Last year, just before the draft, a general manager told me he thought the top five picks in 2024 would’ve been, at that point, the top five picks in ’23.
In other words, what last year’s group lacked in top-end talent would be made up for this year.
That, by the way, was before Jayden Daniels busted out, before teams knew that Marvin Harrison Jr. wouldn’t be the only elite receiver in the 2024 class, and before the enormous depth at the tackle position started to crystallize in the fall. Still, all of what that GM said was backed up as I made a few more calls around to see if there was a consensus on it.
“The top 10 is loaded,” said another GM.
It seemed to be then, at least. It’s certain to be now.
From left: Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports; Bob Donnan/USA TODAY Sports; Stephen Lew/USA TODAY Sports
Welcome to draft season, folks. My flight touches down in Indianapolis Monday afternoon, and most of the NFL will be there by Tuesday. What’s waiting for them is one of the best crops of top-end players in years. There are quarterbacks, receivers, tackles, a deep crew of corners, and a pass-rusher or two who project as blue-chippers at cornerstone positions.
Last year, in our reporting, we came across the fact that the Lions—who wound up with an absolute gold mine drafting guys at non-premium spots such as Jahmyr Gibbs, Jack Campbell, Sam LaPorta and Brian Branch—only had14 players with first-round grades, and of those, only landed four of them. Detroit wasn’t the only team with that low of a number. It seemed everyone I talked to had a number in the mid-teens.
That won’t be the case this year.
“You could count to 32 this year,” said an AFC college scouting director, “and still find a first-round quality player there.”
“It’s a really good draft to need a quarterback or tackle,” added an AFC exec. “It’s really good at the premium positions in general.”
So where in a lot of years, I’d be in this space tamping down the optimism that every fan chases, thinking somehow players in the fifth and sixth and seventh rounds are going to project into starting roles, this year I’ll take governor off. Have fun. Go nuts. Even if the class as a whole has its flaws, the first round should be a blast, full of big-time players.
And that’s a good place to start as we get set to dive in, and get you ready for the next two months or so.
It’s combine time, and that means we’re officially into 2024, with plenty to break down for you in this week’s MMQB. In this week’s takeaways, you’ll find …
• Harrison’s pre-draft plan, and what it could mean for the draft going forward.
• How the bigger cap, and pricier tags, could lead to franchised players being traded.
• The blurrier lines between college and pro football.
• Reasons for Eric Bieniemy’s (maybe temporary) exit from the NFL.
But we’re starting on a new beginning—with the draft cycle of 2024 set to start spinning.
Every year at Sports Illustrated, we try to hook you up with a cheat sheet for the months ahead, getting you up-to-date on how the league sees the upcoming draft, with a couple experts weighing in to educate everyone (myself included). And I’m pumped to introduce the people we have for 2024.
First up is Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy. Nagy’s in a unique seat as someone who oversees a scouting department of his own, tasked with evaluating the entire class while also canvassing the NFL’s 32 teams for their opinions on players, so he can stock his annual all-star game with the players that GMs want to see in-person.
Second is ESPN’s Steve Muench. I’ve gone to my buddy Todd McShay to fill this space in the past, but since he’s sitting out this year while still under contract at the Worldwide Leader, I reached out to his right-hand man of the last two decades. As 3STEP Sports’s draft analyst, Muench is still working with ESPN to fill their need for player evaluations for their draft tracker.
Both are great, and you’ll love their perspective on the class, plus the context they bring to the makeup of individual players, positions and the class as a whole.
To set this up, I sent Nagy and Muench a list of questions to work through. I then jumped on the phone with Nagy, and emailed with Muench, to work through what I thought would be the class’s most intriguing storylines. So with that as our backdrop, let’s dive into those 10 things I was interested in getting answers on. I think you will be, too.
How should we look at the quarterback class overall?
