Four days until the NFL draft in Green Bay, and there’s a lot to get to—be sure to check out my story this morning on every team’s needs (and then some). And with that, here are the last takeaways before we get to next weekend’s draft. …
Shedeur Sanders
Shedeur Sanders entered this cycle as the most interesting figure in this class and, with the draft looming, the Colorado quarterback has gone wire-to-wire with that title. A lot of people were surprised a few months ago when I said, in a few different places, that Sanders could go No. 3 or he could go 33—at the time, conventional wisdom held he was a top-10 pick.
I still think that wide range is in play.
The first question to answer is whether the New York Giants are in on him with the third pick. They have, indeed, done a boatload of work on Sanders over the past couple years, largely as part of a massive effort to turn over every rock at the most important position on the field through that time, an effort that first led to a push, before last year’s draft, to trade up for Drake Maye, and then a very busy travel schedule for the scouting brass over the past year.
I’ve heard they’ve had ups and downs with Sanders through a process that encompassed the Giants assessing all the top 2025 quarterbacks, and even getting an early look at some of the guys who figure to go early in ’26. They had him in for a 30 visit in East Rutherford, and had dinners with him in Colorado before his pro day and his private workout last week.
My guess, and I’m not 100% on this, would be that they won’t take him with the third pick, even though they liked him as they evaluated him in the fall. Maybe they get another shot at him at 34 or trade back into the first round for him. Maybe they like Jaxson Dart or Tyler Shough, both of whom they worked out and met with a bunch of times.
If Sanders gets past the Giants, I’m not sure what happens next. I would be pretty surprised if the New Orleans Saints took him at No. 9 (again, crazier things have happened). After that, maybe it’s the Pittsburgh Steelers at 21. If the Steelers pass, he could fall out of the first round all together.
It’ll fascinating to see how all this played out. To his credit, I have heard he’s been more modest the past couple weeks with teams—early on, some got the impression he was trying to steer his way to certain destinations—and has left those teams with a better feeling than some over the early parts of the process.
Still, plenty of uncertainty and intrigue remains. It’s interesting, too, because I’ve had a couple guys say to me that the only way Sanders will go in the first round is if an owner gets involved. I don’t believe that, but the idea does illustrate the complexity of Sanders’s situation.
And at the end of all this, I bet Sanders will have a heck of a story to tell.
Offensive linemen
I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a quarter of the first round is devoted to offensive linemen. At tackle, I’d view LSU’s Will Campbell, Missouri’s Armand Membou and Texas’s Kelvin Banks Jr. as first-round locks. At guard, I see Alabama’s Tyler Booker and North Dakota State’s Grey Zabel that way. After that, I think Oregon OT Josh Conerly, Ohio State OT Josh Simmons, Ohio State G Donovan Jackson and Arizona G Jonah Savaiinaea have a great shot to land in the first round. And Georgia C Jared Wilson has an outside chance to make it 10 offensive linemen in the first 32 picks.
Some of these guys wouldn’t be first-rounders in other years. Their chance to fall into that category in 2025 comes for a few different reasons.
First, there’s the class’s overall quality across all positions, down at the top. Second, there’s the Philadelphia Eagles copycat thing at play. Third, there’s not great depth after you get past the five tackles and five interior offensive linemen.
So if a team wants a lineman who can help quickly, it’d be risky for them to wait until Friday.
Which means teams will probably choose not to.
Ashton Jeanty a trade-up target
If some team takes a big swing with a trade up in the first round, I wouldn’t be stunned if it was for Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty. The New England Patriots, Jacksonville Jaguars, Las Vegas Raiders and Carolina Panthers are all open to moving down, but to this point there haven’t been a ton of teams looking to move up (Denver has explored it).
Of course, the more serious calls between teams come this week. So some team could make a move up. And if they do, I think Jeanty’s standing as a prospect makes him logical as a potential target for someone.
He’s seen by many as the only player approaching the Travis Hunter–Abdul Carter tier, with the potential to be among the best in the league at his position. And his production in college was mind-bendingly consistent—he rushed for 267, 192, 127, 259, 186, 217, 128, 149, 209, 159, 169, 226, 209 and 104 yards in his 14 games over his last year as a Bronco. He’s also very clean from a character standpoint and, as those stats would indicate, was very, very durable over his time as Boise State’s bellcow.
Of course, the Jaguars could make the trade talk moot and take him with the fifth pick.
