The Athletic

With the NFL trade deadline fully in our rearview, the league’s stretch run toward the playoffs can officially begin. That’s also happening in college football, as we’re inching closer to the largest playoff we’ve ever seen — a postseason that should be a huge opportunity for 2025 NFL Draft prospects to showcase their talent against top-level competition. This is not a particularly stellar draft class to begin with, but our new world of unbalanced scheduling has further complicated several evaluations, especially for the quarterbacks. As we’ve written a bunch already this cycle, this will be a preference draft. There’s not likely to be a top 15 consensus and, as has been the case in recent years, expect to see at least one quarterback taken in the top 10 who wouldn’t rank inside the top 15 in a position-less stack. Using Austin Mock’s latest NFL playoff projection to assign draft slots, here’s a post-trade deadline run through the first round: