The NFL scouting combine is underway and this year’s crop of wide receivers are expected to perform drills on Friday. Among those wideouts is Notre Dame’s Malachi Fields, who isn’t projected to go on Day 1 but could be a sneaky-good pick somewhere in the middle rounds.
Matt Harmon and Justin Boone discussed the wide receiver’s ceiling in the NFL and in fantasy football for 2026 on the latest episode of the Yahoo Fantasy Forecast on Thursday from the combine.
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Boone is very high on Fields and immediately compares him to former Michigan WR and current Houston Texan, Nico Collins, who was overlooked coming out of school and has carved out a nice career so far in the NFL. Both Fields and Collins stand at 6-foot-4, offering a nice size-speed combo.
If you look at Fields’ expert consensus ranking, he’s the WR12, going around 25th in fantasy football dynasty mock drafts, Boone states. The Yahoo analyst is high on Fields and has him as his WR7 in dynasty formats going into the 2026 NFL Draft. Boone likes Fields going toward the back-end of the first round and early second round in dynasty mocks.
Harmon also finds Fields intriguing and likens him to Collins because the Texans WR was able to get onto the field often as a true X-receiver. That allowed Collins to see consistent playing time, helping him break out in Year 3. Collins looked the part but wasn’t very productive in college.
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Fields finished his five-year collegiate career at Notre Dame this past season after spending his first four at UVA. He was very productive in his last two campaigns for the Cavaliers, posting at least 50 catches for 800 yards and five touchdowns in each season. He followed that up with 36 catches for 630 yards and five TDs for the Fighting Irish this past season.