NFL draft Day 3 picks that can be starters on offense for their team in 2026

What is the ideal definition of a value pick in the NFL draft? There are all kinds, but let’s go with the prospects who are selected in the third day of the draft, and turn into impact starters in their rookie seasons. Every year has a few such examples, and in the 2025 season, there were 11 players who started at least 10 games (including the postseason) in their inaugural NFL seasons after they were selected in the fourth through the seventh rounds.

• New England Patriots safety Craig Woodson started 19 games
• Buffalo Bills DL Deone Walker started 18 games
• Miami Dolphins DL Jordan Phillips started 16 games
• Tennessee Titans WR Elic Ayomanor and New York Jets DB Malachi Moore each started 14 games
• Baltimore Ravens LB Teddye Buchanan started 13 games
• Cincinnati Bengals LB Barrett Carter started 12 games
• Houston Texans RB Woody Marks (Secret Superstar Woody Marks, to be exact), Tennessee Titans WR Chimere Dike and TE Gunnar Helm, and Carolina TE Mitchell Evans each started 10 games

Who might break through and beat the odds from the 2026 class? Here are six offensive prospects (five receivers!) drafted on the third day who may not have to wait very long for their breakout NFL opportunities.

Brenen Thompson, WR, Los Angeles Chargers

When the Chargers hired former Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel to run their offense this offseason, you knew that there was going to be more of an emphasis on overall speed, and the vertical passing game. Which could be good for an offense that had Justin Herbert completing 27 passes of 20 or more air yards on 70 targets for 816 yards, eight touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 109.0. Herbert is obviously built to throw the ball anywhere he wants, and maybe he’ll have more than 0.5 seconds to get the ball out with a healthier offensive line in 2026, but the new Chargers will be more about downfield speed.

Quentin Johnston and rookie tight end Oronde Gadsden II were the Chargers’ primary deep receivers in 2025, but beyond that, there are opportunities for others to step up, and for a new OC who once had Tyreek Hill AND Jaylen Waddle to scald defenses, more will be needed.

Which is where Mississippi State receiver Brenen Thompson, selected with the 105th overall pick in the fourth round, comes in. Last season, the 5’9”, 164-pound Thompson caught 11 passes of 20 or more air yards on 26 targets for 478 yards and five touchdowns. And it’s interesting that someone of Thompson’s size lined up outside on 79% of his snaps. That won’t likely happen in the NFL, but neither Hill nor Waddle are huge guys, so McDaniel knows how to distribute his speed receivers across the formation and all over the field.

When Thompson ran a 4.26-second 40-yard dash at the scouting combine, that just confirmed what you saw on the field.

“I’ve always kind of been fast my whole life, so any sport I’ve done, specifically football, I’ve taken it at the forefront,” Thompson said once the draft came down. “I’ve been able to kind of perfect it and gotten my body ready and trained how I need to to be the fastest I can.”

As to the fit with McDaniel’s offense, Thompson is already pretty happy about that.

“I’m so excited, I think it’s a perfect fit,” Thompson said. “I think the fan base and this team got exactly what they needed, and I’m excited to get in with McDaniel and get to work.

“I would say I’m very explosive as a route runner. I feel like I can run anything in the playbook. For me, it’s something I’m still continuing to work on and will continue to work on… but I’m just excited to get to work.”

Thompson is also more than just a burner on go routes, but that acceleration sure helps.

Jonah Coleman, RB, Denver Broncos

Throughout his career as an NFL head coach and offensive shot-caller, Sean Payton has always preferred to have two kinds of running backs at his disposal: The smaller, quicker, more versatile satellite back, and the bigger bruiser who could get the hard yards when needed. The 2025 Broncos had RJ Harvey in the first bucket, and J.K. Dobbins (when healthy) in the second. The addition of Washington back Jonah Coleman with the 108th overall pick in the fourth round puts a different spin on things for a number of reasons.

Last season, the 5’8”, 220-pound Coleman gained 758 yards and scored 15 touchdowns on 157 carries. 568 of those rushing yards came after first contact, and he also forced 37 missed tackles, with 11 runs of 15 or more yards. Throw in his 31 catches for 51 yards and two touchdowns, and the pass protection chops…

…and you have the makings of a potential franchise back, even in a “styles make fights” rotation.

Payton was looking for his guy somewhere in the draft, and he’s now confident that he did just that.