Since this time last year, it’s seemed a fait accompli that USC’s Caleb Williams would be the first pick in this year’s draft, and North Carolina’s Drake Maye would be the second quarterback off the board, if not the second pick, too. LSU’s Jayden Daniels has since crashed the party. But the story of this group doesn’t end there.
“It’s a really strong overall group,” Nagy says. “Teams look at it as which guys could potentially start. You’re dealing with six to eight, maybe nine potential NFL starters. There’s always a random guy out of the group that ends up being a starter. That’s a big number. That’s a really big number.”
How big? I asked Nagy that question, and suggested that, maybe, this is a once-every-five-years type of group. He went bigger: “Probably a once-a-decade kind of class.”
So who are the nine potential starters? Williams, Maye and Daniels, of course. Then, Nagy named Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy, Oregon’s Bo Nix, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr., South Carolina’s Spencer Rattler and Tulane’s Michael Pratt, while allowing, again, for a Brock Purdy type of wild card. And to illustrate how balanced the group is, one long-time NFL exec said, “My hot take is that Spencer Rattler is better than Bo Nix and Penix. And I know other people who feel the same way.”
Muench had the quarterbacks stacked as such: Williams and Daniels in the top tier, Maye in the second tier, McCarthy in a third tier, Nix in a fourth tier, and Penix and Rattler in a fifth tier. And as for how good Williams is? Muench had Williams at a 96. For context, Andrew Luck had a 99, the highest grade in their system, and Trevor Lawrence had an 87. “I didn’t evaluate [John] Elway or [Peyton] Manning,” Muench says. “But I do think Williams is in the conversation of one of the best prospects of all-time.”
He then quickly added that the grade is also a reflection of the changing traits that teams are looking for at the position, which is at least in part due to the success of the player Williams is compared to most: three-time Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes. And in case you’re wondering, Daniels has a 94 grade, while Maye gets a 93. Speaking of which …
How big is the gap between Williams and the rest of the field at quarterback?
This season started with NFL folks talking about Williams, again, in the context of Elway, Manning, Luck and Lawrence as a prospect. It ended with USC having a disappointing year, Williams fading off the college-football radar late, and his backup, Miller Moss, throwing for what felt like a zillion yards after the 2022 Heisman winner opted out of the Trojans’ bowl game.
Still …
“He’s a phenom,” said an AFC college scouting director. “We really haven’t seen anything like it, with NIL, this different pedestal he’s on because of that. Replacing Rattler at Oklahoma, transfers to USC, now he’s in L.A. It’s just a different storyline with him. … But there’s nothing wrong with the kid, the team just didn’t play well. It’s his playmaking that makes him so special, he’s so creative, and he’s still got all of that.
“And to me it’s a little different than Mahomes. He’s got the creativity, yes. But this dude is more of a runner, where Mahomes is bigger and stronger, with a stronger arm.”
Joe Camporeale/USA TODAY Sports
Which is to say, yes, it’d be a shocker if Daniels or Maye went in front of him.
With that established, what’s still up in the air, clearly, is which quarterback comes off the board second. There’s a ton of respect out there for the leaps Daniels made in his fourth and fifth college seasons, at LSU, after transferring from Arizona State.
“I posted something over the summer—I thought he was the most improved player in college football last year, in ’22,” Nagy says. “Everyone talks about the jump he made in ’23. I thought he was the most improved quarterback we saw in ’22. Then he continued that this year. He had a monster year. … From junior year to senior year, I think he was just a little more patient with his reads and making more plays down the field, whereas he was a little quicker to tuck it and go the year before.”
“Daniels developed more than any other quarterback in this class over the past two years,” Muench adds. “Daniels’s decisiveness and confidence grew leaps and bounds this past year, which unlocked his accuracy as a passer. It was a special thing to watch on tape.”
