Every draft has receivers who land somewhere that makes you do a double take. The 2026 class had two that stood out, for opposite reasons. One was drafted into a room with no obvious opening. The other tumbled to the final round despite a stat line that says he should have gone much earlier.
On PFSN’s Football Debate Club, the panel split on the biggest surprise. Alec Elijah went with the fit, and Ian Cummings went with the fall.
Why Kendrick Law to the Lions Was the Draft’s Biggest Head-Scratcher
Detroit traded up in the fifth round, sending two picks to move up 13 spots and take Kentucky’s Kendrick Law at No. 168. The cost was modest, but the target was puzzling.
“I honestly just felt like it was just an interesting move considering the room’s already loaded,” Elijah said. “You already got an Amon-Ra St. Brown. You got Jameson Williams. You got Isaac TeSlaa. And then you also bring in Greg Dortch as a free agent.”
The math backs the skepticism. St. Brown and Williams are one of the league’s best duos, TeSlaa flashed late in his rookie year, and Detroit signed Dortch to replace Kalif Raymond. Law is a 4.45 speedster who piled up yards after the catch at Kentucky, where 505 of his 540 receiving yards came after the grab. The traits are real. The path to touches in John Morton’s offense is not.
“His ability to separate with ease is going to be great,” Elijah said. “But I just don’t think that this was a great pick for Detroit.”
There is a special teams angle. Law returned 31 kickoffs in college, which gives him a job to compete for even if the offensive snaps never materialize. Drafting a developmental speed receiver is fine. Trading up for one on a roster this deep is what made it a surprise.
Eli Heidenreich’s Slide to the Seventh Round
Cummings went the other way, landing on a player whose fall surprised him more than any destination.
“Eli Heidenreich, Navy’s own, going to round seven was very surprising that he fell that far,” Cummings said. “I think he’s going to be a phenomenal value add for the Pittsburgh Steelers.”
The production explains the reaction. Heidenreich left Navy with 1,994 career receiving yards and 16 touchdowns to go with 1,157 rushing yards, a genuine dual threat who averaged 18.5 yards per reception in 2025. The Steelers, who took the Pittsburgh native with the 230th overall pick, view him as a versatile chess piece. Team president Art Rooney II called it the best seventh-round pick the franchise has ever made.
Cummings was careful not to oversell the comparison some floated before the draft.
“I want to call out those who wanted to comp him to Christian McCaffrey,” Cummings said. “Not at all the same player. Very similar athletic testing, sure, but this is not the same guy.”
That is the honest read. Heidenreich tested like an athlete and produced like a star against service-academy competition, but the leap to the NFL is steep, and a service commitment complicates the projection. The surprise was not where he landed. It was that a player this productive lasted until the 230th pick at all.
