In just over two weeks’ time the NFL combine kicks off, and before you know the next batch of talented youngsters will be let free to roam the league.
As is tradition, Dane Brugler’s first NFL Draft Big Board of the year dropped this week profiling the top 100 prospects.
Unsurprisingly, Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter keeps the top spot, Abdul Carter rises to second, but Cam Ward remains the sole quarterback in the top 20 with Shedeur Sanders dropping to 25.
On the latest episode of “The Athletic Football Show”, Brugler joined Robert Mays to break down his latest rankings and explain what’s unique about this year’s quarterback class.
A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on YouTube below or in “The Athletic Football Show” feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Robert: As you were going through your initial top 100, and you kind of took this bird’s eye view of the class for the first time and put it on paper, what were your initial thoughts as you were going through this exercise? What was just some of your bigger picture takeaways about this class overall as we get started?
Dane: I don’t think there was anything groundbreaking that we didn’t already know. Tight end, running back and defensive line; those are the three positions that are just loaded. Several of those guys at those positions I had to leave off the top 100 and I hated doing it, especially D-line. It’s just such a loaded group, especially edge and defensive tackles. A lot of future starters are going to come from this draft. Going into the fourth round, there’s still plenty of names that are quality players. So those three positions certainly stand out.
When you look at the top of the draft, I feel really good about the top two guys — those are the blue chippers. I’m talking about Travis Hunter from Colorado and Abdul Carter from Penn State.
Then, I agonized over who I was putting at three. There’s maybe a tier of 10 guys, but any of those 10 I think you could make a case for why they would belong at three. And you hate to do it by position, where you say, ‘Well, it’s got to be a left tackle or it’s got to be a pass rusher.’ You don’t want to think about it necessarily in those terms. You just say, ‘Give me the best impact player.’ I settled on Jalon Walker from Georgia, who is a big projection. The traits are awesome and the characters awesome. There’s just a lot there that I would want to make that bet. So after those top two guys, ranking three through 12 is really interesting and it’s going to be a wild difference from board to board.
I keep going back to the quarterbacks and this is something that is difficult, trying to think of the best way to frame how to talk about this quarterback class. I think we’ll have plenty of time to dissect each individual guy. I kind of want to look at it through this lens; since 2014 — so the last 11 drafts — only once has there been a draft where we had more day two quarterbacks drafted than day one. That was the Kenny Pickett year (2022); one first round quarterback and then a pretty rough group later on with (Desmond) Ridder, Malik Willis and Matt Corral.
Robert: The EJ Manuel year was the other year that was a little bit wonky in there right? Was that 2013?
Dane: Yeah that was 2013, so that was right before. That’s why I cut it off in 2014. EJ Manuel had no business going first round, but he did. And then Matt Barkley and Ryan Nassib were in that group and a couple of other names. But just the last 11 drafts, just once.
When you look at this class, I think based on my evaluation and based off of how teams talk about these quarterbacks, there’s a very good chance we have more day two quarterbacks than first-round quarterbacks. It’s one of those things where teams are going to look at it and say, ‘Yeah, let’s get our tackle here and let’s take a chance on a pass rusher here in the first round. And then we’ll take our swing on day two and if it works out, great. Drafting a quarterback at pick 60 or pick 80, it’s not going to stop us from drafting one next year, or the year after that if it doesn’t work out.’
I realize how unique the Eagles’ situation has been over the last five years, but Jalen Hurts was basically a flier in the second round and outside the top 50 picks. The Eagles were debating between him and another player up until the wire. So it’s not like they traded up and really targeted him, it just kind of worked out that they drafted Hurts.
I’m not going to say that day two quarterbacks is now the norm. That’s not it. The playoffs are still chock full of first round guys. In a class like this one, it’s not going to be surprising when there’s more day two quarterbacks drafted. For example, I’m thinking about the Colts. If you’re (Chris) Ballard, you might feel like you have to go all in on this version of what you’ve built to keep your job. But I would argue that you look at one of these day two quarterbacks as a potential off-ramp, if Anthony Richardson and that trajectory just doesn’t take shape by Halloween.
The chances of threading a needle like the Eagles did with Hurts … it’s unlikely. A flat out low percentage, but it’s still a potential option that I think several teams are going to examine based off of what this draft is giving us. The Rams has a unique situation with (Matthew) Stafford. There’s going to be a lot of dominoes that fall these next few months before we get to the draft.
Robert: I think we can learn something from the Eagles, and the Niners I would throw in there as well — a team that their off-ramp for quarterback ended up becoming a franchise-altering thing. We talk less about what happened with Trey Lance because they landed on Brock Purdy. We talk less about the Carson Wentz situation blowing up for the Eagles because they had an off-ramp for Jalen Hurts. Just giving yourself multiple chances here, and I think that is worthwhile.
The Colts is a good team to mention because they don’t really have a ready-made backup. They had Joe Flacco (at 39 years old) last year. So you could easily talk yourself into it and say, ‘We need a backup quarterback anyway. If we take the guy in the fourth round, that’s a worthwhile price for that roster spot and then potentially, does it give us another solution?’ If you don’t feel great about what’s happening at your quarterback position, taking multiple bites at the apple over a series of several years is typically worthwhile. So I think a lot of teams could be thinking about it that way.
You can listen to full episodes of The Athletic Football Show for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and watch on YouTube.
(Top Photo: Louis Grasse/Getty Images)
