The annual NFL scouting combine is an event rooted in collecting data to inform decision making.
Prospects are measured to the eighth of an inch and timed down to the hundredth of a second to measure their speed and quickness. Teams codify interactions during meetings into various grading scales. Radar charts and NextGen Stats graphics fuel plenty of the post-workout online discourse trying to sum up the entire experience.
At this year’s combine, perhaps the most telling set of analytics data was one not publicly available though. If you wanted to tell the real story of the upcoming 2025 NFL draft, you would probably be best served by diving into the various metrics tracked by Apple Watches, Oura rings and Whoop bands strapped to team personnel and key decision-makers at every franchise.
NFL Combine Risers and Fallers
- Quarterbacks, wide receivers, running backs
- Edge rushers, defensive tackles, linebackers
- Defensive backs, tight ends
- Offensive linemen
For those that have an elite quarterback (or honestly just a decent one right now), the time spent across an unseasonably warm week in Indianapolis likely resulted in plenty of positive underlying numbers and requisite green scorecards in whatever tracking app they wanted to pull up.
Find somebody at a team that is looking for a new signal-caller however, and all those devices would probably tell a tale of late nights, high stress and plenty of nerves about the future.
It is with good reason when you dig into things and little wonder that all the chatter about this incoming crop at the position was far more muted than in recent years. No matter where you went around Indianapolis, it was rumors and whispers about veterans Matthew Stafford, Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson that dominated the discourse from the surprisingly antagonistic Starbucks locations in the morning to late into the night at the various bars and restaurants around Lucas Oil Stadium.
This year’s class of quarterbacks must deal not only with the increasingly obvious flaws being surfaced the more team personnel dig into their evaluations, but seem to occupy a bit of purgatory coming out of the combine that is equal parts historical and the result of a growing consensus regarding those at the top of the board.
Last year, the buzz in Indy was insatiable when it came to quarterbacks and the draft. What was widely viewed as a bumper crop generally lived up to the billing this past season as rookies, from No. 1 pick Caleb Williams surviving the dysfunction with the Chicago Bears to eventual rookie of the year Jayden Daniels leading the Washington Commanders to the doorstep of the Super Bowl. Michael Penix Jr. looked good in his late audition with the Atlanta Falcons, Bo Nix made the playoffs with the Denver Broncos, and J.J. McCarthy remains in high regard around TCO Performance Center in Eagan, Minn., as he works his way back from a torn meniscus. Even late-rounders Spencer Rattler and Joe Milton showed some flashes in a handful of starts.
That collection, a bit unfairly in the eyes of some evaluators, is putting additional pressure on the 2025 group because just about every side-by-side comparison goes toward the ledger of those picked last year in Detroit.
It doesn’t help matters that there’s already wandering eyes toward the 2026 class, either, which includes a slew of players that returned to school this offseason such as Penn State Nittany Lions QB Drew Allar, LSU Tigers counterpart Garrett Nussmeier and Clemson Tigers quarterback Cade Klubnik. It’s possible that someone such as Carson Beck can revive his stock in a new location with the Miami Hurricanes as well.
There’s also the matter of Arch Manning being draft eligible, too.
It’s very much like sitting between a rock and a hard place for those in need of a quarterback this year.
Complicating things is that there is a rarity in the scouting world: a consensus growing near the top of the draft at the position. Miami’s Cam Ward seems to be destined as first off the board and then there’s a gap—how mild or large depends on the team you talk to—down to Colorado Buffaloes quarterback Shedeur Sanders.
“We may evaluate both of those. Both may be options,” GM Joe Schoen of the QB-needy New York Giants said last week. “We don’t know what’s going to happen in the draft. We don’t know who’s going to be there. When we get around these kids, they may or may not be a fit for us.”
And after those two?
Well, things are quite open to interpretation depending on what you’re looking for under center. Among nearly a dozen league personnel polled by Sports Illustrated, none thought it was as close to as dire as it was with the 2022 draft that produced just one first-round quarterback (Kenny Pickett) and a lone success story in Mr. Irrelevant himself, Brock Purdy.
Still, beauty is going to be in the eye of the beholder this year as a growing pool of players is vying to be QB3—in the first round or otherwise.
