Rankings Shake-Ups Post-Combine
I’ll be producing some full positional rankings sets soon which should have more complete information (though the Deeper Dives also scratch this itch quite thoroughly). Keep in mind that this particular set is focused on writing about changes in the rankings post combine. More discussion about players can be found on this week’s episode of the Fantasy for Real Podcast.
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QBs
As we get closer to the season, most analysts like going deeper in their rankings. I’m a bit closer to the opposite. I like to have every player profiled, but I find as I get closer to the draft, grades below a certain level I do not like to organize and order. QB is the exact example of why. Whether or not Tyler Shough has surpassed players like Jalen Milroe, Will Howard, and Dillon Gabriel is almost entirely irrelevant to me; even if he is drafted the highest, if it is not in a significantly higher range than expected, he should still be considered a massive longshot. When it comes to QBs that I would rank as players who will get at least a chance to play and get drafted highly enough to have a fair assumption of playing time, I would only rank Cam Ward, Shedeur Sanders, and Jaxson Dart at this point. All of that said, it is evident at this point that Tyler Shough is the biggest process riser of this draft season.
This is less about the drills and more about the buzz, but it also seems very much like an increasing consensus that not only is Cam Ward the QB1 in this class, but it is a substantial and significant gap from a player like Shedeur Sanders. There is even some buzz and rumor that suggests Sanders is falling further down the first round than we had anticipated on this show before. I still have Sanders as clearly above Jaxson Dart in this class, but it is fair to say that the current buzz surrounding Sanders is not ideal.
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RBs
At a few different points, I have said that Quinshon Judkins would be my RB2 if I were drafting for an NFL team. Because Judkins seemed to not quite have the consensus stock of the other RBs at the top of the class, I had started to question that stance and back-off of it just a bit. After his stellar combine performance, I am not backing off that take any longer. Pass-catching is very valuable at the RB position for fantasy, and so Omarion Hampton with his 3-Down potential is still going to be my clear RB2 for fantasy, and frankly even has a decent argument for RB1, but Quinshon Judkins is the second RB I want on my NFL team.
In general, this is a good point to try and diverge these rankings a bit more. The top tier for me outside of that top five, and Kaleb Johnson is still in my top 5 even with a bit of a disappointing combine, has been a trio of Jordan James, Devin Neal, and Dylan Sampson. These three did not collectively test great, but they are still probably the 3 RBs I want on my NFL team the most outside of the top 5. However, the two fantasy profiles that stick out as the most appealing with proper draft capital at this point are D.J. Giddens and Rocket Sanders. Between the size, physicality, and pass catching volume for being such a large back, both of these RB flash ability to be absolute fantasy studs when put in the right environment. Taking pure volume is more important significantly in fantasy than for NFL teams, and that is why I would rather my team pick a James/Neal/Sampson currently, but for fantasy, Giddens and Sanders seem to have immense upside.
I don’t want to short-cut Bhayshul Tuten, who had a tremendous combine performance. However, at this point, he is likely going to be a new Deeper Dive for the next episode. So, with that in mind, I’m going to save most of the Tuten conversation for later this week, likely around Saturday. Trevor Etienne is the player I was the highest on who had the most disappointing combine. Etienne is a young player still, but the testing numbers at the very least were not encouraging. Ollie Gordon II likewise struggled quite a bit, though this show’s record on Gordon was more corroborated by the combine; I have been questioning Gordon’s athleticism to be a Day 2 RB since my March-May 2024 ranking where the Fantasy for Real podcast called Gordon the biggest sell in the Devy landscape. This is my way of saying that not much changed here. Despite being younger, I had Gordon listed below Giddens and Sanders due to their physical traits pre-combine. Gordon can still become that 3-Down volume beast, but I question his ability to be efficient particularly between the tackles as an NFL RB in the modern game.
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WRs
Texas WR Matthew Golden did not have the most impressive combine, but he did do the most to solidify his growing hype. Golden was probably already the worst-kept-secret a month ago in the Draft Community, but the 40 at this point likely means that the prediction from a couple months ago that Matthew Golden would be a 1st Round Pick no longer seems even remotely controversial. Golden still remains my WR4 behind McMillan, Egbuka, and Burden. The most significant red flag to mention between those three is Burden’s 8 ½” Hands, which are very small for a WR.
