NEWS AND NEAR NEWS

2026 draft preview: Wide receivers … The one thing one can probably say for certain about the 2026 receiver class is that there likely isn’t a position with more uncertainty looking ahead to next year’s draft. On the one hand, there is a lot of talent in this group. Jordan Tyson of Arizona State, the consensus top WR for 2026, for example, is currently generating at least some top 10 buzz after a breakout year last fall when he had over 1,100 receiving yards and 10 TDs; he’s got prototype size (6-1, 195) and speed and with QB Sam Leavitt back at the Sun Devils’ helm should only build on those numbers this coming season if he can stay healthy. There’s also a growing buzz around Ohio State’s Carnell Tate, a former big-time recruit who has kind of bided his time the past couple of years in the Buckeyes’ deep receiver room. Like Tyson, he too is poised for a big year, especially with opposing defences focusing on sophomore WR Jeremiah Smith, who some scouts will tell you is THE best player in college football period right now, but won’t be draft eligible until 2027.

Those two, though, are not the only wideouts with big-time potential for the upcoming draft, although the operative word here is potential. South Carolina’s Nyck Harbor, for example, is a TE-sized (6-5, 235) receiver with the athleticism to be a match-up menace to opposing teams; however, he hasn’t necessarily been all that productive to date, but could be another WR poised for a big year with LaNorris Sellars back at QB for the Gamecocks this fall. Big things could also be in store for another full-sized receiver in Nic Anderson (6-3, 220) after he transferred from Oklahoma to LSU where he’ll hopefully be catching passes from Garrett Nussmeier. Anderson is a big-play threat who averaged over 21 yards per catch in 2023 when he hauled in 10 scoring TD passes, but then hardly played at all last fall because of a torn thigh muscle. In fact, there are a number of other WRs with more second-day grades with the skill set to get at least-some late first round looks including, in no particular order, Antonio Williams of Clemson, Elijah Sarratt of Indiana, Georgia’s Zachariah Branch, who doubles as the most electric kick returner in the country after transferring from Southern California, Kevin Concepcion of Texas A&M, Kevin Coleman of Missouri, Makai Lemon of USC and 6-1, 215-pound Jaden Greathouse of Notre Dame. Under normal circumstances Oregon speedster Evan Stewart would also be on that list, but he likely won’t play this summer after suffering what is being described as a serious knee injury last month.

We would be remiss, though, in not mentioning that, in fact, THE top receiver prospects in college football this fall are sophomores not eligible for the upcoming draft including Ohio State’s Smith and Ryan Williams of Alabama, both of whom figure to be top 5 candidates in 2027. For now, here is our updated WR ranking for next April’s draft.

Interesting look at historical picks … For those that didn’t see it over the long weekend, ESPN has a neat piece in which they choose the best choice ever at every draft pick from Peyton Manning at #1 to Brock Purdy at #262. Note though that it only includes the so-called modern draft era beginning in 1967 so someone like Jim Brown, the 6th pick overall in 1957 who is arguably THE best player ever in the NFL, isn’t included. However, while Brown isn’t included, three other RBs – Barry Sanders at #3, Walter Payton at #4 and Adrian Peterson at #7 – do make the top 10, the most of any position which is a little surprising given the supposed decline of the position. In contrast, there are only 2 QBs – Manning and Patrick Mahomes at #10 – along with a couple of OTs – Walter Jones at #6 and Bruce Matthews at #9, while three defensive players – ER Lawrence Taylor at #2, CB Deion Sanders at #5 and S Ronnie Lott at #8 – rounding out the top 10.

Happy 4th!!! … A very happy and safe Independence Day weekend to everyone in all 50 states. At the same time, we hope folks will take a moment or two to reflect on what actually made America great in the first place; what made it the shining light on the hill for so many less fortunate people around the world. Be safe!