So much so that whether he or Maye go second to, presumably, the Commanders (if Washington can’t trade up to No. 1), could simply come down to the style of player Adam Peters and Dan Quinn (and you can throw Kliff Kingsbury into that mix) prefer. Daniels is the more experienced and explosive athlete, whereas Maye has the bigger, broader, more prototypical quarterback build. Maye is also younger and has operated a little more consistently from the pocket.
“Drake, he’s just prototype,” Nagy says. “It reminded me a lot of Herbert when Justin was coming out, just big, prototype, strong arm, pushes the ball down the field, makes a lot of big plays, has a lot of courage in his arm.”
Is J.J. McCarthy a threat to break into the top group of quarterbacks?
This is an open question because, really, McCarthy is just now entering into the draft process. He didn’t play in the Senior Bowl like Nix, Penix and Rattler did, and he doesn’t have the tape that the top three do as passers. So there’s a lot of unknown and plenty of different opinions on whether or not he can break the Williams-Maye-Daniels glass ceiling atop the class.
One long-time exec made a note while he was studying the Michigan star that read, A question I need answered: What makes Maye so much better than McCarthy? Conversely, our AFC exec said McCarthy is “very far off” from the top three. “J.J.’s not getting in the top three. No way.”
Meanwhile, Nagy grouped him with Nix, a quarterback who a lot of people think is going to gather momentum once teams get a chance to get to know him after a so-so Senior Bowl week.
“I think both those guys have a chance to be top-15 picks,” Nagy says. “There’s something to Bo. When you do sit with Bo, and I’ve had the chance to do this, his intensity comes through pretty quickly. He is a football guy through and through. A lot’s been made of his dad playing at Auburn, his dad being a very successful high school coach. There’s an intensity about him, a competitiveness about him that I really think is going to win teams over.”
“McCarthy is the only quarterback we haven’t talked about who has a first-round grade,” wrote Muench. “Michigan’s run-heavy offense and FBS-best scoring defense meant he didn’t have to shoulder nearly as much as the other quarterbacks on the list but the traits are there. He’s tough, he’s accurate, he can make plays under duress, he can make off-platform throws, he extends plays and he’s a threat as a runner. “
One interesting element here will be how McCarthy is seen after he gets, well, seen. One veteran exec told me in the fall that he was taken aback by how narrow and lanky the Wolverines quarterback was, calling him a “stretched-out Bryce Young.” So how tall McCarthy comes in at and how much he weighs will be a factor, as will NFL teams eyeing him up trying to figure out how much bigger he can get. (He, by the way, just turned 21 in January.)
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the draft class overall?
So we’ve established quarterback as a strength. Tackle and receiver are, too. At the former, seven prospects (Notre Dame’s Joe Alt, Penn State’s Olu Fashanu, Oregon State’s Taliese Fuaga, Georgia’s Amarius Mims, Alabama’s JC Latham, Washington’s Troy Fautanu and Oklahoma’s Tyler Guyton) are all considered first-round locks and could go inside the top 20 or so. At the latter, you have Harrison, who might be the best receiver to come through in more than a decade, followed by Washington’s Rome Odunze and LSU’s Malik Nabers, both of whom would likely be top-10 picks in any class.
“The two Texas kids [Adonai Mitchell, Xavier Worthy], the two LSU kids [Nabers, Brian Thomas Jr.], Florida State’s [Keon Coleman], Michigan’s Roman [Wilson] had a great week down here,” Nagy says. “When you ask me who I like more than most, [Florida’s] Ricky Pearsall is one of my guys. I love Ricky Pearsall. I think there’s growing love in the league. I know some teams that want me to shut up about Ricky Pearsall.
“[South Carolina’s] Xavier Legette is going to be there on Day 2 somewhere. He’s just too big, fast and strong. He’s going to run really well at the combine. It’s gonna be one of those [receiver] classes where you don’t have to pull the trigger early.”
And Nagy added that the center class is sneaky good, too—with Oregon’s Jackson Powers-Johnson leading the way, Duke’s Graham Barton likely up next, and West Virginia’s Zach Frazier, Arkansas’s Beaux Limmer and LSU’s Charles Turner in the mix too.