On my board, the most impressive combine belong to Iowa St. WR Jayden Higgins, and the runner-up may very well be his teammate Jaylin Noel. I’ve previously mentioned that I did not see myself narrowing the gap between these two in quite the same way that people had expected. That’s still mostly true, but the combine has helped Noel to narrow the gap. By ranking, they are even getting closer and closer together. But there is a pretty significant tier drop on my rankings between the two still. Higgins is a player I’m more likely to seek out. Noel is a player that I’m fine to get at a convenient spot, at least as things stand now. Elic Ayomanor of Stanford likely did not test quite as well as some of his self-reporting indicated, but was still a phenomenal tester for a player of his size and stature. While Tre Harris did not test nearly as well as Higgins or Ayomanor, in particular he still had elite explosive testing which can be very encouraging for a WR like Harris. The longspeed remains a question, and Harris’ big concerns from me stem not from pure testing athleticism, but the situation he has found himself in with Ole Miss.
A victim of his own self-made expectations, the biggest loser of the combine was likely one of the players expected to be its biggest winner, Isaiah Bond. By any independent account, Bond has a great 40-time at 4.39, but when you talk so much about setting records, you set yourself up for failure. Despite so many negatives, Bond is a player I am not willing to quit. However, that statement needs to be taken in stride with the market; what excites me about Bond is not that I think he has a good chance to be successful at the next level. What excites me about Bond is that he is physically very talented, has dealt with some questionable circumstances, and is so universally disliked at this point by the fantasy community (seemingly) that the continually lowering risk makes Bond intriguing for the potential reward. Aside from Bond, Tez Johnson sticks out as a combine faller, though as mentioned on the show we need to be careful to not triple count. Johnson was a player who was never ranked well on my board largely due to his size combined with his five-year-two-school profile. We also largely knew his size was significantly impactful at the Senior Bowl when he measured in below Tank Dell. All that said, the take on Johnson from the very beginning has been that Johnson is much like what we talked about with some of the RBs: a player that likely has a better chance at a lower-floor NFL future than many players in this class, which is a good thing. However, his path to higher-volume fantasy greatness could be held back by his clear physical limitations.
These positions (RB v WR) are quite a bit different in this class as the RB position is likely going to be very deep for RB, but still very top heavy. There’s going to be a lot of focus on the first 4-5, as there should be. At WR, because we are more starved, I’m going to go through a few more quick points here: Tai Felton was the best overall tester that we have not discussed so far, at least on my overview of the information; outside of BMI, he was strong throughout the board and had some encouraging production his final year. Florida’s Elijah Badger is a quiet box checker through this process, even if he is not scoring very highly in some of those. Jack Bech did not run the 40, but did test at an elite level particularly for his size at the 3-Cone; considering his projection as a big slot, that could actually make a fair amount of sense. A few more good testers we may profile on the show in the coming weeks include Virginia Tech’s Jaylin Lane, as well as two big bodied WRs in Tennessee's D’Onte Thornton and Arkansas’s Isaac TeSlaa.
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TEs
We had very little testing from the top tier of TE, but it is worth noting that compared to previous years where TE classes were notably undersized, the top 4 TEs by the current NFL Draft consensus (Warren, Loveland, Arroyo, & Taylor) all measured in with great height & weight collectively. Harold Fannin Jr. was probably the most intriguing TE to watch, and he was pretty much as expected. Defying expectations would have been necessary to rise into that top 4 likely for the NFL Draft consensus, but his somewhat-poor overall athleticism combined with great agility testing does somewhat align with the type of movement player he is both in space and as a route runner. Gunnar Helm was the biggest disappointment of perhaps the entire combine when it comes to raw athleticism. Some top-100 lists did not have Helm listed, and that had already begun to give me pause. Now I’m starting to understand what I was likely missing here. Helm is still an intriguing fantasy TE sleeper even if he falls a bit, but definitely no one to rank in the higher ranks of pre-draft rookie TEs, particularly in this stacked class. Oregon’s Terrance Ferguson seems to have been the biggest surprise in the other direction, as he had a fantastic combine. Ferguson will also enter the queue of potential upcoming Deeper Dives, though there is less to say generally about the TE position. Given the fact that this class is not starved for talent up front, Ferguson is likely a player to monitor more by landing spot outside of TEP or 2 TE leagues still.
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Thanks,
C.J.
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