Five Players I Kept Drafting This Summer
Not the flag plant, not a sleeper list. Five players I ended up with on more rosters than I meant to, and the reason for each one.
Every draft season there are a handful of players I look up at the end of August and realize I own everywhere. I did not plan it that way. It just kept happening, pick after pick, because the price never matched what I thought I was getting. These are this year's five.
Jadarian Price is not on this list, and that is on purpose. He is the flag plant, and I have already written more about him than anyone reasonably should. If you want that case, it is here. This is the other list: the guys I like a lot, drafted a lot, and have not made a formal commitment to.
I graded each one the same way I grade everything, which is four questions. What has he actually produced? How good is he, separate from the numbers? What does the situation around him look like this year? And what does it cost to get him?
The rankings I refer to are the preseason board. Draft cost is the ADP the site carries, which is a Sleeper-based proxy, so treat it as "roughly where he goes," not gospel.
1. Jaylen Waddle, WR, Denver
Production. Sixteen games, 100 targets, 64 catches for 910 yards and six touchdowns, 10.1 half-PPR points a game, the WR26 finish among receivers who played at least six games. That was in Miami, in an offense that was not doing him any favors by the end.
Talent. This is the easy part. He is one of the few receivers in the league who can win short and win deep on the same drive, and that is exactly the thing a personnel exec told ESPN's Jeremy Fowler about him after the trade: in and out of his breaks in the short-to-intermediate area, and still able to get loose downfield. That is not a niche skill set. That is the whole job.
A post by @NFL
Situation. Denver paid a first-round pick and a third for him in March (the teams also swapped fourths). Teams do not do that for a complementary piece. He walks into an offense that won 14 games, held the top seed in the conference, and only missed the Super Bowl because Bo Nix broke his ankle at the end of the divisional round. Payton wanted one more thing for Nix, and this was it. Sutton is still there, so it is not a monopoly, but I would rather share with Sutton in Denver than be the only option in Miami.
Price. ADP 42, going as roughly the 21st receiver. I have him 30th overall and WR18, and my note on the board is not subtle ("Denver breakout offense; expect him to crush"). The model is more cautious at 38, mostly because it has not seen him in this offense yet and defaults to last year's share. That is the gap I am buying. There is a Stefon Diggs kind of upside here, and the elements are all there: a proven player getting out from behind another top-tier receiver (Thielen then, Tyreek now), an ascending young quarterback, a big investment and a good coach.
2. Garrett Wilson, WR, New York Jets
Production. Seven games last year before his season ended in Week 10: 59 targets, a 34 percent share of the Jets' targets in those games, 36 catches for 395 yards and four touchdowns, 11.6 half-PPR points a game, a WR15 pace among receivers who played at least six games. Four seasons in the league, four seasons of real volume, and not one of them with a quarterback you would call good.
Talent. He earns targets the way a few players in the league earn targets: on every route, against everyone, regardless of who is throwing it. Early last year he was commanding a 30 percent target share with quarterback play that would have buried most receivers. That is not scheme. That is him. I truly believe that if he were on a different team, we would talk about him the way we talk about the receivers going in the first round.
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Situation. Geno Smith is the quarterback now, and the camp reports have been almost boring in how consistent they are: Geno finds Wilson, Wilson catches it. The Jets also spent real draft capital on pass catchers (Omar Cooper Jr. at receiver, Kenyon Sadiq at tight end, whom I will get to on Tuesday), which is the one honest reason to think his share dips a little. I think the trade is worth it. A slightly smaller share of a much better offense is a raise. The other thing to say out loud is that his 2025 ended in Week 10, so part of what you are buying is a full season from a player who did not get one. I am fine with that at this price.
Price. ADP 38. I have him 28th, WR14, and I put a bold call right in the note: top-15 receiver, Jets offense takes a step. The model has him 32nd. So I am a touch ahead of both the market and my own math, and I am comfortable there. Four years of volume without a quarterback is a long time to wait. I think this is the year the waiting pays.
3. Parker Washington, WR, Jacksonville
Production. This is the one where the production is the argument. Over his final stretch last year, Washington was playing like a WR2 in any format: 13.5 half-PPR points a game over his last six games (Weeks 12 through 18), on 42 targets, 28 catches, 497 yards and three touchdowns, ninth among receivers who played at least six of those weeks, and up from 9.7 a game across the full season (16 games, 95 targets, 58 catches, 847 yards, five touchdowns). A full season at that pace is a top-ten receiver. He is not going anywhere near that in drafts.
