
Pete Overzet, Ian Hartitz and Kendall Valenzuela break down their favorite WR sleepers to target in early 2026 fantasy football drafts.



Our early-offseason positional sleepers series continues today, as Pete Overzet, Ian Hartitz and Kendall Valenzuela each offer up their favorite WR sleeper (going outside of the first 10 rounds on Underdog) to target in early drafts.
If you missed QBs and RBs, see below.
Pete: Last year, everyone was convinced Hunter was a full-time WR and he went in the Top 50 picks in a lot of competitive drafts.
This year, everyone is convinced he's a DB, and now he's going after pick 150.
What's particularly funny is that this massive course correction on Hunter's value is entirely driven by coachspeak, or I guess in this case, GMspeak. All it took is one comment from Jaguars GM James Gladstone about Hunter playing DB in 2026 and drafters overreacted accordingly.
We're essentially all playing that old game with flower petals when it comes to Hunter and the Jags' mouthpieces–he's a WR, he's not a WR, he's a DB, he's not a DB.
We can all agree on this, though–when Hunter does play WR, he's really good at it. Right before a knee injury derailed his season, he logged a game with a 28% target share and scored 24.1 fantasy points–good enough for a high-end Utilization Score of 92.
There's a famous Warren Buffet saying–be greedy when others are fearful and be fearful when others are greedy. It was smart to be concerned about Hunter's frothy price tag in 2025 as a rookie, but it's now time to be greedy and acquire as much Hunter as you can in 2026 drafts.
If the DB whispers are true, you can easily cut him back into the waiver pile. If not, you will have just landed an extremely talented wideout with Top-24 upside at bargain bin prices.
Ian: While Josh's brother Caleb has understandably gotten most of the attention this offseason, the Colts' rising fourth-year receiver has actually had a lot break his way ahead of 2026:
25 in August, Downs is firmly in his prime years and suddenly profiles as a candidate for triple-digit targets in an offense that flashed an elite ceiling with Jones healthy in 2025. Throw in the potential for the injury gods to maybe chill out for once–people forget Downs had annoying August ankle and hamstring injuries to deal with in each of the past two seasons–and you have a talented separator looking at the biggest workload of his career in an offense with a high ceiling priced outside of the position's top-50 players. That sounds like a pretty solid late-round dart to me!
Kendall: All the sleepers mentioned in this column are outside of the first 10 rounds on Underdog, and I am going to keep that trend going by advocating for Jalen McMillan as one of my favorite wide receiver sleepers. Now, let's not get it twisted, everyone knows McMillan, but the impact of Mike Evans leaving doesn't just affect Chris Godwin and Emeka Egbuka.
Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield wasn't exactly elite to end the season, but we have seen him carry multiple fantasy-relevant receivers. I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle between Mayfield's elite 2024 numbers and what he produced in 2025. He fell from QB4 in 2024 to QB12 last season with 27 total touchdowns, 14 turnovers and 36 sacks last year. On the other side, Godwin will be 30 years old during the season and has had his fair share of injuries during his career, which means if he were to ever go down, it would be Egbuka and McMillan stepping up to the plate.
We also have to consider the vacated targets from Evans' departure as well—he notched four double-digit touchdown seasons since 2020. Egbuka has shown the ability to be a true WR1, but McMillan has also flashed for Tampa Bay before. Does anyone remember the team-best 9-7-114 line in Week 17 last year? Oh, I do because he was on my bench! McMillan was sidelined for all but the final four games of the season last year due to a neck injury, but he showed immense promise in his rookie season as well—in 2024, he caught 37 passes for 461 yards and eight touchdowns.
He's not going to be a top-10 receiver in fantasy football, but any player going in the 12th round of drafts that has this kind of flex upside is always going to be on my radar.