It’s time for the dynasty offseason, in which owners will take the next step towards contention, or kick off a rebuild, or everything in between. Paramount to any dynasty offseason is of course the draft, quite possibly the most fun part of dynasty fantasy football.
In the 2026 class, there is a fairly set “big three” set of wide receivers, namely Makai Lemon, Carnell Tate, and Jordyn Tyson. However, the competition to fill out the back of the first round, both in the real-life draft and in dynasty rookie drafts, is wide open.
Today, I’ll go through three contenders to be the WR4 of the NFL draft and break down how they win and where they can improve, with a particular focus on how each player projects as a fantasy football scorer and dynasty asset. This week I’ll focus on Denzel Boston, Chris Bell, and KC Concepcion before moving on to other first-round hopefuls.
For a detailed breakdown of my process for scouting and valuing receivers as dynasty assets, check out these primers.
Fantasy-Relevant Traits
Intermediate Usage
Between Boston, Bell, and Concepcion, it’s Concepcion who stands out in this area. While he’s well-known as the best run-after-catch threat among the top receivers in the draft, he was frequently tasked with winning against man coverage in the deep-intermediate parts of the field.
For Concepcion, his quick movements off the line of scrimmage, acceleration, and deep speed set up his intermediate game, as defensive backs have to respect his ability to get behind them. With the cushion afforded to him, Concepcion uses his natural agility to crisply break off his stem and get open on both outbreakers and dig routes.
One important distinction is that Concepcion’s footwork is actually quite inefficient when he needs to execute 180-degree turns. For this reason, he actually struggled on comeback routes and whip routes. However, he excelled at routes that involve planting and exploding off one leg, i.e. horizontally breaking routes such as out-routes, digs, slants, and crossers.
As far as ball skills, Concepcion is generally a hands catcher in the intermediate areas, and I’ve seen him successfully pluck the ball to prevent late-arriving defenders from breaking up the pass. However, there were a couple of plays he failed to make on balls that were poorly thrown, but that a star NFL wide receiver would still catch.
Denzel Boston on the other hand wins in completely the opposite way, where he isn’t very sudden or quick at the top of his stem, to the point that it’s a definite detriment to his ability to win in the intermediate areas. However, his leverage is extremely reliable, and he’s outstanding at high-pointing the ball. He’s also skilled at using physicality to disrupt corners at the top of his stem and get the step of separation he needs.
Bringing up the rear in the intermediate part of the field is Chris Bell. While Bell is very explosive, he’s a very linear athlete who struggles throttling up and down. His cuts aren’t crisp either. I too commonly saw corners run his route for him and break up passes in this area of the field. I also wish he had held on to more balls in traffic.
Short Usage
While I was disappointed by Chris Bell’s ability to route up corners in the intermediate part of the field, he’s a demon on runway routes in the shallow areas. Louisville didn’t really ask him to sit in the holes against zone, but they frequently ran him on shallow crossers underneath as a zone-beating concept. In these situations, Bell is absolutely the type of athlete to continue earning these touches at the NFL level. He has eye-opening explosiveness and speed with the ball in his hands, and if second-level defenders take a bad angle, he can turn a short pass into a long touchdown.
I need to stress two important points here. Firstly, Bell’s explosiveness is an elite enough trait to justify NFL offensive coordinators drawing up runway routes and slants for him in the NFL. Secondly, you cannot get by solely winning on runway routes. For Chris Bell, his success in the NFL will come down to whether he can carve out enough of a role running big boy routes while a handful of underneath catch-and-run targets allow him to hit his fantasy ceiling.
In Denzel Boston’s case, I also didn’t see him being asked to sit against zones that often. But, he wins in the short areas similarly to how he does in the intermediate parts of the field. Namely, his leverage is extremely reliable. Quarterbacks can confidently read a defense pre-snap and know he’ll be NFL-open if corners are leveraged wrong against him. Combine that with back shoulder throws, fades, posts, and digs, and you have a potential target earner at the NFL level.
I would argue Concepcion struggled in the short areas aside from designed catch-and-run targets, which get their own category later. As I mentioned previously, he runs an inefficient comeback and pivot route, and he’s got a slight enough build that he can’t reward quarterbacks for throwing into his leverage when he’s covered. With an 11% drop rate in 2025, he doesn’t have quite the hands to justify being peppered with targets against zone either.
Run After Catch
KC Concepcion is easily the best run-after-catch threat out of the first round hopefuls. He’s a fluid and agile mover with good vision and acceleration. At the NFL level, playcallers could justifiably call up the occasional screen for him. His long speed isn’t quite in the upper echelon of NFL speed demons, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a mid-high 4.3 40-yard dash from him.
Chris Bell isn’t the most agile player, but his explosiveness and long speed are both extremely dangerous, and consequently he has his share of long touchdown runs on tape. These come from crossers and runway routes that let him build up to full speed, more so than on screens and concepts that require ball carrier vision or tackle evading.
Denzel Boston doesn’t project as an elite run-after-catch threat. He’s physically strong, and far from slow, but acceleration and long speed aren’t the selling points of his game.
