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We will admit this from the start: 2025 was a bad year for rookies in fantasy football. Las Vegas Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty came into the league with huge expectations and finished 15th among fantasy running backs. No rookie wide receiver finished higher than 15th — that was Carolina Panthers standout Tetairoa McMillan — and the only rookie quarterback in the top 20 was the Giants’ Jaxson Dart, who finished 13th and was too uneven to start with any hope of winning. But 2026 could be different. We only said “could” be, not “should” or “will” be. It’s exciting to take a rookie in your fantasy draft. It represents the unknown, boundless potential, a chance to land the steal of the draft compared to the big-name returning veterans. So who are the rookies in the best position to play a role big enough to have a real fantasy impact? We’re offering up 10 names, including some obvious names, along with mid-round selections we’re keeping an eye on ahead of minicamp in June. Dallas Goedert had an outlier breakout with 11 touchdown receptions last year — he’d totaled eight in the previous three years combined — but it shows that Jalen Hurts will throw to tight ends in the red zone. The Philadelphia Eagles, even as they likely deal A.J. Brown away soon, have added a ton to their passing game, in rookie Makai Lemon and veterans Dontayvion Wicks and Hollywood Brown. Still, we like Eli Stowers as a surprise-stash rookie, someone new to the position and athletic enough to steal snaps, catches and touchdowns from Goedert in what could be the veteran’s final NFL season. The Cleveland Browns didn’t have a receiver with more than two touchdown catches last season, and there’s the ongoing question of who exactly is throwing passes for them. But they put first- and second-round picks into rookie receivers who could easily be their two most productive pass-catchers in 2026. Texas A&M’s KC Concepcion went 24th overall, but keep an eye on Boston, who went 39th but has much more size (6-foot-4, 212 pounds) and caught 20 touchdown passes in his last two years at Washington. Harold Fannin shined as a third-round rookie last year, and if we had to pick a late-rounder from a deep group of rookie tight ends, it would be Justin Joly, who averaged 49 catches and 576 yards over his last three college seasons, with seven touchdown catches last year. The Denver Broncos have an older tight end in Evan Engram, who managed just one touchdown catch last season, so it’s not hard to see Joly stepping into a larger role than, say, Max Klare with the Los Angeles Rams or Sam Roush with the Chicago Bears, joining loaded position rooms. Christian McCaffrey stayed healthy and played all 17 games in 2025, an oasis in an offense mired in injuries everywhere else. Can he do it again in 2026? If not, Kaelon Black could be the beneficiary, a third-round pick from Indiana who rushed for 1,039 yards and 10 touchdowns last season. Grabbing a McCaffrey understudy has paid off before — see Elijah Mitchell in 2021 or Jordan Mason in 2024 — and with Brian Robinson signing with the Atlanta Falcons, Black has a chance to step into that high-potential backup role. To be clear, Fernando Mendoza is unlikely to be helping any good fantasy football team in 2026. We got spoiled by Jayden Daniels and Bo Nix in 2024, but Mendoza is closer to Ward and Dart last year — his over-under for passing yards is 2,499.5, via DraftKings Sportsbook. That’s a reminder that the Las Vegas Raiders are paying Kirk Cousins well and may start him instead, at least early in the season. So, taking Mendoza is strictly a late-round dynasty flier, someone you can grab in the 14th round with the hopes that he’s a solid starter in 2027. Tight end was a great position for rookie fantasy impact last year, with the Indianapolis Colts’ Tyler Warren, the Chicago Bears’ Colston Loveland and Fannin all finishing as top-10 tight ends in fantasy. So, it checks out that we would have three tight ends in our top 10. But what’s complicated this year is that most of the top tight ends went to teams that already have good tight ends, like Sadiq, who goes to a New York Jets team whose leading receiver last year was rookie tight end Mason Taylor. It would be easy, however, for Sadiq to surpass Taylor’s modest rookie totals (44 receptions for 369 yards and a touchdown) and for the Jets’ offense in general to be an improved unit as Geno Smith is an upgrade over the three bad quarterbacks who started in 2025. Once the New Orleans Saints traded Rashid Shaheed to the Seattle Seahawks, there was a glaring need for a strong No. 2 receiver to complement Chris Olave. New Orleans found that at No. 8 in selecting Jordyn Tyson from Arizona State. The Saints have been busy this offseason in surrounding Tyler Shough with offensive talent, from running back Travis Etienne and guard David Edwards in free agency before getting Tyson and tight end Oscar Delp in the draft. They’ll be set up much better to show off Kellen Moore’s offensive mind, and with opposing defenses focusing on Olave, Tyson is in a good position to take advantage of that as a productive No. 2. Jadarian Price, taken by Seattle with the final pick of the first round, is an intriguing