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Jeremiah Hasley, TE Duke

Duke lost its top five receivers and replaced them through the portal. The tight end who caught 40 balls last year is still there at pick 160.

60% exposure across 5 drafts · ADP 159.7 · my board has him 47th

Update, Sept. 17: this piece was written before the season from my first five drafts. Across all 16 drafts now, Hasley is on 5 (31%), his ADP is 156.4 and my board has him 57th. Through two games he's off to a slow start at 5.7 half-PPR points a game (TE23 among Underdog's tight ends with two games, per ESPN box scores). The case below is unchanged; the early production hasn't caught up to it yet.

I am not going to pretend I have a model that beats the market here. Best ball is not about beating ADP. It is about finding value around it.

This is one of those.

Part 1: What I paid

Hasley is in three of my five Best Bowl Mania drafts. Sixty percent exposure, which for me is a lot.

His ADP is 159.7. That is round thirteen of a twenty-round draft, and it is where the room is comfortable taking a tight end who was honorable mention All-ACC last season.

My board has him 47th. That gap is the entire reason I keep clicking his name.

Part 2: The vacuum, and what is filling it

Here is the thing that made me look twice.

Duke lost its top five wide receivers. All of them. And quarterback Darian Mensah on top of that.

What is coming back is the tight end who started every game, caught 40 passes for 454 yards and six touchdowns, and is now in his final year of eligibility.

But I am not going to sell you a vacuum that is already partly refilled, because the portal cuts both ways and Duke used it.

Walker Eget arrives from San Jose State with two years of starting experience, 5,555 passing yards, 30 touchdowns and 19 interceptions, out of a genuinely pass-heavy offense. He is expected to win the job. That matters, and it cuts in Hasley's favour rather than against him: an experienced quarterback from a throwing system is a much better outcome for a tight end than a true freshman learning on the job.

Jared Richardson arrives from Penn as an All-American, 80 catches for 1,033 yards and 12 touchdowns, leading the Ivy League in both receptions and receiving scores. He is expected to be Eget's top target, and at 6'2" and 215 he is going to command real volume.

So the honest version is this. The receiver room did not stay empty. But a new quarterback still throws to the guy who has been in the building, and Richardson is a wideout, not a tight end. Hasley's competition for targets is real and it is also not at his position.

Part 3: What people who watch him say

Pro Football Focus has him as the No. 6 returning tight end in the country going into 2026. He made the Preseason All-ACC first team. Bruce Feldman put him on the 2026 Freaks List, which is an athleticism list, not a production one.

He is also a converted linebacker, which explains the Freaks List and explains why Duke trusts him to block in a run-first offense rather than hiding him on passing downs.

At ACC Kickoff, Manny Diaz brought Hasley as one of four players to represent the program, and framed his message around connection in what he called a transactional era of college football. You do not bring a role player to do that.

Hasley on Mensah's departure, asked whether the contract situation caused friction: "He was a great quarterback for us. He earned everything he got. There was never a problem."

That is a captain answering a question he did not have to answer well.

Part 4: Why the pick, and not the projection

Underdog projects Hasley below several tight ends going later than him. I am taking him anyway, and I want to be honest about why.

In best ball your lineup gets picked for you after the week happens. What you are actually buying is spike weeks, and spike weeks come from being the primary option, not from being efficient.

A tight end on a team with five returning receivers is a bench piece who occasionally scores. A tight end on a team with no returning receivers is a target hog with touchdown equity every week.

Those two players can have identical projections. They are not the same asset.

Part 5: How he fits the build

Best Bowl Mania is 12-team, 20 rounds, superflex. That last word matters more than anything else in roster construction here, because quarterbacks come off the board early and often.

My shape across these five drafts: 4.6 QB, 5.6 RB, 7.2 WR, 2.6 TE per team. I hammer quarterback in round three and I take tight ends late.

Hasley is why the late tight end works. If you can get a team's clear number one option at the position in round thirteen, you do not need to spend a fifth-rounder on the position to feel comfortable.

Part 6: Where I could be wrong

Two ways, and they are real.

Eget could be a downgrade in disguise. Two years starting is experience, but 30 touchdowns against 19 interceptions is not elite, and San Jose State's offense is not the ACC. If he struggles, target share on a stalled offense is worth much less than it sounds.

Richardson could take more than his share. An All-American receiver who led his league in both catches and touchdowns does not arrive to be the third option. If he commands 25% of the targets and a running game takes its cut, the tight end who was a security blanket last year becomes the third read.

Neither changes the price. At 160 you are not paying for certainty, you are paying for a shot at a top-five positional finish. That is the trade.

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Exposure figures from my own Underdog draft exports. ADP from Underdog best ball rankings. Statistics and quotes from published reporting. Nothing here is betting advice, and I am telling you what I did, not what you should do.