2026 positional previews: Finishing up the OL … We noted in the previous post that OT just might be the deepest position in the 2026 draft class, at least as it stands today. Unfortunately, that won’t be the case for the interior offensive line, but there is still some talent – and depth – among the OGs and centers. There is, for example, a better than even chance that at least one C or OG will be taken in the upcoming opening round which would continue a streak that began in 2021 including this past April when former Alabama OG Tyler Booker was taken with the 12th overall pick by Dallas; Booker, in fact, was the first of three guards picked in this past April’s opening round. At the same time, it seems unlikely that any interior offensive lineman will be selected quite as early as Booker this coming April, although Missouri OG Cayden Green would certainly appear to have the physical tools to figure somewhere in the middle of the opening round. Green is a 325-pound road-grader with decent mobility, but he’s just a 3rd year player who is more likely to stick with school and finish out his eligibility next fall.

However, even if Green were to opt to return to school for his senior season in 2026, there are still several other veteran interior offensive linemen who should at least get some later opening round consideration including OGs Ar’maj Reed-Adams of Texas A&M, DJ Campbell of Texas and 345-pound Olu Ioane of Penn State, along with C Jake Slaughter of Florida, a textbook technician with great feet, who heads a deep group of centers including Logan Jones of Iowa, Alabama’s Parker Brailsford, Bryce Foster of Kansas and Iapani Laloutu of Oregon, all of whom should get at least some second-day consideration. For the record, here is our listing/ranking of the top OG and center prospects for the upcoming draft.

Dolphins get TE Waller from Giants in late pick swap … Miami has reportedly been looking for a new TE after trading Jonnu Smith to Pittsburgh yesterday and they found in a most unexpected place. Indeed, the Dolphins have acquired veteran Darren Waller, who is actually coming out of retirement, from the NY Giants for a 6th round pick in 2026. The Dolphins will also get a 2027 conditional seventh-rounder to complete the deal. Waller, who was a star for Las Vegas earlier in his career, did not play in 2024 after an injury-plagued season in New York the previous year, but the Giants still had his rights.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!! … A very happy and safe Canada Day to all our Canuckster compatriots. Elbows up!!

College football comings and goings … After the past couple of years in which the college football landscape was dramatically changed by several major conference re-alignments, its actually been rather quiet this off-season. However, the ranks of FBS programs just grew by two as both Delaware and Missouri State have confirmed that they will both be moving up from the FCS ranks and joining Conference USA. That brings the number of FBS programs to 136. At the same time, though, the NCAA has denied an application for Sacramento State to play as an independent beginning next year. Sac State recently left the Big Sky Conference for the Big West which does not play football. Sac State’s ultimate goal reportedly though is to end up in the Pac-12. And speaking of the Pac-12, Texas State reportedly is close to joining the conference which is looking for an 8th football program. It does have 8 members but Gonzaga does not play football.

Steelers, Dolphins swap DBs Ramsey and Fitzpatrick plus future picks … Pittsburgh and Miami pulled off a pretty significant trade earlier today with the Steelers acquiring star CB Jalen Ramsey and TE Jonnu Smith from the Dolphins in exchange for FS Minkah Fitzptrick. To complete the deal the two teams will also swap late 2027 picks with the Dolphins getting the Steelers 5th that year, while the Steelers get Miami’s 7th.

No supp draft again this summer … The NFL has reportedly told teams that there will not be a supplemental draft this summer. In fact, there hasn’t been a supp draft since 2019. The supplemental draft was established for players whose college eligibility ended after the deadline to enter the regular draft.

Preliminary 2026 OT Preview … We notes in the previous preview that the edge rushers might be the most impactful position at the upcoming draft. However, while the DE/ERs may have the most upfront talent for 2026, no position is deeper than the OTs; in fact, we’re not sure any position has ever been deeper than how the OT situation is shaping up for this coming April. Miami’s Francis Mauigoa and 365-pound Alabama road-grader Kadyn Proctor, for example, both currently have top 10 grades, while scouts think that Isaiah World who transferred to Oregon from Nevada this off-season may have the most upside of any of this year’s tackles. He’s a 6-8 former basketball player with great feet who could be truly dominant at the next level if he can consistently maintain his pad level drive blocking. In fact, we expect that pro scouts are already planning their visits to Oregon to watch World go head-to-head against Ducks’ DE Matayo Uaigalelei, who has arguably the highest ceiling at that position.