“We felt like certainly the front of the draft, there were two really good players, uniquely both from Notre Dame [Cardinals RB Jeremiyah Love and Seahawks RB Jadarian Price],” Payton said of the selection process this time around. “Then when you start putting up the tale of the tape — I’m not talking about their measurables — but the four-box production, yards after contact, average 10-yard runs, all of those things, you get to see on tape. I would say, probably with a number of teams, there may have been six. Then what’s the order when you get to three, four, five, six? Going home yesterday, coming in today and then the long wait, I think the thing I would say is [Coleman is] very physical. He can play on third down. Normally you have to project that.

“A lot of these guys, in college, maybe the protection plan’s different or limited. So you have to develop that and that’s fine. But his frame is such when you see him, he does a really good job in blocking pressure looks. He’s smart, he’s tough. There was a lot to like with him.”

In my mind, Coleman was unfairly debited as more of a sustainer than a big-play back. He pinballed his way to 18 explosive runs and six explosive catches in 2025, and in Payton’s offense, for skills look to be entirely transferable.

Elijah Sarratt, WR, Baltimore Ravens

The 2025 Baltimore Ravens had a red zone problem with their receivers. Zay Flowers, Devontez Walker, DeAndre Hopkins, Rashod Bateman, and Tylan Wallace combined for just 13 touchdowns overall, and that’s not going to feed the bulldog. It was clear that Baltimore’s offense, now run by Declan Doyle under new head coach Jesse Minter, would need better and more consistent threats when the ball is closer to paydirt, so why not take the FBS leader in touchdown receptions with the 115th overall pick in the fourth round?

That’s exactly what they did in the person of Indiana’s Elijah Sarratt. Last season for the national champs, the 6’2½”, 215-pound Sarratt caught 64 passes on 87 targets for 824 yards and 15 touchdowns. Overall, Sarratt proved to be a big-bodied, contested-catch receiver to all levels of the field, but it really took hold when it was touchdown time.

”Great career at Indiana,“ general manager Eric DeCosta said of Surratt. ”[He has a] big body, strong hands, contested catch, probably a guy that can play outside or inside. We think he’s really, really good inside. He has a really a good back-shoulder-fade type of receiver, physical. We just think he’s a really good fit for what we want to do offensively, and I think speaks to us.“

Sarratt did not disagree with that particular evaluation.

“My mindset is just that any time the ball is in the air, it’s mine,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if I’m uncovered, if I have one person on me or two people on me; just as a receiver, if you want to be great, you have to have that mindset. So, whatever pass it is, I feel like I can make it. The back-shoulder throws – they’re something that is a big strength of my game. I’ve been able to do it just about every year in college. Thankfully, I’ve had lots of great quarterbacks. Fernando [Mendoza did] a great job of putting it where I need it to be. My thing with the back-shoulder throws is just, you’re always trying to win over the top. And then if you know it’s a feel thing, and then it’s just a trust between you and the quarterback. That just happens. It doesn’t happen overnight; it just happens with reps throughout camp and practices. That’s all it is.”

Music to Lamar Jackson’s ears, we’re quite sure.

Yes, Sarratt is great with back-shoulder fades as the tape verifies, but it’s really the entire short-area route tree that could have him as a guy with major snaps in this offense very quickly.

Skyler Bell, WR, Buffalo Bills

Death, taxes, and everybody wondering whether Josh Allen has enough weapons in the Bills’ passing game. Some things just seem eternal, don’t they? The 2026 Bills have those same questions. The trade for DJ Moore gives Allen a reliable veteran to pair with slot monster Khalil Shakir, but outside of that, there are more what-ifs than sure things. If 2024 second-round pick Keon Coleman can finally live up to what the team saw in him, that would be nice, but Super Bowl-caliber teams can’t just wait around for such things.

The Bills didn’t address this issue in the draft until the 125th overall pick in the fourth round, but when they did with Connecticut’s Skyler Bell, they may have hit the motherlode in a value sense. In 2025, the 5’11⅝”, 192-pound Bell caught 102 passes on 141 targets for 1,282 yards and 13 touchdowns. Nine of Bell’s 17 explosive catches came on the outside, so he’s already proven to be position-versatile, and it didn’t hurt when he absolutely blew it up at the scouting combine.

New head coach Joe Brady, who also runs Buffalo’s offense, is highly intrigued.

I don’t think that Bell is the dominant X-iso receiver the Bills hoped they would get with Coleman, but that doesn’t matter in a larger sense. What he can be is the kind of moveable chess piece the NFL values more and more as the aim becomes to blue the lines between WR1, WR2, and WR3. If Bell can become a WR2 in different places through his rookie season, you can expect him to be a major piece of the puzzle — and perhaps the answer to the question Bills fans have been asking for a long time.