On defense, corner was consistently raised as the best position, even if there’s not a Sauce Gardner or Patrick Surtain II to top the class. Alabama’s Terrion Arnold and Toledo’s Quinyon Mitchell are likely to both go in the top 20. Per Nagy, “middle of the first to the beginning of Day 3 probably, you’re going to be able to get starters. Last year, the Raiders took [Jakorian Bennett] in the fourth round … I think it’s going to be the same.”
As for the weaker spots, this isn’t the best year to be looking for a tight end. You have Georgia’s Brock Bowers (we’ll get to him), Texas’s Ja’Tavion Sanders, and then a dropoff to players like Ohio State’s Cade Stover and Penn State’s Theo Johnson. The off-ball linebackers aren’t great. (Nagy mentioned Texas A&M’s Edgerrin Cooper and North Carolina’s Cedrick Gray as two that had a chance to sniff the first round.) And running back isn’t awesome either, though Trey Benson’s speed at 230 pounds is intriguing coming out of Florida State.
There also aren’t a ton of pure pass-rushers at the top end of the draft, with Alabama’s Dallas Turner (whose production didn’t quite match his athletic profile) and Florida State’s Jared Verse heading up that group.
Do Nabers and Odunze have any chance to catch Harrison?
The LSU and Washington stars are really good. But this is similar to the question of whether or not Maye and Daniels can catch Williams, with Harrison in the neighborhood of Julio Jones, A.J. Green and Calvin Johnson as a prospect.
Vincent Carchietta/USA TODAY Sports
“Harrison is the highest-rated player on my board, and he compares well with those guys,” Muench wrote. “The only knock I’ve heard from NFL evaluators is he doesn’t have great ’twitch’ or snap as a route runner when you compare him to some of the elite, bigger WR prospects before him [Andre Johnson, Green, Jones, etc.]. But I’m just not buying into that mindset. To me, he has a special blend of size, acceleration and body control. He’s an Acela train coming down the tracks with the steering and control of a Porsche.
“Plus, his love of ball and work ethic will allow him to achieve greatness quickly in the NFL. Green, Julio and Ja’Marr Chase are the three highest grades we’ve given to WRs in the past two decades. Harrison’s final grade will be right there.”
“I haven’t done a lot of work on Marvin—I knew he wasn’t coming to our game—but I saw Nabers in practice over at LSU,” Nagy says. “He’s super explosive. I’ve seen people compare him to Ja’Marr Chase. I’ll say this, I wasn’t a huge buyer in Ja’Marr Chase until I saw him live. And when I saw this kid practice, he’s super explosive in-person.
“Then, Odunze, we did a ton of work on. He was our top-graded senior receiver coming into the year. We loved him off his junior tape, then he put on a bunch of weight and played even stronger this year. Yeah, those guys are all No. 1 receivers. Those guys are all legit No.1 receivers.”
So you won’t be disappointed to get Nabers (who’s a great RAC guy) or Odunze (a big-bodied contested-catch wizard, with some questions on how well he separates). I’ve heard different people say one or the other isn’t far off from Harrison. But no one I talked to was willing to say they like one of them more than the Ohio State star.
Anything that strikes you on the overall makeup of the group?
I thought this, from Nagy, was pretty interesting: “I think this thing really drops off on Day 3. You’re going to get through four rounds and then the fifth through seventh rounds have completely been wiped off the board. I put a tweet out about this about a month ago because it happened to our board. All these kids right now with NIL are kind of guinea pigs.”
So how does NIL play into it? Well, as Nagy explained it, the ability for college programs to throw money at kids and entice, say, the late-round pick, or undrafted free agent to return for another year has certainly changed the dynamics of the draft. This year, only 58 underclassmen declared for the draft. That was the smallest number since 2011, and nearly 100 fewer than the 144 that declared for the ’19 draft.
