In the NFL draft, so many factors contribute to the decisions each team makes. It obviously starts with an examination of a team’s roster and depth chart, looking not only at the current makeup but also at future contracts set to expire. After evaluating the draft’s prospects, the team will begin to get a picture of what might be available to them when their pick comes around, and that picture improves as they look at the teams in front and around them, predicting the needs those teams will have and their potential to go off script.
All of that is done pre-draft and will continue to be done as rumors go through the media circuit with nuggets of information and as interviews and workouts with players alter draft boards. Even on the day of the draft, all of that preparation can be for naught if a surprising trade occurs or if a couple of surprise picks lead teams to start picking some players earlier than they had planned.
To that point, a recent info dump from NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero revealed that the 2026 NFL Draft could potentially feature a surprise run on offensive tackles. At the same time, there’s belief that only two wide receivers will go in the top 15 picks.
In this year’s draft, several teams have been doing their homework on players at both positions, and with only one first-round pick in most cases, many are having to decide between the two. At wide receiver, if it can be determined that two players will go in that range of picks, it’s likely because there are two clear prospects getting linked to teams in that range. One is going to be Carnell Tate out of Ohio State, who has started to distance himself as the WR1 of this class. For a while, Arizona State’s Jordyn Tyson was in competition with Tate for that top spot, but his injury history has lowered his draft stock with some teams to the point that he may have even fallen to WR3 at this point behind USC’s Makai Lemon.
Because there only seems to be two, maybe three, options included in this top tier of wide receivers prospects, a team needing a wide receiver in the top 10 picks may have an inclination to jump at the opportunity to take one of the limited elite options so as not to miss out, relying on the depth at tackle to provide them with a decent option later on. This strategy changes when considering the possibility that a run of tackles could take place. If it starts to look as if a starting caliber rookie lineman may not be available the next time that team gets a chance to pick, they may opt to add on one of the options at the top of the run of tackles, relying on the delayed selection of receivers to provide them with some better options at that position for their next pick.
Beyond Tate, Lemon, and Tyson, there are maybe five other wideouts expected to be second-rounders at worst. It would be surprising to find Texas A&M’s KC Concepcion, Indiana’s Omar Cooper Jr., Washington’s Denzel Boston, Alabama’s Germie Bernard, and Louisville’s Chris Bell in the third round. If only two of those eight players are going in the first 15 picks, a team passing up on a receiver in the first round would only need to hope that at least one of those remaining six make it 17 more picks into the second round then a few more back to their first pick of Day 2.
The numbers are similar for offensive tackles expected to be gone by the end of the second round. Utah’s Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu, Miami’s Francis Mauigoa, Georgia’s Monroe Freeling, Alabama’s Kadyn Proctor, Clemson’s Blake Miller, and Arizona State’s Max Iheanachor are all expected to be unavailable by the third round of the draft. Even without the news of a run at the position, projections had some combination of Fano, Mauigoa, and Freeling hearing their names within the top 10 or 12 picks.
Those projections are based on teams currently slotted into those draft positions, but rumors seem to indicate that several teams may be aggressive in the first round this year, attempting to trade up to ensure they can land certain players. If this begins to happen, offensive tackles could come off the board even quicker. Currently, in the litany of mock drafts, several see as many as five tackles coming off the board in the first round, but there are quite a few that see all seven names getting selected inside the first 32 picks.
The possibility of a run like that could certainly change how some teams are approaching the first round. Taking a receiver early may mean a team misses out on the top seven tackles altogether, but if a team takes an offensive tackle early, there’s a chance several of the remaining six receivers available in the second half of the first round make it to them in the second round.
This is also assuming that this draft rumor is accurate and not a smokescreen being deployed by a team hoping a top wide receiver somehow falls to them in the wake of the offensive tackle frenzy. It’s a contingency for which teams in that range may want to plan. That way, they’ll be prepared when the moment comes, though they may just have to scramble as new surprises alter other strategies they didn’t plan for. Teams now have 12 days to finish coming up with their draft plans, which are sure to get torn up once the phones start ringing.