Talent. He was the most efficient receiver on the roster last year, and the camp reports this summer have been the kind you get about a player the coaches have decided on: daily standout, drawing praise, clearly the best target bet in the room. The lone wobble was a missed practice in August that let Brian Thomas Jr. run as the clear No. 1 for a day. One practice.
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Situation. Travis Hunter's knee injury ended his 2025 after seven games, and whether he ends up playing much receiver at all this year is an open question. Thomas is a real player who had a rough year. Somebody has to lead this room, and every signal since November says it is Washington.
Price. ADP 70, which is the reason he is here and not just a name I like. I have him 53rd, WR19. The model has him 41st, which is one of the bigger cases this preseason of the model being more excited than I am. When the model and the camp reports agree and the market is thirty picks behind both, that is a favorite.
4. Blake Corum, RB, Los Angeles Rams
Production. Seventeen games, 145 carries for 746 yards (5.1 a carry) and six touchdowns, 14 targets and eight catches, 7.0 half-PPR points a game. Modest, which is the point. He was the second back in a one-back offense.
Talent. Per PFF he graded out at 85.8 as a rusher last season against Kyren Williams' 87.1, which is close enough that the gap between them on the field was a lot smaller than the gap in their draft costs. He is 25, and the report from camp (from Kyren, of all people) is that he is a lot leaner and a lot more explosive.
A post by @FantasyPros
Situation. McVay's offense, which is the single most reliable fantasy environment in the league, and a schedule that PFF flagged as one of the three softest for a running back. The expectation is a near-even split with Williams keeping passing downs and the goal line. I am not going to pretend that is a great role. It is a good role in a great offense at a price where a good role is all you need, and if anything happens to Williams it becomes the best role in football. And with one of the most talked-about defenses in the league on the other side of the ball, this is an offense that could score early and then run it with a lead.
Price. ADP 68 for Corum, 13 for Williams. Same offense, same split, 55 picks apart. I have Corum 62nd and Williams 41st, and the model likes Corum even more (50th). My note on him says "breakout projection; near-even split with Kyren." I will take that at a sixth-round price every time.
5. Jordan Addison, WR, Minnesota
Production. Last year was a disaster, and I am not going to dress it up: 42 catches, 610 yards and three touchdowns on 79 targets, all career lows, while the Vikings cycled through J.J. McCarthy, Carson Wentz and Max Brosmer at quarterback. Fourteen games, 8.1 half-PPR points a game, WR45. For comparison, 2023 was 70 catches for 911 yards and ten touchdowns on 108 targets (11.0 a game, WR27), and 2024 was 63 for 875 and nine on 99 targets (12.1 a game, WR21, in 15 games). The two years before that were the promising ones, and the quarterback play last year was bad enough that Justin Jefferson could not overcome it either.
Talent. Two productive seasons to start a career, playing opposite the best receiver in the league, before the floor fell out. Nothing about him changed. The people throwing him the ball did. He is a first-round talent, still young, with more upside than anyone seems to be talking about.
A post by @NFL
Situation. Kyler Murray is the quarterback. You can argue about how good Kyler is at this point, and people do. What you cannot argue is that he is a massive upgrade on last year's rotation, and that Jefferson is going to draw the coverage. Addison is the second option on an offense that just went from unwatchable to competent, and second options in that spot tend to eat.
Price. ADP 99. That is a ninth-round pick for a receiver with two good seasons on his resume and a new quarterback. I have him 79th, WR32, Low risk. The model has him 70th. This is the cheapest player on the list and the one I am least worried about.
Honorable Mention: Jordyn Tyson, WR, New Orleans
He would be on the list if he were healthy. He is not, so he gets this instead.
Tyson went eighth overall to the Saints in April, and he was going in the fifth round in August before a hamstring in a joint practice put him on injured reserve with a designation to return. Week 5 against Minnesota is the earliest he can play; the reporting says closer to two months, so mid-October is the realistic version.
Which means he is not a draft pick right now. He is a stash. If your league has an IR spot, he is the best use of it on the board, and I have him 129th with a High risk flag and a note that says "second-half breakout." I wrote the whole case in a thread on Sunday and I will not repeat it, except for the one line that matters: the talent did not change in August. The price did.
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What Happens Next
All five are on the board with both my rank and the model's, so you will see every one of these moves week to week as the change column fills in. If I am wrong about any of them, it will be in red by October, and I will say so. That is the deal.