11 Rookies Who Will Make Instant Impacts In Fantasy Football

**Dave Kluge** (0:11)
Every year, rookies tilt leagues, for better or worse, in somebody's favor. And today, I'm joined by Matt Waldman, one of the sharpest guys when it comes to analyzing incoming rookies. And we're going to talk about the rookies you need to know about as we head into this 2026 season. Matt, we're going to start at the top. We got to talk about Jeremiah Love, drafted third overall. We know this is a good player, but can he perform despite the expected woes for this Cardinals offense?

**Matt Waldman** (0:36)
I mean, I think so. I mean, we've seen this Cardinals offense with running backs like James Connor, who is not unbelievably fast. He's a quick, intelligent runner with good footwork, who can catch the ball out of the backfield. And he had a quarterback that basically hogs the football if the first read isn't there. So you look at this, and I know Jacoby Brissett hasn't produced a winning record, and they've got Carson Beck basically waiting in the wings to let him try this offense at some point for the longer haul, and then for the short term, they've got Gardner Mentschew if they need to have a guy play for a little bit. But with all that aside, with running backs, I mean, is it likely that he's going to come onto the scene and give you 1,800 total yards or rush for over 1,400, 1,500 yards? No, probably not. If he gets to 900 yards in this offense as a runner, and then gives you another 400 or 500 yards as a receiver, you're talking to probably what his ceiling is going to be this year.
That's fine.
That's still decent running back two numbers, and depending on what the touchdown totals are, it could sneak into a low end running back one value. Think of him as an Alvin Kamara type of player in terms of what his aspirations are, but you've got to, from an offensive line standpoint, you're probably going to see him in the low range of the low fours, in terms of average yards per carry. If you want to look at a metric like that, and then you're going to see him probably somewhere between seven to eight yards per catch as a receiver out of the backfield. As long as Berset is still there under center, I think you're going to see that. And you could see him being up there with maybe competing with someone like Marvin Harrison Jr. as the third option for the receiving game, depending on how Marvin Harrison continues to develop his game or doesn't.

**Dave Kluge** (2:39)
So the first thing you said there, I want to go back to you, like we've seen James Connor perform behind this offensive line. And to me, like I see James Connor, I think one of the most underrated running backs and like he is just such a tough and smart runner, an instinctual runner. And I think Jeremiah Love can get there, but we do every now and then, we see these rookies, no matter how talented they are, come into the league and struggle in not great situations that it could take a couple of years to kind of learn how to hit those NFL gaps. And I think about Ash and Jinty last year, like the production got there by the end of the year, but it wasn't necessarily pretty. Even Saquon Barkley early in his career struggled behind a bad New York Giants offensive line. So do you think that like, because James Connor was able to do it, a grizzled veteran who does all of the right things and always seems to make the right decision, do you have faith in Jeremiah Love being that type of player based on what you saw at Notre Dame?

**Matt Waldman** (3:29)
I think he's a smarter runner than Saquon Barkley ever was coming out of college at that point. Saquon Barkley was a guy I noted as who tried to bounce everything outside, tried to out athlete everybody too often. I mean, it was habitual. So it wasn't a surprise when he went to New York and had a lot of those types of issues.
The other back that you mentioned, Gentie, I mean, we've got to say, the Raiders offensive line might have been the worst offensive line I have seen in 20 years in terms of the run game. I mean, multiple mistakes by multiple linemen on like so many plays, that Gentie actually performed pretty well, given the circumstances as a decision maker, and so I look at that as two different guys. I would say love is more in the Gentie spectrum here, but I don't think the line is nearly as bad as the Raiders.