasy-killer. His last 3 offenses have finished 32nd (2022 Broncos), 29th (2023 Jets), and 24th (2024 Jets). His rushing offenses over that span have finished 28th, 30th, and 30th in touchdowns. And you can’t make lack-of-talent excuses for Hackett; while with the Jets, he was coaching a pretty darn good running back in Breece Hall. If anything can hold Jeremiyah Love back, it might be this play-caller. The best thing for Love would be for head coach Mike LaFleur to call all the plays.
Jadarian Price, RB, Seahawks. Price has never had more than 120 carries in a season nor rushed for 750 yards. He’s not a bell cow. He also goes to a team that is infamous for splitting its carries, and didn’t even let the proven Kenneth Walker carry the load. Zach Charbonnet is certainly going to be a huge part of this running game when he gets healthy, and likely is the heavy favorite for the goal line role. Price didn’t catch passes in college (only 15 receptions over the course of his college career, never more than 6 in any single season). So we may be looking at a between-the-20s runner who isn’t getting any of the high value touches. He also has an injury history, having torn his Achilles tendon while in college. Lots of reasons to be bearish on this prospect.
Carnell Tate, WR, Titans. Overall, Tate has a good profile. He was a 5 star recruit with strong Y/RR numbers and was an elite downfield threat. Here’s the downside. He never had as many as 900 yards in a single collegiate season. He had a 10-yard split in the 40 that was over 1.60, one of the slower times in the class. He had only 6 missed tackles forced in his best season. He never hit double digit touchdowns. In his first three seasons, he failed to average 50 YPG; and in his best season, he failed to average more than 85 YPG (both are red flags for first rounders). Now, in his defense, he was playing with a LOT of other first-round-NFL-draft-pick caliber talents, which explains some of the yardage and touchdown deficiencies. But even when you compare him to those other great Buckeye wideouts, he comes up short. Of the Ohio State wide receivers to be selected in the first round in the past 5 NFL drafts (Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Marvin Harrison, Emeka Egbuka, and Tate), Tate ranked last in best-season yardage total (875), last in best-season catches (just 52), last in yards per game over his first 3 seasons (48.5), last in best-season yards per game (79.5), and tied for last in best-season touchdowns (9). You can make arguments that his numbers were reduced because he was playing with NFL-level talents, but so were all these other guys, and they all out-produced him.
Jordyn Tyson, WR, Saints. Tyson had a lengthy injury history in college, and is already starting off his NFL career hurt. He’s currently suffering from (another) hamstring injury, and the early reports are that he won’t make his NFL debut until halfway through the season. Assuming health, though, my primary concern with Tyson is that he’s not great at forcing missed tackles (best season total of 7).
Fernando Mendoza, QB, Raiders. Mendoza tossed 41 touchdowns last year and won the Heisman Trophy. But it might surprise you to learn that his passing yardage was a little bit subpar. In 16 games last year (including playoffs), he had exactly one game with more than 300 yards passing. Conversely, he had 6 with under 200 yards passing… including each of the final 3 playoff games. Is this the sort of guy who can drop back a ton and carry a team with a bad defense? Because the Raiders D ain’t all that and a bag of chips. Oh, and by the way, his regular season stats during his lone season as starter at IU were pretty comparable to the prior year’s starter, Kurtis Rourke. Is Rourke an NFL star?
2025 Regular season/Rourke: 3,042 yards, 29 TDs, 5 INTs, 69.4% completion percentage
2026 Regular season/Mendoza: 2,758 yards, 32 TD, 5 INTs, 72% completion percentageMakai Lemon, WR, Eagles. Lemon can play both inside and out, but he ran out of the slot more than 75% of the time. There isn’t a high hit rate for NFL wide receivers who played in the slot more than 70% of the time in college. Also, his strength is winning in the middle of the field, and no one throws to the middle of the field less than Eagles QB Jalen Hurts. And if you want a reason to be down on him that isn’t based on measurables… he just seems like an odd dude. His public interview at the combine was off-putting, and he came across as rather strange.
Ty Simpson, QB, Rams. History has not been kind to one-year college starters who are drafted in Round 1 of the NFL draft. And Simpson does not hit the QB thresholds we typically care about. We want quarterbacks who are younger than 22, with more than 30 starts, and who has a QBR above 81.5. Simpson is 23, with only 14 starts, and has a QBR of 76.0. The Athletic’s Dane Brugler called him “Daniel Jones with lesser physical traits.” (That’s damning with faint praise, as most NFL franchises wouldn’t be all that jazzed about having Daniel Jones. It was only a little more than a year ago that he was signed in free agency to backup quarterback money.) Simpson is also particularly poor when under pressure, posting a 47.6 (!) PFF pressure grade and a 69.6 blitz grade.
Omar Cooper, WR, Jets. Cooper didn’t break out until he was over 21 (red flag), had a target share below 22% (red flag), has a sub-2.0 Y/RR versus man coverage (red flag), posted less than 35 yards per game over his first 3 seasons (huge red flag), and averaged under 60 YPG in his best season (biggest red flag).
Denzel Boston, WR, Browns. Boston has a Y/RR versus zone of just 1.85. The only wide receiver drafted in the top 4 rounds who was worse in that metric is Germie Bernard. For being a big guy, Boston doesn’t break many tackles (just 8 missed tackles forced in his best season). He had under 30 yards per game over his first three seasons, though many try to explain that away because he was playing with future NFLers Rome Odunze, Jalen McMillan, Ja’Lynn Polk, and the aforementioned Germie Bernard. But that doesn’t explain his relatively subpar “best” season, where he had under 75 YPG receiving. Again, anything under 85 is a red flag. Like Tate, we’ve got another guy whose best season resulted in under 900 yards receiving. If he’s a good receiver, why didn’t he post good-receiver numbers?
Kenyon Sadiq, TE, Jets. Tight ends are hard to evaluate for fantasy. But for true difference makers, I want to see guys who posted elite Y/RR numbers. Sadiq didn’t. He had a career average of 1.72 Y/RR, which isn’t bad, but falls more into the “fine” category than the “elite” category. (For comparison’s sake, 7 TEs in the class were better.) And he also wasn’t as good as Terrance Ferguson when both were on the same team at Oregon. If you didn’t love Ferguson, you shouldn’t love Sadiq.
BONUS: All the Round 3 receivers. Round 3 receivers rarely hit. Last year we warned you against Kyle Williams, Isaac TeSlaa, Pat Bryant, Jaylin Noel, Savion Williams, and Tai Felton. This year, that means you’ll be avoiding guys like Antonio Williams, Malachi Fields, Caleb Douglas, Ja’Kobi Lane, Zachariah Branch, Chris Brazzell, Zavion Thomas, and Chris Bell. It’s not that these guys can’t hit, it’s just that they’re statistically not good bets.