At the same time, there’s literally a small army of really good second-tier OT prospects including the Utah duo of Caleb Lomu and Spencer Fano, along with Austin Barber of Florida, Notre Dame’s Aamil Wagner, Xavier Chaplin of Auburn, Kage Casey of Boise State, Penn State’s Drew Shelton, Caleb Tiernan of Northwestern, Blake Miller of Clemson and Ohio State’s Ethan Onianwa each of whom have solid second-day grades, along with at least some late first-round potential. And teams that wait until the middle rounds to address the position will still have some productive prospects to check out including the likes of Gennings Dunker of Iowa, Illinois’ JC Davis, Trey Zuhn of Texas A&M, Riley Mahlman of Wisconsin and PJ Williams of SMU.

A few follow-up thoughts on changing football landscape … We’ve had some follow-up thoughts from yesterday’s post on that ESPN article published over the weekend listing the top 5 prospects for the 2026 draft by position. Again, it shouldn’t really be that much of a surprise that people around the NFL doubt that Arch Manning, the presumptive #1 pick next April, will actually come out next year, as staying in school has been what Manning’s do. However, it may be a very different ball game of sorts for most other prospects with eligibility remaining. Indeed, we’re not all that sure that we may be on the precipice of a major change to the draft landscape as a result of the introduction of NIL payments, and now quite literally salaries, in the college ranks.

Until very recently, for most college prospects it was a race to get, not necessarily just to the NFL, but to free agency. Even that, though, was 3 years in school, followed by 4-5 years in the pros. All of a sudden, though, college players are now literally free agents even before they step on campus. Clearly, those players aren’t going to make the truly mega-bucks that a handful of pros get when the reach free agent status, at least for now, but the money in college for most of those players will be pretty much guaranteed. The other thing we kind of wonder about in this whole context is whether we will start to see some pressure from either the colleges, or the players themselves, perhaps thru legal action, for players with remaining eligibility who enter the draft, who either aren’t selected at all, or don’t like where or by whom they were drafted, to return to school. One would think, for example, that college football would be better off this season with a Quinn Ewers playing at Ohio State or Alabama rather than sitting on the bench in Miami.

Another look-ahead to 2026 … For those that missed it, ESPN has an article up this weekend listing the top 5 prospects by position for the 2026 draft by draft analysts Matt Miller and Jordan Reid and a couple or three things kind of jump out. First, it appears pretty clear that there is still a lot of sorting out today between now and April 23rd next year. The two analysts, for example, have different top prospects at literally half the positions.

Maybe the bigger issue, though, is that neither Miller nor Reid include Arch Manning, arguably the consensus #1 prospect overall, among their top 5 QBs as they don’t expect him to enter this year’s draft. And that’s backed up by lead ESPN analyst Mel Kiper who also just doesn’t see the Manning family wanting Arch to go pro with just one year of starting college experience under his belt (although we do wonder if a team like the hometown New Orleans Saints or NY Giants had the first pick overall might change their mind as he would be in position to pick a team that he really did want to play for.)

Manning, of course, is probably something of a special case, but what may make this draft so difficult to evaluate, at least until next January and beyond is that so many of the top prospects for this year’s draft are 3rd year players who may not be in such a rush to get to the pros with college players now eligible to cash in on their talent via the NIL dollars. And that’s especially true on the defensive side of the ball where each of the top 4 DEs (Clemson’s TJ Parker, Keldric Fualk of Auburn, Miami’s Reuben Bain and Mataylo Uiagalelei of Oregon), the top DT (Peter Woods of Clemson); both of the top LBs (Anthony Hill of Texas and Georgia’s CJ Allen); both top CBs (Jerod Mayo of Tennessee and Penn State’s AJ Harris); and the top safety (Ohio State’s Caleb Downs) are all third year players. Stay tuned!

