The sneakily fun 2026 WR draft class
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2026
⏱️ 74 minutes
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Summary
There may not be a true ace in this year's wide receiver draft class, but that doesn't mean it's short on talent or intrigue. After all, six of Dane Brugler's top-30 players, and 17 of his top 100, are wide receivers. As always. this position delivers the goods. Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman do the same diving deep into the position on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Host: Robert Mays
Co-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Senior Producer: Katy Duffy
Social Producer: Scott Krinch
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Follow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.social
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. |
| 0:02.1 | I'm Robert Mays. |
| 0:03.0 | Digging in to some wide receivers today. |
| 0:05.4 | It is a stacked wide receiver class, just in the depth of it. |
| 0:09.1 | If you go look at Dane Bruegler's top 100, I believe he has like 17, 18 guys in the top 100 at receiver. |
| 0:16.4 | And there are just so many different flavors of player in this class. |
| 0:21.7 | How you're going to stack up and rank the guys that are going to go from like picks 35 to 80, |
| 0:27.4 | you could go in so many different directions. |
| 0:29.8 | And so what we decided to do today with me, Derek Classen and Dave Hellman, was just do some superlatives. |
| 0:35.8 | A couple different categories and pick a player that we think fits that in this |
| 0:39.7 | 2026 class. |
| 0:40.9 | Our favorite receiver. |
| 0:42.1 | Our favorite slot receiver. |
| 0:43.7 | The guy that we're just out on a cost. |
| 0:45.7 | Biggest risk reward. |
| 0:47.0 | Favorite day two pick. |
| 0:48.6 | So that's what we did today. |
| 0:49.4 | We just ran through what is a very interesting, compelling, and kind of strange in a lot of ways, |
| 0:55.4 | receiver class, and just try to find out who we're fitting answers to some of those categories. |
| 1:01.1 | So let's dig into all of that with me, Dave, and Derek right now. |
| 1:18.7 | Digging into the wide receivers today on the athletic football show. |
| 1:19.9 | It's a packed group. |
... |
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