Saints selected North Dakota State WR Bryce Lance with the No. 136 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

25 April 2026

The brother of former No. 2 overall pick Trey Lance, Bryce (6’3"/204) followed in his sibling’s footsteps to North Dakota State, where he spent three years as either a redshirt or a special teamer. Lance finally got his chance to start in 2024 and made the most of the opportunity by racking up 17 receiving touchdowns, a mark that unsurprisingly led all D1 receivers. Lance also added one touchdown on the ground. Though he “only” scored eight times in 2025, Lance did so while averaging 21.2 yards per catch and 3.58 yards per route run. Both of those marks ranked top-10 among all D1 wideouts (min. 50 targets). Lance is a lengthy deep-ball specialist from North Dakota State. That, of course, was always going to earn him the Christian Watson comparison. He solidified the connection at the NFL Combine with a 4.34 40-yard dash, beating Watson by two thousandths of a second. Lance also posted 98th-percentile burst measurables and a solid short-shuttle mark of 4.15 seconds. North Dakota State’s run-first offense doesn’t ask its wideouts to run every route at an elite level, meaning Lance will need more reps to hone his skills as an underneath receiver. Even if he never develops that skill set, Lance has a bright future as a big-play Z receiver in the pros.