- Eli Stowers is pushing Kenyon Sadiq for TE1 status: Both players starred at the combine, but Stowers seems to be closing the gap on Sadiq, at least for dynasty purposes.
- 2026 NFL Draft season is here: Try the best-in-class PFF Mock Draft Simulator and learn about 2026's top prospects while trading and drafting for your favorite NFL team.
Just as NFL teams don't put all their stock into the combine, neither should fantasy football managers. But measurements and drills remain an important piece of the scouting puzzle. Athleticism at tight end, for example, tends to be important, especially for those who didn't produce dazzling numbers in college.
Here are a handful of early rookie risers for dynasty fantasy football after the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine.
Riser: RB Mike Washington Jr., Arkansas
Washington, perhaps the biggest combine riser in dynasty circles, obliterated the testing drills with a 99th-percentile 40-yard dash (4.33 seconds), a 92nd-percentile vertical (39 inches) and a 95th-percentile broad jump (10 feet, 8 inches). He combines that athleticism with plus size — 6-foot-1 and 233 pounds.
Washington has been a well-known sleeper, as contradictory as that statement is, throughout the early pre-draft process. I highlighted him as a riser before and after the Senior Bowl, and he is now firmly on dynasty radars.
At Arkansas in 2025, he averaged 3.86 yards after contact per attempt, the sixth-best mark among draft-eligible Power Four running backs, and his 48.3% breakaway run rate placed him in the top five of the same group.
Fumbling woes and better reps in pass protection are seemingly the only things holding Washington back from being a future fantasy standout. His seven fumbles over the past two seasons were the most among Power Four draft-eligible running backs.
Faller: RB Jadarian Price, Notre Dame
Some will view Price’s combine showing as a win. Others, like myself, will wonder if he needed to do more to secure a premier landing spot in the NFL after being buried behind Jeremiyah Love at Notre Dame.
He didn’t overly stand out in the 40-yard dash (4.49 seconds, 68th percentile) despite his smaller size (203 pounds, 18th percentile), and some of his peers — such as Mike Washington Jr., Seth McGowan and Emmett Johnson — managed to star in other drills, putting them at the forefront of athleticism conversations after the week in Indianapolis.
Although he is a “faller,” Price is far from a lackluster dynasty asset. Over the past two years, he ranked in the 93rd percentile in yards after contact per attempt, a stable metric year to year. He didn’t get much receiving work in college but seemed capable of developing into a pass-catching running back; that’s where playing behind Love really hurt him.
Price’s skill set will make him one of the top running backs off the board when it’s all said and done, but if we’re delineating combine risers and fallers, he’s in the latter category for me.
Read More Stories Explore PFF Tools 33 min read Quick Read Follow along for a pro day schedule and live results for key 2026 NFL Draft prospects during their respective pro days through March and April. 2026 NFL Draft: Pro day schedule and results tracker By Ben Cooper 13 min read Quick Read Dive into this week's dynasty fantasy football risers and fallers after recent NFL news. Dynasty Stock Watch: This week's risers and fallers, plus one sleeper By Ben Cooper Try the tool Mock Draft Simulator Make picks, trade up, and run your own draft in minutes. Build your board Big Board Builder Create custom rankings with Scouting Mode at the core. Subscribe For Full Access Mock Draft Simulator Be the GM for any team in the 2026 NFL Draft with a fully immersive simulation that lets you trade picks and players for a realistic, in-depth draft experience. Customizable Draft Big Board Trevor Sikkema’s Take control of your rankings with a customizable big board that lets you add players, share with friends, export to CSV and save your personalized list. Scouting Assistant Master the evaluation process with a customizable grading system built for serious scouts. Choose your own scouting categories, assign 0–10 grades in each area and generate a finalized prospect grade tailored to your criteria. NCAA Premium Stats Our exclusive database, featuring the most in-depth collection of NCAA player performance data. Subscribe For Full AccessRiser: WR Bryce Lance, North Dakota State
It was a big week for North Dakota State, with Lance and quarterback Cole Payton joining the lengthy list of Bison standouts over the years.
Whether it was the 40-yard dash (4.34 seconds), the broad jump, the vertical or the short shuttle, Lance was a 95th-percentile athlete. He generated a 99 Next Gen Stats athleticism score, the top mark among this year’s wide receivers.
This all comes after Lance earned 85.0-plus PFF receiving grades in 2024 and 2025. He averaged 3.58 yards per route this past season, putting him well ahead of players like projected first-rounder Makai Lemon and top 2027 prospect Jeremiah Smith. Of course, Lance was facing FCS competition, which will be the biggest asterisk on his profile.
Can that production translate to the NFL? The combine was the first chance for the 6-foot-3 receiver to prove it, and he passed the test with flying colors.
Faller: WR Malachi Fields, Notre Dame
A 4.61-second 40-yard dash, the second-slowest time among 34 wide receivers, will do Fields no favors. He was already coming off a middling season in which he caught five or more passes in a game just twice and separated at a 6th-percentile rate on targets against single coverage.
His numbers compare relatively closely to Bills second-rounder Keon Coleman, who has seemingly fallen out of favor in Buffalo for on- and off-field reasons. Coleman separated at a 1st-percentile rate on targets against single coverage in 2023, the year before he was drafted. He also ran a 4.61-second 40-yard dash at a similar height and weight.
Fields’ vertical and broad jumps both placed him above the 70th percentile in PFF’s database, and he owns strong hands and a good contested-catch profile, but he exits Indianapolis as a dynasty faller after failing to separate himself from the pack.
Riser: TE Eli Stowers, Vanderbilt
Stowers and fellow tight end prospect Kenyon Sadiq went back and forth in putting on a show at the combine, both setting new benchmarks for the tight end position.
Dynasty managers in TE-premium leagues should be champing at the bit to pick up the Vanderbilt product, who I mentioned could overtake Sadiq as this year’s TE1 with a strong combine. While Sadiq did plenty during testing to remain the top player at the position, especially since he brings the requisite blocking ability to stay on the field for a majority of snaps, Stowers was just as good.
Stowers’ 11-foot-3 broad jump set a tight end combine record, and his 45.5-inch vertical was the second-best mark since 2003. The 48th-ranked player on the PFF Predictive Big Board owns a better receiving profile than Sadiq, as he put together two seasons of solid college production compared to Sadiq's one and averaged a Power-Four-leading 2.55 yards per route run in 2025.
Real-life landing spots will determine a lot about which tight end is better for dynasty purposes. For now, though, both Stowers and Sadiq profile as post-combine risers who will be coveted by fantasy managers in a down draft class.
Honorable Mention Risers: QB Cole Payton (North Dakota State), QB Taylen Green (Arkansas), RB Seth McGowan (Kentucky), WR Brenen Thompson (Mississippi State), WR Ted Hurst (Georgia State), TE Sam Roush (Stanford)