The New Orleans Saints used the No. 8 overall pick on wide receiver Jordyn Tyson in April. Five games into the season, he still hasn’t played a regular-season snap, and the rest of the rookie class hasn’t done much to fill the void.
Justin Melo of NFL Draft on SI ranked every 2026 draft class after Week 5 and put the Saints 26th with a C- grade. “Injuries haven’t helped, but this class looks pretty lackluster right now,” Melo wrote. He noted that second-round defensive tackle Christen Miller couldn’t crack the rotation against the Atlanta Falcons, that third-round tight end Oscar Delp sits a distant third behind Juwan Johnson and Noah Fant and that fourth-round receiver Bryce Lance has caught fewer than half of his targets.
Tyson’s absence is reshaping the rookie class
Tyson hurt his hamstring Aug. 13 in a joint practice with the Jacksonville Jaguars and opened the season on injured reserve. Kellen Moore said shortly after the injury that “this has nothing to do with Jordyn’s history.” On Oct. 1, the Saints’ head coach cast doubt on a quick return, and ESPN reported four days later that Week 7 against the Pittsburgh Steelers is the earliest he’s likely to play. A bye follows that game, so the clock on his debut keeps running.
That absence has pushed Lance into a bigger job than a fourth-round pick from North Dakota State usually gets. He has played 251 offensive snaps, about 71.5% of the team’s total, yet has five catches for 57 yards on 16 targets, per Pro Football Reference. He was blanked in the 23-13 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, and his 51.7 overall grade through four games ranked 17th among 21 Saints offensive players, according to PFF.
Week 5 did offer one counterpoint. Miller, inactive with a toe injury for the Falcons game, played 28 snaps against Minnesota and earned a 73.7 grade according to PFF, fourth-best on the defense. Delp played 17 snaps, well behind Fant’s 30 and Johnson’s 29.
The verdict on this class still runs through Tyson. Until he’s on the field at the Superdome, there isn’t much to argue against a C-.
