10 Players You Are SLEEPING ON In The 2026 NFL Draft
Pushing the Pile: A CBS Sports NFL Podcast
CBS Sports, Football, NFL
4.2 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2026
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In today’s episode Mike Renner and JP Acosta give out their favorite sleepers for the 2026 NFL Draft.
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(00:00) Intro
(00:50) Louisiana RB Jaden Dugger
(4:56) Navy RB Eli Heidenreich
(9:34) Western Michigan EDGE Nadame Tucker
(14:11) Wake Forest DL Jayden Loving
(18:12) Texas A&M TE Nate Boerkircher
(22:31) Miami (OH) LB Jackson Kuwatch
(25:26) Missouri WR Kevin Coleman Jr
(30:44) Weber State OT Gavin Ortega
(35:30) Stephen F Austin CB Charles Demmings
(39:17) Cincinnati WR Cyrus Allen
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome into today's episode of pushing the pile. |
| 0:13.2 | Mike Redder and J.P. Acosta coming to you for the next hour here. |
| 0:17.3 | Two days out from the NFL draft, which means we're talking sleepers on today's episodes. |
| 0:22.9 | We're going down the board. We've talked the first round to death at this point. We don't need |
| 0:27.5 | to go through it anymore because no one knows really what's going to happen. This first round, |
| 0:31.6 | more than any I can remember, is way up in the air. So let's get to some guys we like that |
| 0:36.3 | aren't getting the recognition at this |
| 0:38.5 | point in time that maybe aren't household names that if your team does get maybe on late day two, |
| 0:43.6 | early day three, that you should be very, very excited about. So JP, you have five, I have five. |
| 0:51.9 | We're going to roll through them here. Start with your first guy for me. |
| 0:56.5 | My first guy is linebacker from U.L. Lafayette, Jaden Dugger. He's such an impressive, just athlete. |
| 1:02.5 | When you look at him, 6'5, 240 was a former safety at Georgetown transferred up to U.L. Lafayette moved to linebacker. |
| 1:10.1 | And I think the biggest thing that |
| 1:11.4 | stands out about him is just his range and the athleticism. |
| 1:15.1 | I mean, running a 4-640, being as close as he is, you can tell that he has former safety |
| 1:20.2 | instincts in past coverage, excuse me, and he has the ability to slip blocks and run |
| 1:25.8 | sideline to sideline. |
| 1:27.3 | The biggest issue for him is just that he's not very physical taking on blocks right now. |
| 1:31.8 | But again, he's also a former safety. |
| 1:34.3 | When you have guys that are converts, like not everybody can be sort of a sunny styles |
| 1:39.3 | where they come in and immediately are dominant at a linebacker after switching the safety. |
| 1:44.1 | But I think in the linebacker class full of these jumbo-sized linebacks with Stiles and Arvel Reese, |
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