There’s been some gravitation toward Quinn Ewers, a former No. 1 recruit whose stock was impacted by oblique and ankle injuries during his time with the Texas Longhorns. Oregon Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel has a host of NCAA career records on his résumé but is also 5' 11" and a rare lefty. Jalen Milroe has unmatched, elite traits when it comes to running the football but the dual-threat was hit or miss on a lot of intermediate passes with the Alabama Crimson Tide. Louisville Cardinals quarterback Tyler Shough might be the fastest riser in the draft given the gushing that has gone on around him in the media since a good Senior Bowl, but he will be 26 this fall and has a serious injury history.
If there is one player who seems to be putting at least a little distance between himself and the field, it might be Ole Miss Rebels quarterback Jaxson Dart. He’s not quite arrived as the consensus pick of the bunch to be the third guy off the board, but it’s trending that way after a strong showing in Indianapolis.
“There’s a lot of people who say a lot of different things, so I’m not trying to tie my head into anything like that. I’m somebody that’s process-driven. I just want to take it one day at a time,” Dart said. “This has been a dream for me since I was a little kid to be in this position that I’m in today. I’m really just trying to improve. I know that if I control things that I can control, everything’s going to play out the right way. I’m not even too nervous about that at all.”
It’s not the first time that Dart has come on late in the process to turn heads. During his prep days in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, he was fairly under the radar as a recruit before transferring over 45 minutes away to a different high school for his senior season ahead of the COVID-19-impacted 2020 campaign.
There, playing for a local powerhouse, he blossomed. Dart set state records for touchdowns scored and actually led the country in passing yards on his way to becoming the Beehive State’s first Gatorade National Player of the Year.
College coaches, barely a second thought during his first three years in high school, turned into a steady flow of big names trying to get to know Dart as part of a whirlwind sprint to National Signing Day. Recruiting services added stars to his profile almost as quickly as his release, all amid a steady rise from fringe college player in the region to top 100 national recruit in the space of just a few months. The USC Trojans came calling eventually and, less than a year after transferring high schools, he was on his way to Los Angeles as an early enrollee.
Dart wound up playing in six games—starting three—as a freshman at USC, throwing for over 1,300 yards and showcasing some of his toughness running the ball. But team success was fleeting amid a 4–8 campaign and head coach Clay Helton was fired. Lincoln Riley was hired soon after and Dart could see the writing on the wall given that Williams, the eventual Heisman Trophy winner, was following his coach West from the Oklahoma Sooners.
That led to a trip into the NCAA transfer portal and a journey from one of America’s biggest cities to one of its coziest college towns as Dart made the move to Ole Miss. Across three years as a starter in Oxford, Miss., he recorded the fourth most offensive yards in SEC history and led the Rebels to their first 11-win season.
“I feel like development-wise, conceptually, I’ve ran every concept and I’ve had reps at it. They know what it looks like. Coach [Lane Kiffin] at one point was the youngest NFL head coach. I think that says something. Coach [Charlie Weis Jr.], my offensive coordinator, coached in the NFL. His dad coached in the NFL, won the Super Bowl,” Dart said. “So they all know what it looks like and I feel like I was put in a great spot.”
NFL teams like that Dart has 41 college starts under his belt and he earned plaudits after a fairly extensive set of formal interviews at the combine. The 6' 2", 223-pounder also had one of the better throwing sessions on the Lucas Oil turf and is putting together a rather robust itinerary for top-30 visits surrounding his upcoming pro day at Ole Miss.
“I don’t think a lot of people talk about that but I’m the youngest quarterback in this draft class. And at the same time, I’ve had a ton of experience,” he added, perhaps subtly creating a differentiator with others in his position like Shough and Gabriel. “I think that my time throughout my whole college career has really put me in a good situation now of being able to overcome adversity and staying persistent.”
It will be several more months before we see where all that persistence leads for Dart, to say nothing of the other signal-callers that have coalesced into a similar position fighting for teams’ attention behind Sanders and Ward. The draft season is a long one and such overarching narratives about the most important position on the field are sure to shift several more times as every franchise remains in the data-collection phase for a little while longer.
Soon, though, there will be a time for decisions to be made and for quarterbacks to get drafted in a sea of career-defining moves by those making them.
As much as teams might ultimately profess their love of such a prospect on the long path to the draft in Green Bay this year, it’s a good thing their health devices’ data won’t be made public along with it as they confront a conundrum under center that a few are lucky to avoid and others are forced to reckon with between now and late April.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as This Year’s NFL Draft Quarterback Conundrum.