prospecthttps://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/2026-nfl-draft-meet-jadarian-price-backup-rb-who-rb2-draft-class. He never started a game in college, stuck behind Jeremiyah Love at Notre Dame, and never had more than 15 touches in a game. But for sheer value, he’s much more likely to exceed expectations than Love, because Price goes to an amazing offense on a dominant team that will have the lead plenty, one that lost star Kenneth Walker to the Kansas City Chiefs in free agency and has Zach Charbonnet recovering from a torn ACL. Fantasy impact is as much about opportunity as it is talent, and Price might go into the year with the best situational opportunity of any rookie. He should have a window in September to show what he can do before Charbonnet is back, and to set himself up to have the larger split of that job share if he can play consistently as a rookie and show pass-catching ability that wasn’t used much in college. His over-under for rushing yards is 750.5 (via BetOnline), which is actually just 150 fewer than Love’s. We’ll open with a caveat: in the last decade, only two rookie receivers have had 1,000-plus receiving yards and 10-plus touchdowns — Brian Thomas Jr. with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2024 and Ja’Marr Chase with the Cincinnati Bengals in 2021. So to ask for both of those things for a rookie receiver is to set the bar almost unfairly high. Carnell Tate, picked fourth overall by the Tennessee Titans, is the favorite to lead all rookies in receiving yards at multiple sportsbooks, but his over-under is also 900.5 (via BetOnline) and his over-under for touchdowns is just 4.5. For Tate to really shine as a fantasy football star, you need quarterback Cam Ward to take a big step forward. As a rookie on a bad team, he threw for 15 touchdowns all season, and that number should rise in Year 2. Getting to 25 would be a huge step up, and it could happen with better coaching and new receiving targets in Tate and free-agent signee Wan’Dale Robinson. Robinson is still only 25 and has gotten 140 targets in each of the last two seasons, which could be seen as a threat to Tate, but Robinson also has only nine touchdown catches in four NFL seasons, so the red-zone targets are more likely to go to Tate, the latest in a prolific pipeline of star receivers from Ohio State to the NFL. You see a running back taken in the top five, you want to see a Saquon Barkley impact. Barkley had 2,000-plus total yards and 15 touchdowns for the New York Giants in 2018. All you need is Love: That’s what we will hear in our minds as drafts begin, with his 40 touchdowns in his last two years at Notre Dame and a No. 3 overall pick to boot. What complicates things is that Arizona will be a bad team — their over-under is 4.5 wins, matching the Dolphins for the lowest in the league — and teams constantly trailing generally throw more and run less. That wasn’t the problem with Jeanty on a bad Raiders team last year. He got 311 touches, but just wasn’t able to do much with them, disappointing just about anyone who drafted him. Now, Love has a young, offensive-minded coach, and there isn’t a great quarterback to make a compelling case to throw a lot instead of building around the run game. Love’s over-unders for rushing yards (900.5) and rushing touchdowns (6.5) lead all rookie running backs (via BetOnline). He also has an over-under of 450.5 receiving yards, and if he stays healthy, he could cover all three of those easily. One familiar concern: Tyler Allgeier. If you’ve had Bijan Robinson on your team in recent years, you know Allgeier’s ability to cull touchdowns and touches away from an elite running back. Arizona gave him $12 million for two years, so even with a much bigger investment in Love, they’ll want him to be a solid No. 2, the question being at what fantasy expense.​Latest Sports News from FOX Sports

On Thursday morning, the United States Soccer Federation announced details for the U.S. men’s squad’s hotly-anticipated World Cup roster reveal, which will take place  — and be open to fans — in New York City on May 26 at Pier 17 in Lower Manhattan. (Coverage begins at 3 p.m. ET on FOX.) That means national team coach Mauricio Pochettino has just over three weeks left to determine which 26 players will be part of his squad for the biggest World Cup of all time, one that will be staged on home soil for the first time in 32 years as the U.S. co-hosts the planet’s’ most popular event alongside North American neighbors Canada and Mexico. Who might be catching the former Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain boss’s eye as the clock ticks toward the deadline? Who’s losing steam at precisely the wrong moment? Here’s the latest on how America’s World Cup hopefuls are playing for their club teams as Pochettino whittles down his list: Stock Up 📈 Easily this week’s biggest mover, Freeman made his first La Liga start for the Yellow Submarine and was outstanding in a 2-1 win over Celta Vigo. Deployed on the right side of manager Marcelino García Toral’s flat back four, Freeman showed why he bet on himself by signing in January with Spain’s third-best team; Villarreal leads fourth-place Atlético Madrid by five points with just four matches left to play. The 21-year-old had made just six substitute appearances before