Cyrus Allen, WR, Kansas City Chiefs

Of course, the Chiefs are another Super Bowl-ready team with an epic quarterback and all kinds of questions when it comes to their receivers. The current starting rotation of Xavier Worthy, Rashee Rice, and Tyquan Thornton is… decent enough if you can count on Patrick Mahomes doing his usual alien stuff in and out of the pocket, but we all saw how that fell to pieces when Mahomes missed time last season.

Hopefully, Mahomes is healthy enough to do all he can do in 2026, but this is not a team that expects to miss the playoffs two years in a row. The Chiefs went heavy on defense in this draft because that was the right thing to do, and then with the 176th overall pick in the fifth round, they took Cincinnati receiver Cyrus Allen. Having studied Allen’s tape pre-draft, when I saw this pick happen, I knew what the Chiefs loved about the 5’11”, 183-pound receiver. All over his tape, he has route nuance and the ability to separate from defenders in short spaces, because he knows how to get and stay open.

Not something Mahomes has benefited from in recent years.

Last season, Allen caught 49 passes on 69 targets for 661 yards and 12 touchdowns, but this is one of those guys you don’t want to box-score scout. Watch the tape, and you’ll see just about everything you need from a professional receiver.

“Cyrus was somebody that got to Cincinnati late,” Chiefs Vice President of Player Personnel Ryne Nutt said on April 27. “He dislocated his elbow while he was at Texas A&M, so he was rehabbing most of spring. And when I went in there, they just talked about the eagerness and the drive of this kid trying to get back on the field. Cyrus is talented, and he was just under the radar. He went to the American Bowl, which was kind of a lesser all-star game, and he blew it out of the water. He showed foot speed, quickness, route running. He was routing dudes up left and right on the field, enough so to get him invited to the Senior Bowl.

“And at the Senior Bowl, he does the same thing to these top comp. corners. Right there we knew this kid is a competitor and he’s talented and hey maybe we got to take a second look at him. Maybe we were a little low on him initially. And then throughout the process we just felt like he crushed it. He had a really good pro day, he showed he can return punts at the pro day, he had really good Zoom, coaches love his energy, his competitiveness so hats off to the kid throughout this entire process. He has just checked every box in a good way and improved, and we’re excited to have that kid as well.” 

Allen seems like one of those young receivers who will quickly become his quarterback’s best friend, and when your quarterback is Patrick Mahomes, such alignment means that you don’t stay off the field for long. It’s also pretty cool that the Chiefs picked up Jeff Caldwell, Allen’s Cincinnati teammate and a bigger, faster receiver, to round out the class. Who knows where that might lead?

Bryce Lance, WR, New Orleans Saints

The Saints had an unexpected boon last season in the development of quarterback Tyler Shough, which gave them some certainty at that position for the first time since Drew Brees hung ‘em up after the 2020 season. Not that Shough is Brees incarnate or ever will be, but it’s impressive that the second-round rookie did what he did with a receiver corps that could charitably be called underwhelming outside of Chris Olave.

Taking Arizona State’s Jordyn Tyson with the eighth overall pick is an understandable calculated risk. (Were Tyson’s injury history not so unfortunately overwhelming, he would have been the consensus WR1 in this class.) So, that helps. But one thing Tyson didn’t do with the Sun Devils was to scald defenses downfield. In 2025, he caught just five passes of 20 or more air yards on 18 targets for 170 yards and three touchdowns. Maybe that all goes up in Kellen Moore’s offense, but it’s a projection.

North Dakota State’s Bryce Lance, selected with the 136th overall pick in the fourth round, is no such projection, because this dude is a big play waiting to happen. For the Bison in 2025, Lance caught 16 deep passes on 21 targets for 641 yards and three touchdowns. Lance lasted as long as he did in the draft because he’s still learning the finer points of the position, but when you draft a guy with a hammer like this, you design the offense for him in a way where everything looks like a nail, and you worry about the rest later. Dude was 6’3” and 204 pounds at the scouting combine where he ran a 4.34-second 40-yard dash, and it’s all there on the tape.

“I think I have elite ball skills — when the ball is in the air, it’s mine or nobody’s,” Lance said after he was picked. “I think I play the game at a really fast pace. I think I learn pretty quickly, I can read defenses and things like that. I think the receiver position is a super technical position, so I think I can get better at the technical aspects of that.”

Last season, Olave was the only guy on the Saints’ roster who could be trusted as a deep receiver. Lance will get and stay on the field in a hurry because he fills a desperate need right away.