The 2026 NFL Draft opens in Pittsburgh on April 23, running seven rounds and 257 picks across three days. The first round moves at eight minutes per pick, which sounds slow until you remember that every clock tick represents a franchise making a decision worth tens of millions of dollars. Teams like the Titans, Saints, and Chiefs, potentially trading up from No. 9, need impact players and may not land the headline names everyone is projecting.
That gap between expectation and outcome is where the best casino apps and sportsbook market analysts tend to converge on the same few names. This year it’s Caleb Downs, Fernando Mendoza, and a few others whose draft position feel the most settled before the weekend begins.
But NFL history is written just as often in the middle rounds as the top five. Injuries push prospects down boards. Transfers create gaps in film. Late breakouts go unnoticed because a player spent two seasons behind someone better. Coaches and scouts consistently identify these sleepers, and they consistently outperform where they were selected.
This year’s class has several of them. Here are the names worth knowing before Pittsburgh as we look at some of the players who could easily slip through the cracks.
Malik Benson, WR, Oregon
Malik Benson is projected as a seventh-round pick. That projection tells you where the algorithms have landed, but it doesn’t tell you much about the journey that got him here or what he actually offers the team that takes the chance.
Benson has played at Hutchinson Community College, Florida State, Alabama, and Oregon. Four programs, each one a different system, a different coaching staff, a different set of demands.
At Oregon in 2025, it all clicked. With 43 receptions, 719 yards, six touchdowns, plus a punt return touchdown averaging 17.9 yards per return. NFL Next Gen Stats graded him as having the traits of an above-average backup.
Oregon has had weapons on special teams such as Malik Benson. (Photo by Scott Kelley)
What the numbers don’t capture is what his college career says about his character. A receiver who has rebuilt his stock four times over, in four different environments, and arrived at a College Football Playoff semifinal program as a genuine contributor is not an accident.
He brings real special‑teams value and enough polish as a route‑runner to grow into a useful rotational receiver in a vertical offence. For a team willing to spend a late pick on a player who’s already shown he can adapt and contribute in different roles, he’s a smart, low‑cost bet.
Jeremiyah Love, RB, Notre Dame
The knock on Jeremiyah Love heading into April won’t be his ability, but his position. Running back is the most consistently devalued spot on the draft board, and in a class with a heavy quarterback presence at the top, Love is likely to slip further than his talent justifies.
The profile is almost exactly what teams claim to want. At 6-foot, 215 pounds, Love rushed for 1,125 yards and 17 touchdowns in his breakout season, with genuine receiving ability out of the backfield and blocking technique that holds up in pass protection. He has been clean with the ball, turning a one-time fumbling concern into a non-issue with sustained care over a full campaign.
The comparison point matters here. Breece Hall and Bijan Robinson both finished as low-end RB1s in their rookie seasons, landing around RB9 and RB11 respectively. Love enters a situation with arguably cleaner opportunity than either had, and his multi-down profile mirrors the kind of back that offensive coordinators in Tennessee or New Orleans can build a system around.
He isn’t a headline‑grabber. He’s the kind of back who keeps an offence on schedule, absorbs the hard yards, and gives a team exactly what it needs snap after snap.
Jeremiyah Love was an elite running back. (Courtesy of Notre Dame Athletics)
R. Mason Thomas, EDGE, Oklahoma
R. Mason Thomas has always been noticed for the way he plays. At Oklahoma he showed quickness, power and a knack for forcing mistakes, the kind of presence that can change the feel of a drive even when he doesn’t get the sack.
Scouts see the traits that matter at the next level and they also see areas that still need work. That mix is why his name moves between the end of the first round and Day 2. With the right coaching he has the tools to grow into a steady and disruptive edge player.
His hand use and counter moves still need work, and scouts are right to flag that as something he must improve. Even so, there is a version of this player that is hard to ignore. He is a long, explosive edge rusher with the traits to become a major problem for tackles once his technique catches up to his athletic ability.
Teams with real defensive needs, including the Titans and Saints, will have to decide how much they value upside. A front office willing to back development over ready‑made polish could walk away with one of the highest‑ceiling defenders in the class.
Thomas is the type of prospect coaches say they want before the draft, and complain they missed after it.
Jadon Canady’s Interception prevents a touchdown. (Screenshot from CBS Sports Video)
Jadon Canady, CB, Oregon
Oregon’s season was strong enough that seeing multiple players linked with the 2026 NFL Draft isn’t surprising.
Jadon Canady has made three college stops, Tulane, Ole Miss, and Oregon, and at each one he has found a way onto the field and made plays.
At Oregon in 2025 he finished with 39 tackles, two interceptions, six passes defended, and a forced fumble. Across his full career: 154 tackles, 23 passes defended, four interceptions, and a fumble returned for a touchdown.
Projected in the fifth round, Canady is a player whose college résumé quietly ticks every box a secondary coach looks for: experience in multiple systems, production against legitimate competition, and the competitiveness to keep showing up as a depth piece who becomes something more.
Final Thoughts
Every draft has its headline names, and every draft produces the players no one saw coming until they were already starting in October of their rookie season. This class is no different. Benson’s resilience, Love’s positional value, Thomas’s ceiling, and Canady’s versatility all represent exactly the kind of mid-round return that builds rosters into contenders over time.
When Pittsburgh’s first round is finished and the big names are off the board, pay attention to what happens next. That is where this class gets interesting.
OregonReigns
Lakeside, Oregon
Top Photo by Max Unkrich
OregonReigns is an occasional contributor to FishDuck and loves his Ducks!