Sunday’s breakout. With first-choice Uruguayan Santiago Mouriño still nursing a leg injury, Freeman figures to keep his place at least for Saturday’s match against Levante. That’s great news for U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino. Poch started the former Orlando City standout in the Americans’ final 12 matches of 2025. Despite Freeman’s bedding-in period overseas, he was also in the Argentine’s lineup for last month’s World Cup tuneup against Portugal. If Freeman is playing regularly heading into the main event, bank on him being in the USA’s starting 11 for the June 12 opener versus Paraguay. Cardoso made history on Wednesday, becoming just the fourth U.S. player ever to appear in a UEFA Champions League semifinal. (Apologies for getting this wrong on social media initially.) The 24-year-old New Jersey-born, Brazil raised box-to-box type — who started and went 88 minutes in the 1-1 first-leg tie with Premier League-leading Arsenal— joins DaMarcus Beasley (PSV, 2004), Tyler Adams (RB Leipzig, 2020) and Christian Pulisic (Chelsea, 2021). Pulisic, who won the title with the Blues, is the only American to play in a final. Before Johnny & Co. head to London for the decisive second leg of the home-and-home, total-goals-wins series, Atléti travels to Valencia on Saturday. The 25-year-old Californian’s preseason move from wing-back to a more attacking role has been paying off lately. Arfsten has three goals and two assists in his last five MLS matches, including the game-winner over Philadelphia last weekend. That production is hard to ignore. The UC Davis alum has done it at the international level, too; he led the U.S. squad in assists last year. Add in the injury to Germany-based left back John Tolkin, and Arfsten’s World Cup spot is probably secure, even if he’s not the ideal backup for Antonee Robinson in Pochettino’s preferred back four. That’s yet another reason Poch could consider going back to a three-man central defense when the World Cup kicks off. After getting a red card and serving a one-match suspension earlier this month, McKenzie returned to Toulouse’s lineup and helped the Ligue 1 side earn its first point — in part by shutting down U.S. teammate Folarin Balogun — since before the March international break in last weekend’s 2-2 tie with Monaco. It was the 27-year-old’s 25th start of what has been a career-best 2025-26 campaign. It might not be enough to unseat Matt Freese as Pochettino’s World Cup No. 1, but Turner has been the better of the two MLS-based backstops in 2026. The Qatar 2022 starter has allowed fewer goals, made more saves and has stopped a higher save percentage of on-target shots. Turner’s save percentage (78.9) is the second-highest among the American keepers in the domestic league, after projected U.S. third-string Chris Brady of the Chicago Fire. The timing is good for Scally, who last week became the youngest non-German player in Bundesliga history to hit the 150-game mark in a scoreless tie with Wolfsburg. That stat ought to remind Pochettino of the 23-year-old’s quality, not to mention the natural right-back ability to play in the middle or on the left side of the defense. With Arfsten now a dedicated winger, Scally is (and should be) still in the running for his second straight World Cup trip. Reyna has logged more minutes — 31 — in Gladbach’s last two Bundesliga games than he had across the six he was available for before that. That’s an encouraging sign as the 23-year-old, who hit the post after coming on as a sub against Wolfsburg, makes a late push to snare a World Cup roster spot. Gladbach has just three contests remaining, starting Sunday at home against Borussia Dortmund, Reyna’s former club. Stock Down 📉 “Christian is a very sensitive man and this drought is hitting him hard,” Milan boss Max Allegri said after Pulisic failed to score for the 16th straight time — 18 if you count the USA’s two friendlies in March — in Sunday’s 0-0 stalemate with Juventus and Weston McKennie. The USA’s top attacking star has four more chances to find the net in Serie A this season. The Rossoneri visit Sassuolo this weekend before returning to the San Siro to host Atalanta on May 10. Tillman has started just one of Leverkusen’s last eight outings, way back before the March international break. In the club’s five matches during the month of April, the 23-year-old playmaker played just 46 total minutes. The 2023-24 German champs will host Bundesliga rivals Leipzig at the Bay Arena on Saturday. The 38-year-old center back was not in uniform for Tuesday’s 2-0 U.S. Open Cup loss to Atlanta United — the fourth consecutive game Ream has missed for the Crown since limping off the field with a groin injury on April 15. Charlotte faces the Revs in Foxborough on Saturday. Although he just played another entire match at right back in L’OM’s 1-1 tie with Nice on Sunday, his 13th start on the back line this season, Freeman’s re-emergence probably reduces Weah’s chances of starting for Pochettino this summer. Weah can also man the wing, obviously; it’s his natural position and the one from which he scored the Americans’ opening goal four years ago in Qatar. But if Poch still sees Sergiño Dest higher up the field, he could have to choose between the two 2022 vets.​Latest Sports News from FOX Sports