“Sure, certain positions like DL seem thin and could use the juice of a few more potential starters on Day 2. Ohio State’s returning haul has definitely been a topic of conversation in front offices,” wrote Muench. “But as a whole, this is a pretty deep class at most of the high priority positions: QB, WR, OT, CB. And I can’t think of any eligible prospects who would have been sure-fire top-10 picks that turned down the NFL for NIL money. “
In some cases, it’s great that kids who need the money have a good option to keep developing in college while they continue to pursue degrees. On the other, there is talk that coaches have misled kids on how far they might fall in an effort to keep them. So where a few years ago, the problem was players being told by agents to declare when they shouldn’t, now the reverse could be happening with coaches.
That means a very shallow end to this class, which could also wind up messing with the trade market—teams might be more protective of their higher picks because of this dynamic, and less interested in acquiring picks in the fifth, sixth and seventh round as part of moving down.
Is there any other effect NIL and the portal are having?
Well, five of the first seven quarterbacks we mentioned (Williams, Daniels, Nix, Penix and Rattler) were starters at multiple schools. And of those players, all but Williams spent five years in school and started games in multiple years at both schools. Which, in an interesting way, juices the amount of information everyone gets on them.
“I think it can clean up a lot of things, honestly,” Nagy says. “I think it ends up being a good thing for the teams because, one, it can clean up the on-field evaluation. Bo’s a perfect example of that in the sense that he played a lot of sandlot ball at Auburn and really had to show off his ad-lib skills, and then he goes to Oregon and really learns how to play within a structure.
“He had better people around him, so you’re seeing two different players on the field. Then you’re exposed to two full buildings worth of people. … It’s not just the players transferring, it’s all the movement at the coaching level as well. … When kids didn’t transfer and there wasn’t movement on the coaching side, you might only have about five or six coaches on one side of the ball that really touched the player by the time they got out of college. Five or six guys! Now that number’s like 20.”
Who is going to star at the combine?
I love this one. From our scouts, we got Texas DT Byron Murphy—“He might run a 4.8 at 305 pounds”—Turner and Benson. Plus everyone said Iowa CB Cooper DeJean would’ve blown everything out if he wasn’t missing the physical testing due to injury.
Then, Muench gave me Worthy, Guyton, Clemson CB Nate Wiggins, North Carolina State ILB Payton Wilson, Penn State edge Chop Robinson, BYU OT Kingsley Suamataia and Michigan edge Jaylan Harrell.
Muench added, “I’m not sure if Jayden Daniels will run, but his 40 time will make headlines if he does. Could challenge for one of top QB times in history of the combine.”
Nagy seconded Suamataia and added Mitchell. (“You’re talking about a guy that ran a pair of 4.3s last year, untrained, for scouts … that’s just putting your hand down in March of your junior year and running 4.3s.”) Nagy also mentioned Kansas edge Austin Booker, Kentucky LB Trevin Wallace (“a 245-pound linebacker who’ll run in the 4.4s”) and USC WR Brendan Rice, who happens to be the son of the greatest player ever at his position, and is expected to have a ridiculous 10-yard split on his 40-yard dash time.
Who needs to have a good week at the combine?
Interestingly enough, we can start with the two quarterbacks who faced off for the national title a month ago. Again, McCarthy’s height and weight will be scrutinized, and this is his first chance to make a face-to-face impression on NFL folks. As for Penix, well, there’s a lot to sort through, starting with his extensive injury history.
“Medical will be important, but he also needs to exceed expectations athletically if he tests,” says Muench. “Teams are very skeptical of his immobility combined with his injury history. So he needs to test/run well enough to force evaluators to leave Indy saying, Maybe he’s a better athlete than we think … So we know Penix plans to throw but will he test? If not, will he test at pro day? Penix could opt not to run/test and cite [C.J.] Stroud, [Bryce] Young ….