Jags sign top pick / Hunter … Jacksonville has reportedly come to terms with WR/CB Travis Hunter, the second player picked overall at this past April’s draft. Hunter signed a 4Y deal worth $46.7M, including a $30.6M signing bonus which was paid up front. That makes Hunter the first non-QB not drafted first overall to get his signing bonus entirely up front. With the Hunter signing, just two 2025 first rounders remain unsigned: Cincinnati DE Shemar Stewart, the 17th pick this year who is embroiled in a somewhat messy contract dispute with the Bengals, and Denver CB Jahdae Barron, the 20th player selected this year.

Browns’ QB Sanders ticketed for speeding … Cleveland rookie QB Shedeur Sanders, no stranger to controversy, was charged with speeding last evening when he was clocked going just over 100 MPH in a 60 zone in a Cleveland suburb. For those who have been out of the universe, Sanders was expected to be a very early pick at April’s draft, but wasn’t actually selected until the 5th round.

Training camp dates announced … The NFL released the training camp opening dates for all 32 teams earlier today. Turns out that at least one camp will actually be open within a month. The LA Chargers will open their full camp on July 16th, while Detroit opens on the 19th. All other teams open on either the 21st, 22nd or 23rd of next month. We should note, though, that a number of teams actually open their camps for rookies earlier than those dates.

Preliminary 2026 DE/ER preview … Needless to say the QBs are almost assuredly going to get most of the national media attention as we head toward the 2026 draft (which for those that keep track of these things is now less than 300 days away!) However, a pretty good case can be made that the defensive ends/edge rushers are likely going to be the dominant positional grouping next April. TJ Parker of Clemson, for example, appears to be pretty close to the consensus top non-QB prospect, and potentially the #1 guy overall, while Keldric Faulk of Auburn and Miami’s Reuben Bain also have a top 5-10 potential. More than a few scouts, though, will tell you that the DE with the highest upside this year is Matayo Uiagalelei of Oregon. the brother of former Clemson/Florida State QB DJ Uiagalelei; he’s 6-4, 270 with the athleticism to perhaps get some snaps at TE this fall and is coming off a breakout season in which he posted 10 sacks. A couple of things to note though. First, all 4 of these guys are 3rd year players who will have at least another year of college eligibility after the 2025 season and with all the NIL money being thrown around these days are no locks to enter the upcoming draft no matter how they grade out. At the same time, it is interesting to note that the two DEs that pro teams would really like to get their hands on are true sophomores Darien Stewart of South Carolina and Texas’ Colin Simmons, however neither will be draft eligible until 2027.

Even if none of those players opts to enter the 2026 draft, there will still be talent at the position, although more along the lines of late-first, early second round types. LT Overton of Alabama, for example, at 6-5, 285, is arguably the top prototype 3-4 DE prospect; indeed, his career track to date is somewhat similar to that of for former Texas A&M Shemar Stewart, the 17th player selected this past April, in that Overton has all the physical tools of a top prospect, but thru three years to date, he has only posted 3 sacks. At the same time, there is a fairly deep group of second-tier edge rushers including David Bailey, who transferred from Stanford to Texas Tech, Penn State’s Dani Dennis-Sutton, Mikail Kamara of Indiana and Gabe Jacas of Illinois. That group could also include the LSU duo of Harold Perkins and Patrick Payton, both of whom were being thought of as potential top 10 prospects at this time last year, but Perkins missed most of the season after tearing an ACL in the Tigers’ opener, while Payton just never got going last fall at Florida State. Meanwhile, other DE/ERs pro scouts with the potential to move up this year include Trey Moore of Texas, Derrick Moore of Michigan, Jayden Virgin-Morgan of Virginia Tech, Oklahoma’s R Mason Thomas and Trey White of San Diego State, the leading returner sacker in college football this fall after posting 12.5 last season.

