Tag Archives: NFL Draft prospects

NFL Draft

Top 10 safeties of the 2025 NFL Draft:

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:


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NFL Draft

Top 10 tight-ends of the 2025 NFL Draft:

This opens the last full week with an offensive and defensive position ranking for the draft. First, we’re looking at a pretty good tight-end group with a wide variety of prospect types. In the modern game, we rarely find traditional “Y” tight-ends lining up next to the offensive tackle, but rather movable “F” pieces, H-backs in the offensive backfield and big-bodied slot receivers.

Obviously, this group is headlined by a duo of guys, who I personally have flipped compared to general consensus, but see both as legit targets in the top half of round one. Beyond that, there are four more names clearly worthy of going on day two, along with a couple of names that could sneak in if a team values those specific skill-sets. The depth beyond that is somewhat questionable, although there were some interesting evaluations for me.

This is my list:


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NFL Draft

Top 10 interior defensive linemen of the 2025 NFL Draft:

Closing the chapter on offensive and defensive line prospects for this draft, we’re taking a look at the interior D-line. Without nearly as strict front dynamics in terms of where players line up on a down-to-down basis, this includes anyone who I project to play from a 0- out to a 5-technique, meaning head-up on the center out to straight over the tackle. I’ll mention where I like them best with some of these, but of course this is no way exclusive for them.

As I asked myself recently how I would stack up the individual positions for this draft class, I basically had IDL and EDGE as 1A and 1B respectively. To me, there are four players worth being selected in the first round and at least the nine other guys discussed here having a claim to be top-100 picks. Yet, even beyond that, there are about 15-18 other names who may make active rosters in a specified role.

Let’s dig into this group:


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Misses Are Relevant – “Rank the cluster” podcast

I hopped on the Draft Professor Podcasts last night to discuss some clusters of NFL Draft prospects with Jim and Durst. Fun, insightful conversations on interior D-linemen, cornerbacks, wide receivers and edge defenders!

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NFL Draft

Top 10 interior offensive linemen of the 2025 NFL Draft:

Continuing the trench portion of our positional draft rankings, we’re moving to the inside with offensive guards and centers, who for the purposes of this exercise we’re going to combine, although I’ll specify if I prefer individual players at one specific spot. This group includes several tackle conversion candidates, who based on a lack of length or just a more fitting skill-set to me project better to the interior.

Thanks to the amount of guys who played on the edges in college but ended up in this portion, I actually prefer this class by quite a significant margin. There are four names who I believe you can make a strong case for as potential first-rounders and the other six guys should all come off the board some time on day two. What I liked however is how many prospects I went through that I could legitimately see stick on the back-end of an NFL roster.

This is how they stack up for me:


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NFL Draft

Top 10 edge defenders of the 2025 NFL Draft:

This marks the mid-point of our positional draft rankings and we’re looking at one of the strongest groups yet – edge defenders, meaning defensive ends in a four-down front and 3-4 outside linebackers, although in today’s NFL we see so many hybrid fronts anyway that the distinction isn’t as relevant.

This class is headlined by a player who would be in consideration for the top non-quarterback in most years, but there are six/seven more names who could easily also go in the first round and about the same amount additionally in the second. What’s crazy to me is how many interesting prospects are available beyond that, as I’ll probably end up at 28-30 names with draftable grades.

Here’s how the top ten (plus) looks like for me:


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NFL Draft

Top 10 offensive tackles of the 2025 NFL Draft:

We’ve reached the big-man portion of our positional draft rankings series. This week we’ll be looking at offensive tackles and edge defenders before we move on to the interior. As always, this list is based on the film only and not taking injuries into account, and watching all of these guys who lined up at OT in college, there are several transition candidates to guard or center based on length limitations or simply their skill-set translating better to either one of those spots at the next level. Here are some names you’ll find among the interior blockers – Will Campbell and Emery Jones (LSU), Grey Zabel (North Dakota State), Jonah Savaiinaea (Arizona), Marcus Mbow (Purdue), Wyatt Milum (West Virginia) and others.

So due to that, I believe there’s a pretty steep drop-off from the four tackles I have firm first-round grades on to the seven players I have more so in the mid-to-late day two range personally. Beyond that, there are a couple of developmental prospects with upside but more so quality college performers whose athletic limitations will limit them to potential swing and fringe roster candidates.

This is how they stack up for me:


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NFL Draft

Top 10 cornerbacks of the 2025 NFL Draft:

Finishing up the second week of our positional draft rankings, we’re flipping back over to the defensive side of the ball, going from wide receivers to the guys who will be covering them – the cornerbacks. Once again, I’ll break down my top ten prospects with compact scouting reports for each of them, along with some names who just missed the cut. More than at any other position so far, I feel like I should mention that these rankings don’t reflect injuries but rather purely the talent/film and generally, I don’t love trying to weigh those anyway since we don’t have insight into medical records, like NFL teams do.

This CB class to me is a little misunderstood because it’s highlighted by a player who we don’t have a firm grasp if he’ll primarily play on offense or defense – or potentially both. Three of the next four names for me didn’t finish this past college football season and therefore have kind of been forgotten. And after that, a lot of better prospects are primarily considered nickelbacks. So while this group isn’t as strong as last year’s, I believe if healthy there are five guys worthy of first-round consideration, the other eight listed here will probably find themselves inside my top-100 big board, and even though there are a couple of names that have fallen from grace beyond that, there are also a few with impressive profiles, that’ll be appealing to NFL evaluators.

Here’s my list:


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NFL Draft

Top 10 linebackers of the 2025 NFL Draft:

Continuing our positional draft rankings series, we switch over to the defensive side of the ball for the first time. After taking a look at the running back class earlier, we’re shifting our focusing to the guys who’ll regularly be involved in collisions with them – the linebackers. And that’s the formula we’re going to follow throughout this project.

This group of off-ball LBs is far less popular among scouting circles than their counterparts previously discussed, but there are two prospect with a pretty wide range in the first round. After that, there are three or four other names who will probably come off the board on day two and several players who should at worst be quality package players with special teams value.

Here’s the list:


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NFL Draft

Undrafted free agents from 2024 who could make an early impact:

The 2024 NFL Draft has come and gone, as we wrap up our extensive coverage of this stage of the league calendar. Before we sort of transition over into the final stages of discussing how teams have built up their rosters, discussing how the new additions fit in across my divisional draft and roster review series starting next week, I wanted to show some love to a few players who didn’t actually hear their names called over the course of the weekend in Detroit.

Just last year, I called out Bears quarterback Tyson Bagent, who ended up starting four games, Vikings linebacker Ivan Pace Jr., who was a borderline Pro Bowl performer, and Buccaneers defensive back Christian Izien, who was their quasi-starter in the slot. So there’s always still talent to be found once the draft is wrapped up and while opportunity has to be taken into account here, in the right situation there are UDFAs that could play significant roles as early as this season, even if it’s not in a starting capacity necessarily.

Here are some names, who I believe are capable of contributing and are in a situation where they could get a chance to do so:


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