“The difference is NFL teams didn’t question their athleticism. They question Penix’s.”
Nagy raised Wisconsin’s super-sized tailback Braelon Allen, who just turned 20 last month. The 245-pounder’s 40-yard dash looms as a swing factor for his stock. And then, Nagy brought up a player that sort of surprised me: Bowers.
I had one scout tell me he thinks Bowers will come in under 6'2". Another estimated he’ll be just over that mark. Either way, this unicorn of a college tight end, who was Mr. Everything for Georgia and a big-time playmaker on two national-title teams, even a very willing blocker, is a real outlier from a size standpoint. (Dallas Clark or Shannon Sharpe might be the best comps, in that sense.) So it’d really help if Bowers’s athleticism makes up for it.
John W. McDonough/Sports Illustrated
“He’s a great player, don’t get me wrong, and he’s the unquestioned No. 1 tight end,” says Nagy. “You see the thing Daniel Jeremiah put out this week about positional value and why teams might be leery of taking Brock Bowers up high? It was basically just tying it back to the franchise tag number. You’re really not getting much of a discount. He was using the Chargers as an example. If the Chargers take Brock Bowers at five, you’re basically paying a tight end top-of-the-scale money, for a guy that hasn’t even played yet.
“You’d be paying him like a $12 million signing bonus. That’s what you’d be paying the top guy in free agency at that position, whereas if you get a receiver up there, compared to what you’d have to pay that guy in free agency, you’re getting a huge discount.”
So because of his positional value and his frame, Bowers needs to show he is the freak show—a tight end who broke off long touchdowns handling the ball on end-arounds—that he looked like he was in college.
A couple of tackles came up in conversation here, too. Fashanu didn’t have the final year at Penn State many expected, but he will now have a chance to show off the elite traits he has such a reputation for. And Fautanu, whose height, depending on what it comes in as, could have some teams projecting him to guard.
Who do you like more than others in the class?
Muench gave me a fun answer: Daniels, the Heisman winner.
“McShay tells a story about a conversation he had with Brian Kelly in 2022, pregame before LSU faced Tennessee,” Muench wrote. “Kelly said, Jayden needs to learn to trust it. If he learns to trust his eyes, his reads, the timing of his receivers’ routes, there’s nothing he can’t do. He went on to say, I’m just telling you right now, Todd, Jayden processes quickly. He can throw accurately with anticipation. But now I just need to get him to trust it and let it rip. If we can unlock that in him, he will take off.
“Right now, he wants to see it come open before pulling the trigger. And the media loves that he’s gone five games without an interception… But I’m like ‘just throw a pick and get this streak over so we can get aggressive.’ That story helps document the growth from Year 1 with Kelly at LSU to Year 2, when he wins the Heisman. It took a full year to unlock that trust but once it was unlocked, Jayden was able to play free and fast. And he took off.”
Muench’s second name here was also intriguing, if not as noteworthy: Texas RB Jonathon Brooks. He’s coming back off a November ACL tear, but Muench saw him as a top-40 player, and the best back in the class, before he was hurt.
Nagy put another running back in this grouping, saying he sees USC’s MarShawn Lloyd as the best at the position in the class. Nagy also named Illinois G Isaiah Adams and Florida State DT Braden Fiske, plus the Kentucky LB Phillips, who he said was regarded as a better athlete and better mover than Jamin Davis, the Wildcat linebacker the Commanders drafted in the 2021 first round, was coming out.
Now I hope we’ve got you ready to roll for what’s ahead over the next two months.
The combine is this week, pro days get rolling next week, and between now and the draft, there’ll be more than enough for us all to dive into. Even better, this year, we don’t have to listen to the over-the-top amplification of how good this or that top-20 prospect is.
Chances are, this year, you’ll be justified to say those sorts of things. Which also explains why, for teams, this group promises to be worth the wait.
