We enter the second half of our divisional draft and roster review series, where today we’ll taking a look at the Falcons, Panthers, Saints and Buccaneers. I’ll break down every single player they drafted, their roles on the roster, incorporating all the other offseason moves, and share my perspective on what they did overall.
Closing out the first half of our divisional draft and roster review series with the Bills, Dolphins, Patriots and Jets. We’ll once again break down every single player they selected in the draft, their projected role on their new team and the overall construction of those rosters throughout this offseason!
Entering week two of our divisional draft & roster review series, we’re headed East and start on the NFC side with the Cowboys, Giants, Eagles and Commanders.
We’re now about one-and-a-half weeks removed from the 2025 NFL Draft, and after sharing all of my overarching thoughts – biggest winners, losers, steals and reaches – in a big recap piece I want to continue with the annual tradition of shining a light on a few players who didn’t actually hear their names called over the course of that weekend, but could be factors for the teams they signed with afterwards as undrafted free agents.
Once again, I chose six players on offense and defense respectively, but added one more name to keep track of for all 32 franchises at the bottom of the list. First, I will give some basic information on the prospects coming out of college, discuss some of their strengths and weaknesses, before I finish by explaining how they fit from a schematic sense and in relation to how those rosters are currently constructed, to provide an opportunity to earn a spot. Obviously, this is an uphill battle for all of these players because of the minimal resources invested in them, but they now have a chance to earn the attention of their new coaching staffs and carve out pro careers for themselves. A few noteworthy names that have made my list in the past – Bryce Huff, Ar’Darius Washington, Reed Blankenship, Tyson Bagent and Ivan Pace Jr.
Let’s get into this year’s version!
Another draft cycle comes to a close, as we started with all 32 teams being in control of their first-round pick for the only time in the common era, yet it only took until the second overall selection for us to get a major shake-up, when the Jaguars’ new regime moved up three spots with the Browns to add two-way superstar Travis Hunter. And Cleveland would be the ones to end one of the most prominent draft slides we’ve ever seen, which ended up being the biggest storyline of the weekend.
To recap everything that happened, I will once again outline who I believe were the biggest winners and losers, steals and reaches across those three days. As always, my thoughts are purely based on evaluating the skill-sets of prospects at this moment and without access to all the information about medical reports and potential character/off-field concerns. However, I will disregard some names for the “steals” category if either one of those clearly applies based on the reporting out there.
If I don’t talk about your favorite team specifically today, in just two weeks I’ll start my divisional draft and roster review series, where I give the spotlight to all 32 teams in podcast form, discussing every single player they selected, their projected role and how it all fits with the other roster moves they’ve made. And of course, I have scouting reports on over 130 prospects here on my site, as part of my positional draft rankings, if you want to dive deeper into individual names.
Let’s break down the biggest storylines and selections today!
We’ve arrived at the final segment of our positional draft rankings and as always, we’re closing out with the quarterbacks. Of course, this group is always getting the most attention and as someone who doesn’t put his full thoughts out there until this point, it’s funny to listen to narratives changing throughout each draft cycle when there’s no actual football being played, other than for the guys who partake in all-star game weeks.
I have thought all along that the name at the top of this list was in a completely different tier to the rest of the class – and it seems like that’s become general consensus as we’ve gone along here. After that, I believe there are four names who I’m personally much more comfortable across day two, even though I understand that a couple of them will probably get pushed up into the first round. Beyond those, I see a lot of disagreement between people I respect and the order looks different for me than what consensus boards would suggest, but ultimately I don’t feel great about any of them becoming legit starters at the next level, even though I believe there qualities worthy of investing some capital into.
So one more time, let’s dive into this:
In our final defensive segment of this positional draft rankings series, we’re looking at safeties. With the modern NFL being so much more against spacing the field with interchangable skill-sets and being in two-high looks at the snap, differentiating between free and strong safety is obviously an antiquated view at the position. Instead, I will reference the different roles certain players are capable of filling – do they profile as someone who can extensively play in the high post, as part of the box, be a big nickel in three-safety packages, etc.
Personally, I wasn’t particularly high on this group on the surface, but as I started to dive into names lower on consensus boards, I did find some guys with redeemable qualities down the line. To me, there’s one standout who simply isn’t being discussed enough and ultimately will end up in my top-ten overall prospects. The order of the next few names is rather different to what you generally see because one other guy has simply been forgotten about it seems like. And while ten seems to be pretty much the ceiling of safeties we’ll see selected over the first two days, there are plenty of role players and potential core special teamers beyond that, who’ll probably make active rosters.
This is my list:
It’s that time of year – the annual “my guys” episode, where I break down my favorite draft prospects at every single position! These are the players I generally just enjoyed evaluating and value higher than where they currently sit on consensus boards.
The NFL season has concluded with the Philadelphia Eagles putting on a dominant showing in Super Bowl LIX, when they got revenge on the Chiefs by ending their quest to the first ever three-peat, which started two years ago with a win over the Birds on the big stage. Of course we’ll discuss free agency soon, but we are ready to fully dive into draft season and for people who haven’t paid attention yet – this process has already started.
We’re just over two weeks away from the NFL combine, but the all-star games and preparation for those are in the books. So after watching all of the practice footage and both contests to finish off those events, I want outline the names that stood out the most to me from East-West Shrine and Senior Bowl weeks. I did watch the Hula and Tropical Bowl and we’ve still got the HBCU Bowl on slate, but I want to focus on those two prime showcases of talent.
Therefore, I decided to highlight ten standouts on offense and defense each, also picking the same number from each event. I could’ve easily talked in detail about several other players who caught my eye and am happy to share my notes down in the comment section, but I did at least list a bunch of names at the bottom.
We are here. 284 total games have been played between the regular season and playoffs, 30 teams have been eliminated and two more remain, battling for the right to hoist the Lombardi Trophy this upcoming Sunday.
With how things played out, we get a rematch of Super Bowl LVII from two years ago, when the Chiefs beat the Eagles 38-35 in Glendale, Arizona. The Eagles took the regular season battle in week 11 of the following season. Now, they are set to square off again, with a lot of the same faces but especially on Philadelphia’s side, they come in with two new coordinators and a superstar in running back Saquon Barkley.
One side is going for the first three-peat in NFL history, while the other one is trying to get revenge and stand up to another dynasty, just like they did against the Patriots seven years ago.
Kansas City’s only legitimate loss outside of week 18, when they were resting starters since they had already clinched the AFC’s number one seed, came to the Bills. Although they weren’t dominating opponents and ranked just outside the top-ten in overall point (+59), they routinely were able to come out on top of tight battles, even if some might argue that a few favorable calls at least aided them along the way. Still, they were in control throughout their Divisional Round affair against the Texans and were able to avenge that one meaningful defeat when they once again hosted Buffalo in the Championship game.
Philadelphia in the meantime needed a good month to find their groove, as they started off the season only 2-and-2 before winning 10 straight games and all but one of their final 13. Only the Lions ended up with a better point differential (+160) and with those guys losing in the Divisional Round, the NFC more or less went through Philadelphia. In no way would I say the Eagles were particularly convincing against the Packers or Rams, but Saquon delivered multiple break-away runs, the defense stepped up in key moments and they won the turnover battle six-nothing across those two games. Then, in the conference title game, they arguably had their most complete showing against Washington, who previously beat them in walk-off fashion in week 16, and pulled away from them in the second half.
I want to first break down how the two representatives want to operate on both sides of the ball, some of the ways they could attack each other schematically, present a couple X-factors for each team and then give my prediction for the final score, including my pick for Super Bowl MVP.
Let’s dive into this massive showdown:
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