New Kids on the Block | Residual Effects of 2026 Rookie Injuries
“Step by Step” isn’t just the highest-selling hit from the infamous New Kids on the Block of the late 80s/early 90s—it’s also a pretty good description of how you build a fantasy football team. You start with talent. Then add opportunity, and finally upside. Hopefully, you put all the pieces together into a championship roster. Sometimes, however, there’s a step that fantasy managers overlook: Health. The 2026 rookie class is loaded with players who could make an immediate impact. Still, several of the “new kids on the block” come with injury histories or current health concerns that could impact their development, workload, and ultimately, their fantasy value. B efore you fantasy managers thrust them into their lineups, let’s take a closer look — step by step. If there’s one thing fantasy managers love, it’s upside. If there’s one thing they hate, it’s uncertainty… Chris Bell brings plenty of both. The Miami Dolphins selected Bell with the No. 94 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, but his draft-day slide had little to do with his talent. The former Louisville standout tore his left ACL on November 22, 2025, ending his final college season and forcing him to spend the offseason rehabbing rather than preparing for the NFL Combine or his rookie campaign. He underwent surgery in December. The rehabilitation process is more complex than simply waiting for the ligament to heal. Current return-to-sport literature emphasizes a combination of objective strength, functional performance, movement quality, and sport-specific testing before clearing an athlete. For an ACL-reconstructed athlete, some of the key metrics include: Dolphins WR Chris Bell will be their WR1 before year-end Man is running legit hitch routes, comebacks, go’s, and posts 8 months off an ACL as a sure-fire Top 50 pick pic.twitter.com/hWfwPM0HUB — Clint Goss (@NFLDraftDome) August 31, 2026 For Bell, the question isn’t simply “Is his ACL healed?”; i t’s “Is he physically ready to handle NFL football?” Bell has made encouraging progress in his recovery, returning to practice after beginning training camp on the NFI list. But returning to practice is only one piece of the puzzle. After missing valuable offseason reps, Bell still has to regain his football conditioning while learning a new offense and competing for snaps. That’s where the fantasy concern comes in. Bell has the talent and opportunity to become an intriguing rookie fantasy asset. Expecting him to immediately perform like the player he was before the injury may be overly optimistic. The ACL may be structurally healed, but I’ll be watching his strength, explosiveness, workload tolerance, and movement confidence. If Bell’s story is about returning from one major injury, Jordyn Tyson’s is about the pattern . Tyson was selected No. 8 overall by the Saints after an impressive 2025 season at Arizona State, but his injury history was one of the biggest concerns surrounding him entering the draft. He missed significant time with a knee injury early in his college career, suffered a collarbone fracture in 2024, and dealt with hamstring problems in 2025. Unfortunately, that concern followed him into the NFL. Tyson suffered another hamstring injury during training camp and is expected to miss approximately two months , potentially costing him the first several games of the regular season. Hamstring injuries are particularly concerning for wide receivers because high-speed running is both critical to the position and a common mechanism of hamstring injury. A review by Dr. Anthony G. Schache et al. (2022), “ Hamstring Injury … A Clinician’s Guide, “ emphasizes that rehabilitation should progressively expose athletes to increasing running speeds, eventually reaching high-speed and maximal sprinting before returning to sport. The authors also highlight the importance of managing high-speed running exposure as athletes progress through rehabilitation. That matters for Tyson. Getting him pain-free isn’t the [... truncated ...]