Draft injury concerns
There are guys with injury issues to dig through. It’s a pretty important piece of the draft process for teams. Here are a few of the big ones …
• Carter doesn’t need surgery on his shoulder or foot, but he carried both injuries into the draft process, and each might need to be fixed down the line. The Penn State star also has a low lean-body-mass number, which some teams use as a predictor for injuries. So adding the existing ailments to that is cause for concern for some teams.
• Michigan CB Will Johnson has a knee issue that’s been flagged. It shouldn’t affect him in the short term, but teams are concerned it could impact his longevity. Add to the questions on Johnson’s long speed, which were not allayed when he decided not to run a 40, and the Wolverine star could slide.
• Georgia edge rusher Mykel Williams had just a so-so workout last week and told teams he wasn’t at his best because an ankle injury from the fall hampered him a little.
• Alabama LB Jihaad Campbell had shoulder surgery after the combine, and teams are projecting him as a candidate to start the season on PUP. Campbell is a bit beat up in the same sort of way that some Crimson Tide players who went through Nick Saban’s program have been in the past.
• Ohio State OT Josh Simmons tore his patellar tendon in October, and that’s a tough injury for a big man to return from. He went through the combine re-check in mid-April, and the impression teams have gotten is that it’ll be August before he’s fully cleared to play football.
• East Carolina CB Shevon Revel tore his ACL in September. He’s highly regarded, and would’ve likely been a first-rounder had he stayed healthy. As it stands, he’s expected back around the start of training camp, which will be more of a problem for some teams than others.
Washington Commanders
A year ago, the Washington Commanders got smoked for taking draft prospects, en masse, to a TopGolf for their 30 visits. Fair to say it worked out, with Washington bringing home a bumper crop of picks a couple weeks later led by Jayden Daniels, Mike Sainristil, Brandon Coleman and Luke McCaffrey. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Washington followed the practice, which came from GM Adam Peters’s 49er roots, with a group of about 20 players again this year—and it turns out they weren’t alone.
The Raiders, under new coach Pete Carroll and GM John Spytek, took a big crew to TopGolf in Vegas, with Jeanty, Michigan DT Mason Graham, Campbell, Kentucky CB Maxwell Hairston, Texas QB Quinn Ewers and Ohio State QB Will Howard all part of the group.
My understanding is Howard and Ewers were the two best golfers on hand.
The Raiders got the same stuff out of it as the Commanders. It puts the guys in a more relaxed environment where a team can see them being themselves while also getting a shot at seeing leadership and competitiveness in how they interact with one another—which is important since the makeup of a rookie class can affect how they develop together.
Of course, no one’s reinventing the wheel. But doing things this way seems to be, at least in my mind, a lot more effective than people wanted to think it was last year.
Aaron Rodgers
I really don’t know what to make of the Aaron Rodgers–New York Jets breakup story that Rodgers talked about on the Pat McAfee Show. The most biting piece of Rodgers’s spot with McAfee was, easily, his description of that conversation, and his depiction of the new Jets brass clumsily fumbling the 41-year-old’s final day in Florham Park.
Rodgers questioned coach Aaron Glenn about whether the quarterback wanted to play in 2025, but that was a logical question to ask first—if retirement was planned, then there would be no reason to make the fact that the Jets were moving on public.
Rodgers also seemed angry that the Jets made him fly across the country to give him the news. But it’s pretty easy to see a scenario where if they had just called him, Rodgers might’ve been upset that it wasn’t handled face to face.
He also implicitly confirmed something we’d reported a while ago, that Rodgers had a problem with owner Woody Johnson, but had a strong relationship with Woody’s younger brother, and co-owner Christopher Johnson. And from there, Rodgers tried to extinguish narratives he felt were either unfair or untrue that emerged during his months of silence.
I like Rodgers, personally. I think he’s intelligent, and thoughtful, and always likes talking to people who think differently like he does. I also respect how, generally, he punches up, not down—the rank-and-file people in the Green Bay Packers and Jets buildings have good things to say about him, even if the bosses don’t.
But I don’t know how productive if was for Rodgers to engage in the Jets discussion, regardless of how angry he might’ve been over the handling of the divorce. That said …
Pittsburgh Steelers
If I were the Pittsburgh Steelers, I would still do what I need to sign him. The reality is Pittsburgh’s in a short championship window. A young offensive line has a chance to become a real strength in 2025, with nearly the whole group on rookie contracts. DK Metcalf has arrived. T.J. Watt will be turning 31. Minkah Fitzpatrick’s 29. And Cam Heyward’s at the end of his career.
