Tag Archives: NCAA Football

NFL Draft

Undrafted free agents from 2026 who could make an early impact:

About a week-and-a-half away from the actual draft, I went back to one of my favorite exercises of the year, highlighting ten names who weren’t among the 257 that actually got a call over the course of those three days, but could be meaningful players in the NFL.

These aren’t necessarily the guys I had ranked highest in my individual rankings, but rather considering the landing spots and how these names within the depth chart potentially, who I believe have a real path to playing snaps this season. Expecting any of them to start at any point as rookies would be unrealistic, but recently nearly two UDFAs made it through final roster cuts for all 32 teams (57 each these last two years).

Here are a few I believe could be next:

 

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NFL Draft

Recapping the entire 2026 NFL Draft:

The 2026 NFL Draft is in the books, and it’s time review everything that happened. We all knew Fernando Mendoza would be the first name off the board, but then we had multiple surprise picks over the first half of night one especially. Day two was marked by a couple of head-scratching tight-end selections and only one running back hearing his name called (and certainly not the one we expected). And thankfully, it only took for the first selection of Saturday for the slide of potential top-ten pick Tennessee cornerback Jermod McCoy to finally come to end, due to his uncertain medical situation, before LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier only just got drafted at the very end, as the tenth quarterback off the board, in a weak class otherwise.

As always, I will recap the action with four categories – the biggest winners and losers, steals and reaches of the draft. These opinions are based on my personal evaluations, in combination with consensus boards, analyzing roster construction and the situations of veteran players, who may be significantly affected by the picks that were made. Players who reportedly fell largely due to injury concerns may only be limited as honorable mentions in the “steals” category.

Let’s dive in:

 

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NFL Draft

My ultimate 2026 NFL Mock Draft:

Just four days away from night one, it’s time for my ultimate mock draft! I predict picks 1-32, including some fun trades and discussions, and then make one selection for all six teams who currently don’t own a first-round pick!

 

 

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NFL Draft

Top 150 prospects of the 2026 NFL Draft:

Now that we’ve broken down every single position group in detail, it’s time to put it all together and present my big board for the upcoming draft, listing the top 150 prospects. As I’ve said the whole way, these are purely based on my personal evaluations, without taking schematic fits and team-specific needs into account. I also don’t have insight into medical reports or background character checks. I did try to weigh current injuries here, as opposed to the grades I put on the players previously.

As per usual, wide receivers are at the top of the list in terms of the total names who made it, with 20 guys making the cut, but edge rushers aren’t far behind with 16-17 total. Teams wanting to bolster their offensive backfields will be a little disappointed, with only six quarterbacks and ten running backs sneaking in here. You can find detailed scouting reports on nearly all of these names as you go through the different positional rankings.

(* denotes players with imminent injury concerns)

Here it is:

 

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NFL Draft

Top 10 quarterbacks of the 2026 NFL Draft:

We’ve reached the final piece of my annual positional draft rankings series, and of course it’s the one that gets discussed the most – quarterbacks. Unfortunately, I can’t say that we’ve saved the best for last here, as this group certainly doesn’t match up to 2024 or really even last year – in large part because so many young passers we expected to come out actually decided to go back to college – but there are some interesting discussions to be had.

I believe we have one quarterback that is worthy of being the first guy off the board in many drafts. Then I personally have a two-man tier in the second round, before we get to a pretty substantial drop-off. There may only be two or three other names that ultimately make it inside my personal top 100, and then, I ended up with a couple of likely surprises to close out this list.

Let’s get into it one more time:

 

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NFL Draft

My guys of the 2026 NFL Draft:

Less than three weeks away from the NFL Draft, it’s time for the annual “my guys” episodes, where I highlight one prospect for each position group, who I like significantly better than where they’re currently ranked on consensus boards.

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NFL Draft

Top 10 interior defensive linemen of the 2026 NFL Draft:

We’re closing out our two-week venture into the trenches, as part of the annual positional draft breakdown series, with all interior defensive linemen. In this group, I include I include everything from a true zero-technique head-up over the center all the way out to a 4-/5-technique over the center. With how versatile front alignments have become, even though I incorporated what players are best suited to play as, and some as more defined in the roles they’ll be put into, most of them will be asked to wear different hats.

Right off the bat, I was pretty underwhelmed with this group. There’s a player atop the list who could’ve been a top-15 pick if he wasn’t still dealing with a lingering injury, but another name that was discussed in that range last summer has massively fallen off and there are hold-ups I have with most names beyond that point as well. Altogether, eight of the first ten names are all in the 30-to-100 range.

Once again, these grades do not reflect potential injury or off-field concerns, which is particularly important to point out for this crop of prospects. Let’s talk about them:

 

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NFL Draft

Top 10 interior offensive linemen of the 2026 NFL Draft:

We‘re already officially past the mid-way point of our positional draft rankings series, and after discussing offensive tackles and edge defenders last week, we’re moving to the interior, starting with the offensive side of the ball yet again. This is a group that started to grow on me the more I started to watch, although I did find it funny how many undersized centers and big guards with some movement restrictions there were, to cap the ceiling overall.

There’s one legitimate top 15 pick headlining the class. After that, there are more names I’d have be willing to target early in the second round, before the get to an extensive list of names in contention to have their names called some time over the rest of day two. Altogether, I can get to a number in the high 20s that I’d consider potential rotational players with developmental upside.

Let’s get into it:

 

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NFL Draft

Top 10 edge defenders of the 2026 NFL Draft:

After breaking down the offensive tackle class earlier in the week, we flip things around and look at the guys that’ll be coming off the edge against them, as part of the positional draft rankings series. This includes guys that I project to primarily line up anywhere from a five- to a nine-technique. Ohio State’s Arvell Reese and Michigan’s Jaishawn Barham already were listed among the (off-ball) linebackers.

With Reese not being part of this group for me, even if he may ultimately be deployed on the edge, we may not have that premier, clean prospect atop the ranks, but number one will be a top-five overall prospect in the class for me. I do see a bit of a drop-off to the next name and then an even bigger one to the handful that come after. However, ultimately I would be fine with the entire top 10 coming off the board within the first 50 picks, and even the two guys that just missed the cut for me, could easily go at the end of the second round. Plus, then there are probably around 30 total guys that I’d deem “draftable”.

This is how the class stacks up for me:

 

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Top 10 offensive tackles of the 2026 NFL Draft:

We’ve arrived at the big boy portion of this positional draft breakdown series, where we’ll start with the offensive tackles before transitioning to edge defenders and then moving on to the interior of the trenches next week. For clarity’s sake – you will find names like Iowa’s Gennings Dunker and Duke’s Brian Parker II among the “IOL” list. And I don’t take (current) injury or other concerns into account for these rankings, since I don’t have all the information, while individual teams will alter their boards based on scheme fit/guidelines.

Although we don’t have this one perfectly clean OT prospect in the class, I believe the top seven names are all worthy of going in the first round. After that, I see a steep drop-off, to where I wouldn’t touch anyone else until the third round. In fact, despite there being a few interesting developmental options, with a couple of massive guys that present certain flaws, outside of this top ten, I would only consider an investment either very late on day two or early on day three.

This is what it looks like:

 

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