Deep Usage
Concepcion projects as a solid deep threat at the NFL level. In college, quarterback Marcel Reed routinely missed Concepcion after he got himself open behind the defense. Concepcion’s feet are extremely quick during his release, which means corners often lose him early in the rep. His deep speed is comfortably above average and helps him get behind corners, while his acceleration surprises safeties.
While his speed isn’t quite at the truly elite level of the specialist deep threats in the NFL, it’s really good by the standards of a full-purpose Z receiver. Defensive backs legitimately have to respect it, which meshes really well with his natural agility and ability to make cuts in the intermediate parts of the field.
In Chris Bell’s case, I didn’t like his ability to win deep down the sideline, but he’s extremely dangerous running posts and corner routes, and he tracks the ball well. He can split safeties deep down the field, but won’t win one-on-one down the sideline against speedy NFL corners.
Denzel Boston meanwhile may not win with pure speed, but he adjusts to the ball extremely well and highpoints it immaculately. Similarly to Carnell Tate, it’s extremely hard for defenders to recover if he gets behind them early in the rep, since he can pluck the ball up high and beyond the reach of a corner in recovery mode. You can justifiably dial up fades to Boston at the goal line, which is not a statement I take lightly, considering how inefficient a play that usually is.
Traits That Matter for Earning a Role
Hands
When thinking about a receiver’s hands, I tend to split up the reliability aspect from the playmaking aspect.
In Concepcion’s case, he needs to be more reliable, with the aforementioned 11% drop rate in 2025 giving pause. However, he isn’t a body catcher, and in key moments he plucks the ball away from his frame to prevent defenders from breaking up the pass. For this reason, it’s reasonable to argue that he has good fundamentals and can improve the reliability component.
I would guess the playmaking aspect of his hands, i.e. the ability to make that extra play for his quarterback and turn a mistake into a positive play, isn’t quite there for him, which clouds his projection as a true superstar player. However, he could absolutely be among the very best WR2s in the league.
With a career drop rate of 3%, a “my ball” mentality, and excellent body control, Denzel Boston has some of the best hands in the class, both in the reliability component and the playmaking component.
Chris Bell is quite reliable, though I did see him fail to hold on to a couple balls in traffic or through contact. These types of plays don’t go into the stat sheet as drops, but they stall drives all the same. I’d argue he’s strong in the reliability aspect, while the playmaking isn’t the best.
Coachability
This aspect is pretty much impossible to judge from tape, but I always include it because it’s important to keep in the big picture. As draft season progresses, it will be important to note and update our rankings if reports come out about recurring issues with any of these players.
To give an example, Jermaine Burton’s issues were well-documented before the draft, and absolutely torpedoed his NFL career.
Blocking
Boston really gets after it as a blocker, and Washington’s staff knew it, often deploying him adjacent to the offensive line and not being afraid to run in his direction. He’s naturally strong and competitive.
Chris Bell's blocking effort ran hot and cold. There were times he got chippy with a corner and tried to forklift him into the sideline, but there were far too many times I saw his assignment make a play on the ball carrier.
Concepcion lands somewhere in between. He actually seems to have decent blocking technique when he’s engaged, but he sometimes slacks off if he doesn’t think the play is coming his way. The issue is that on long-developing plays that frees up his man to chase a play down.
There was one notable sequence where Concepcion didn’t sustain his blocking effort for the entire play, and eventually his assignment tackled the ball carrier. The next two plays were runs in Concepcion’s direction, and he really got after it, successfully blocking his man. This seems like a green flag to me, in that he was pissed off enough at his own mistake to put in the dirty work and make up for his mistake right after.
Overall
Here are my current tiers among the players for whom I’ve actually gotten All-22 tape. Others will join these rankings over the coming weeks.
KC Concepcion
Concepcion brings something to the table at all three levels and profiles favorably as a flanker-slot hybrid at the NFL level. In college, he played primarily on the outside, but he has the short-area quickness and agility to succeed in the slot in the NFL.
He has the movement skills to reward his offensive coordinator for calling screens, and to reward his quarterback for finding him underneath. However, he also has legit deep route running skills and athletic traits, and uses the threat of his deep speed to set up quick cuts in the intermediate parts of the field.
This is a high-end WR2 all day, but perhaps missing the higher-end hands to be a star WR1.
Denzel Boston
Boston projects favorably as an X receiver in the NFL, but it remains to be seen if his role becomes a valuable one for fantasy scoring. X receivers are constantly striking a balance between being dirty work players vs featured options, and a lot will depend on Boston’s development through his rookie contract.
For an X receiver to develop into an elite dynasty asset, they need to show movement skills or route-running ability that I don’t quite see in Boston’s range of outcomes. However, he’s an impressive player with great ball skills, and sometimes those guys transcend the role you’d expect for them based purely on their speed and agility.
Chris Bell
While Bell’s explosiveness will be sure to capture the attention of several NFL offensive coordinators, he’s a very linear athlete who struggles to change direction and run breaking routes. As impressive as he is on crossers and posts, we can’t build the whole plane out of runway routes, just ask Xavier Legette.