I am insanely excited about this forthcoming draft so I wanted to rationalise the good and the bad in terms of expectations.
The Good
1. Looking at the big board I use, even at this point, there are prospects well into day 2 I like more than some of the early second round options last year. Will Heldt at 64. Peal, Ibiroga, Lutmer, Justin Scott, PJ Williams and Taylor Wein are currently listed as round 3 picks.
2. While there is a potential drop off from the top 10 to later first rounders that's mainly because the top 10 is potentially overpowered, not because there's a weakness in talent below that.
3. This is a good draft to go BPA. Sure, it would be nice to get a CB, S or LB and there are excellent options to be had, but the two TEs, Nick Marsh and Charlie Becker or A'Mauri Washington/ Will Echoles could qualify as BPA.
4. The top of the linebacker class looks to be awesome. The safety depth too.
5. The QBs could either be a Godsend or a risk (see below) but the more quality QBs, the better for us, either through people dropping or through teams wanting to trade up.
6. To a lesser extent, the same could be said of the RBs although that's probably a round two thing.
7. Because of the movement in CFB, there's a lot of prospects with potential on new teams. That might be a good thing - better opportunities to develop and prove themselves at better schools.
8. Last year at different stages, Emmanuel Pregnon, LT Overton, Isaiah World and Kamari Ramsey were considered top 50 picks. Those early forecasts didn't end well. That could happen again I suppose, but the quality is so much better this year, I think it less of a probability. I don't think World or Overton would sniff a top 64 projection in this class.
The Bad
1. the number of underclassmen.
2. Will the later first round QBs currently, do a 2025? Hopefully Leavitt, Sorsby, Mensah and Mestermaker don't go the way of Nussmeier, Allar and Klubnick. (see 5 above).
3. The CB and EDGE classes are relatively unproven so far so it's possible we don't big improvements. However, there is certainly opportunities for them to improve.
4. There's stil almost 3 months until any of this is put to the test. We're still swinging in the wind at this point. still, we're better informed than last year.
