DeVaughn Vele is getting a new label before 2026 even begins. Bleacher Report’s Moe Moton put the New Orleans Saints wide receiver at the top of his list of the NFL’s biggest sleepers, pointing to a late-season stretch that gave the team a reason to keep thinking bigger about him.
The attention lands now because Vele’s production did not arrive in a vacuum. Between Weeks 13 and 15 of the 2025 campaign, he caught 16 of 19 targets for 202 yards and one touchdown, a burst that came after the Broncos traded him to New Orleans before the season and after Tyler Shough built a strong rapport with him down the stretch.
Moton’s case is straightforward: Vele should be in line to operate as the No. 2 receiver behind Chris Olave while Jordyn Tyson is on injured reserve with a hamstring injury. That matters for the Saints because Kellen Moore is the play-caller, and the offense has a clear incentive to lean into a receiver who already flashed chemistry with Shough and has a defined path to targets.
There is also a catch. Vele was placed on injured reserve with a shoulder injury and missed the final three games of the 2025 season, which makes the sleeper tag look both timely and fragile. New Orleans did not trade for him to watch him from the sideline, but the team still has to find out how quickly he can get back to the level that turned heads late last year.
The football case for the praise starts with where Vele came from and how far he has already come. The Broncos selected him in the 2024 NFL draft in the seventh round at No. 243 overall, and he finished his rookie season with 41 receptions for 475 yards and three touchdowns. He has also drawn comparisons to Michael Thomas, another clue that evaluators see a receiver whose value can rise when the role and quarterback fit line up.
That is why the trade price keeps coming back into the story. New Orleans sent a 2026 fourth-round pick and a 2027 seventh-round pick to Denver for Vele, a move made in Kellen Moore’s first year with the team. If Moore does press him into a bigger role while Tyson recovers, the Saints will be trying to justify that investment with usage, not just hope.
Denver has its own answer in the picks it received, and one of them already turned into Jonah Coleman. The broader math is less simple than the return on a single player, though: the Broncos still have to feed Courtland Sutton, Troy Franklin and Evan Engram while also building around Bryant, which leaves limited room for every target to climb at once.
For Vele, that is the edge of the story. He is no longer just a former seventh-round pick with size and a promising rookie line. He is a receiver the Saints may need right away, a player Moton believes is being undervalued and one whose next step depends on whether the shoulder injury disappears as quickly as his late-season role appeared.