The time is now. They have the infrastructure to make this work for Rodgers, where he can just come in and play quarterback, and not have to change a franchise’s fortunes. They also have a coordinator (Arthur Smith) who could easily build an offense for him.
And Rodgers still has some bullets left in the gun. If you go watch the Jets game against the Jaguars at the end of the season, you can see it. He may not move like he did, but he can still see it and sling it.
So, yes, I think it’d be worth the wait for Pittsburgh to land him. Excruciating as the wait may be.
Fifth-year options
The fifth-year option deadline is coming next week—could it lead to a trade or two? So a scenario or two could play out like this: A team is wavering on exercising a fifth-year option on a player since the fifth-year option is fully guaranteed at signing. But the team also knows that the player will be more valuable with two years left on his deal than one. So rather than deciding on the option, the team trades the player to give that team the right to exercise the option and have two years of control over the player.
Thing is, to me, if you’re on the fence on exercising the option, then you’re less likely to give the guy a blockbuster extension, so you have to consider moving him, simply because being willing to consider exercising it means he’ll likely have value to someone else.
It definitely makes you wonder if, say, the uncertain future of guys such as Detroit Lions WR Jameson Williams or Giants OLB Kayvon Thibodeaux could elicit phone calls in the coming days.
Kenny Pickett
For what it’s worth, I like Kenny Pickett’s honesty. The new Cleveland Browns quarterback was asked by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about his determination to beat out Joe Flacco and win the starting job.
“That's the plan,” Pickett said. “I’m not going there to hang out. I want to go play. I’m excited, been working hard for it, taking it a day at a time.”
And there’s nothing wrong with that. He’s 26, has 25 NFL starts under his belt and has won 15 of them. He hasn’t handled everything perfect the past few years, but people are way too sensitive if they have a problem with this one.
Quick-hitters
The draft is here. And so are the quick-hitters …
• Carter has a reputation for being a bit of an “independent contractor” in teams’ research. He’s edgy and maybe a little selfish. But so are a lot of pass rushers.
• We talk a lot about guys with character flags. How about the other side? Last week, we mentioned that Georgia’s three likely first-rounders (Jalon Walker, Mykel Williams, Malaki Starks) all being top-notch. Jeanty, Booker, Campbell, Zabel, and Ohio State’s Emeka Egbuka, TreVeyon Henderson and Donovan Jackson are also in that culture-driver category.
• I’d be surprised if Banks makes it out of the top 11-or-so picks. He’s more of a prototype left tackle than Campbell or Membou and is solid character-wise. And while he had a couple rough outings against Georgia, there’s enough on tape to believe he’ll improve.
• Interesting maybe to me alone—some teams prefer Michigan’s Colston Loveland over Penn State’s Tyler Warren at tight end.
• Ole Miss DT Walter Nolen may go higher than you think. Some teams believe he projects better to the NFL than Graham. The character/entitlement question is what you have to get past. But if you have solid infrastructure, as well as locker room and defensive line room, the payoff could be big. So if the San Francisco 49ers are willing to take a swing …
• I love Tre’Davious White getting to go home to the Buffalo Bills.
• I wouldn’t read too much into Jalen Milroe’s draft invite. The NFL wants to make a bigger deal out of the second night of the draft. It behooves them to have players on hand Friday. So if Milroe, a smart guy, is alright with showing up, knowing he might not go on Thursday, I can see why the league would want him around.
• It’s pretty wild that Bill Belichick didn’t mention Robert Kraft in his book. Pretty impressive piece of grudge-holding right there.
• I’ll be interested to see how the Minnesota Vikings fill out their quarterback depth chart. Could they make a call to the Atlanta Falcons about getting Kirk Cousins back?
• Happy trails to three-time All-Pro tackle Ryan Ramczyk, who retired after eight years. He’s hanging ’em up due to a litany of knee issues, and his decision is a good reminder of how difficult it is to last in the NFL. We’ll talk about draft picks giving teams answers at positions for a decade this week. The truth? It’s hard for any player to make it 10 years in the league. Even a great one like Ramczyk.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Takeaways: Shedeur Sanders Could Fall Out of the First Round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
