NFL Combine Recap: Rookie Risers for Fantasy Football
One of the best parts about drafting year-round is the way certain events shake up the draft board.
These events give us a chance to not only rethink how we value these players, but anticipate how the market is going to react to the new information.
The NFL Draft is obviously the biggest one, but the NFL Combine also sends minor shockwaves through the ADP landscape as drafters become more and more bullish about the physical profiles of the incoming rookies.
I often see pushback to “chasing rookies up draft boards” solely because of combine performances and “double counting” data points that many believe are already baked into the current ADP.
I understand this sentiment in a vacuum, but we aren’t actually overreacting to combine performances, we are properly reacting to updated draft capital forecasting.
This is to say: Players like Xavier Worthy and Adonai Mitchell — who we will discuss below — will undoubtedly go higher in the NFL draft than they would have pre-combine. And because early draft capital is one of the strongest indicators of playing time and opportunities, we would be silly not to react in tandem with NFL evaluators who are the ones pushing these guys up draft boards.
Not all of these WRs will hit — that is a given — but the ones who do provide league-winning upside relative to where they are going in drafts. This lesson was one of my key takeaways from 2023 best ball drafts.
Putting my money where my mouth is, I drafted two Big Board teams on Underdog Fantasy on Monday morning after the combine concluded and aggressively targeted a handful of rookies who impressed over the weekend. Then on Wednesday, I drafted a team with six rookie WRs with the Badge Bros. Even crazier: I think many of these risers are still screaming values, even at their elevated price tags.
Let me explain…
WR Adonai Mitchell (ADP: 137 → 111)
Had it not been for Worthy, Mitchell would have been the headline of the WR performances from the combine. Mitchell ran a 4.34 40-yard dash and displayed elite athleticism at 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds:
His showing in Indy appears to have cemented his status as a mid- to late-Round 1 NFL draft pick. In his recent Mock Draft, The Athletic’s Dane Brugler slotted Mitchell into the Buffalo Bills at pick 24.
Every WR who was selected in Round 1 of the 2023 NFL Draft — Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Quentin Johnston, Zay Flowers and Jordan Addison —closed the drafting season with an ADP in the Top 84 picks.
Mitchell is no lock to succeed at the NFL level — he has some red flags on his profile (2.2 YPRR in 2023) — but he is a lock to go much, much higher in drafts over the next few months, so the time to load up is now.
You can start doing so on Underdog Fantasy, where you can get a 100% deposit match of up to $100 when you sign up below with code LIFE!
WR Xavier Worthy (ADP: 144 → 119)
I’m honestly surprised Worthy hasn’t flipped his Longhorns teammate in Big Board drafts after he set the record for fastest 40-time in combine history and also crushed the vertical leap (41.5 inches) and the broad jump (10-foot-11).
Naysayers will point to the long history of speedsters who were overdrafted and busted as a reason to fade the incoming Worthy steam, but there’s a key difference between him and the others.
Most glorified track stars who enter the NFL weren’t super productive in college, but that is not the case with Worthy. He broke out as a freshman at Texas with a 39% dominator rating with 981 yards and 12 TDs.
In the aforementioned mock, Brugler connected Worthy to the Chiefs at pick 32. For what it’s worth, I would slam any prop on the fastest man to ever enter the NFL going higher than that. Regardless, like his Texas teammate, Worthy is a lock to be a Top 100 pick on Underdog in short order. Enjoy the discount while it lasts.
RB Trey Benson (ADP: 140 → 120)
The Florida State standout made the case to be the first RB off the board in the draft after scoring a 9.78 out of 10 on his RAS score, ranking 40th out of 1,745 RBs since 1987.
His 4.39 40-time at 6-foot, 216 pounds is eerily similar of other Round 2 NFL RB selections:
There’s almost no downside risk to selecting him in the 10th and 11th round of Underdog drafts right now. His worst case scenario is landing on the wrong side of a committee in Year 1 but still maintaining an elite contingent upside (see: Zach Charbonnet 2023).
In upside scenarios, he could immediately take over a backfield and become a sixth- or seventh-round pick by the time the season starts (see: Dameon Pierce 2022).
RB Jaylen Wright (ADP: 190 → 156)
Our biggest sleeper riser from the combine is Tennessee RB Jaylen Wright, who morphed from a late-round dart throw into a regular 13th/14th round thanks to flashing some elite explosiveness at the Combine:
His first five yards of the 40-yard dash put him in insane company:
- Wright: 15.16 MPH
- De'Von Achane: 14.94 MPH
In addition to his athleticism, Wright turned in a very impressive 2023 campaign for the Volunteers:
- 7.4 yards per carry
- 4.1 yards after contact
- 29 broken tackles
- Caught 22 of 23 catchable passes for 141 yards
Wright is way too cheap in drafts right now. I’d be comfortable chasing him all the way up into the 11th and 12th.
We’ll be back next week to discuss ADP fallout from NFL free agency.