SC QB turns down big bucks to stay … Interesting story out of South Carolina where the father of star Gamecocks’ QB LaNorris Sellars, a possible top 5 prospect for the 2026 draft, reports that his son turned down some big money NIL offers, including one for $8M to stay at South Carolina. No doubt Sellars received a bunch of offers after a breakout season last fall, but the story isn’t quite as dramatic on further review. For one, Sellars signed an NIL deal to stay with the Gamecocks in December that is believed to be somewhere in the $2.5-3.5M range per year. And buried in the article is a note that the $8M deal was contingent on Sellars staying at the school for two seasons which suggests that the offer is actually for $4M a season. Still, pretty good money for a 19-year-old, and more to the point, reportedly in line with what other top QBs are getting.

2026 QB sleeper file … For those that didn’t see it earlier, ESPN ran an article over the weekend listing 10 sleepers for the 2026 draft. The included a couple of QBs in Fernando Mendosa of Indiana and Baylor’s Sawyer Robertson. In fact, we don’t believe that Mendosa fits the category at all; while he didn’t get much national pub playing at California last season, he’s a very good player who quite simply is more than a sleeper. We mention the article, though, because when we put together our preliminary 2026 QB preview last week, we considered adding a paragraph on potential sleepers and Robertson was one of three guys we were planning on including. As noted in the ESPN piece, Robertson is a well-built 6-3, 220-pounder with a live arm and the athleticism to make plays with his legs. Last fall, Robertson threw for just over 3,000 yards and 28 TDs – against just 8 picks – although pro scouts would like to see him up his accuracy as he’s never been much more than a 60% passer.

The other two guys we are hearing more than a little buzz these days are Taylen Green of Arkansas and Haynes King of Georgia Tech. Green is a freakish athlete who runs in the 4.45 range at 6-6, 230; he’s also got a huge arm, but is still very raw as a passer, but the developmental tools are there. Tech’s King is also a very good athlete with sub-4.5 speed and special agility in the open field; he also a very efficient passer who completed 73% of his passes last season including 14 for scores against just a couple of picks. The big issue for King is durability as he tends to take a lot of hits resulting in missed time throughout his career.

Looking ahead to 2026 QB class … We’ve bee trying to come up with a word or phrase that best describes the QB class for the upcoming draft. And the phrase we settled on is: To be Determined! On the one hand, it appears that will be a lot of talent at the position next fall. At the same time, though, almost all the top QBs in college football this coming fall will have remaining eligibility after the upcoming season and given the new NIL landscape in college football it will certainly be increasingly tempting for young pro prospects to extend their years in school to maximize those payments.

Time will tell how that actually plays out, but we could very well get an early indication this coming season as the two QBs who are generally considered to be the top guys in this year’s class – Arch Manning of Texas and South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellars – will both be in just their 3rd year this fall and both still have things to prove. Manning, for example, who is the grandson of one former #1 pick overall and the nephew of two others, will likely enter the season as the #1 prospect overall for the upcoming draft, has played well for the Longhorns when he has played, but the reality is that he hasn’t played all that much to date. Indeed, he’s thrown fewer than 100 passes thru his first two years in college and hasn’t really been tested yet in SEC play. Meanwhile, for his part, Sellars has elite tools, such that there are whispers that more than one team actually currently has a higher grade on him than Manning, but he’s still rough around the edges as a pocket passer. Read more

College football players can now be paid directly … In the latest court settlement to rock the college football boat, schools are now free to start paying their athletes directly after a multibillion-dollar legal settlement was formally approved Friday. The deal which was negotiated between the NCAA, the major conferences and lawyers representing DI athletes to resolve several antitrust lawsuits which alleged that the NCAA was illegally limiting the earning power of college athletes. As a result of the agreement, the NCAA will pay nearly $2.8B over the next decade to athletes who competed in college at any time from 2016 through present day. Each school can now pay its athletes up to roughly $20.5M this year in addition to scholarships and other benefits the athletes already receive. What it all means is that it could be more tempting to potential draft picks with remaining eligibility to stay in school.