Late 2025 NFL Draft nuggets: Shedeur Sanders, Jalen Milroe, Cowboys chatter and potential trades

Two years ago, it was Will Levis. Last year, it was Michael Penix Jr. And this year, it will almost surely be Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders.

Despite the ceaseless collection of data, a titanic amount of brain power and the endless decoding of intelligence, NFL teams fail to correctly assess the destinations of quarterback prospects. Franchises will pin grades to players, stack their positional rankings and take their best shot at how the draft is likely to unfold. More often than not, they come up with positional rankings and guesstimations that are fairly similar — with an acute perception of what players are most likely to be first-round draft picks and what teams are targeting them.

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Quarterbacks, though, tend to be tricky.

As one longtime evaluator framed it Monday: “More than any position, it can get wild with quarterbacks. Every year, I can say, ‘Here’s the best five or six [offensive] tackles’ and then tell you, ‘They’ll all go in the first 50 picks, and that will happen. But quarterbacks, it can be all over. To the point that I think one should come off in the fourth [round] and a team takes him in the second — and also vice versa.”

After talking to a swath of executives across 10 teams the past several days, this looks like that kind of draft. Starting after Miami’s Cam Ward — who is now universally accepted as the Tennessee Titans’ pick at No. 1 overall — it’s a roller coaster of variance. Among 10 teams, half still assessed Sanders as a possible top-10 pick on Thursday night. Four others were pinning him somewhere in the middle of the first round, while one team had him in the second. Despite skepticism that Sanders will get selected at No. 3 overall by the New York Giants, or No. 6 by the Las Vegas Raiders or No. 9 by the New Orleans Saints, a strong ribbon of executives still believe Sanders will exist Thursday having gone in the top 10.

If that seems like a murky picture, it’s nothing compared to Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe, who was invited to the draft in Green Bay, raising speculation that he might be a surprise first-round pick on Thursday. Even I believed that could be a possibility after hearing some very positive reviews in recent weeks about what Milroe brings to the table as an elite runner and still-developing passer. Among the 10 teams I polled, all assessed him as a late second- to mid-third-round pick. And yet, executives from five teams gave credence to the idea that a franchise that isn’t readily obvious could fall in love with Milroe’s overall athletic profile, skills and running ability, and try to get into the very tail end of the first round with the idea of taking Milroe and developing him into a five-year rookie contract horizon.

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“[General managers] will do deals with themselves for a big-armed athlete,” one executive said. “You break some rules for those players. Especially if there’s a need at the position, or even if there’s a future need. Look at Lamar [Jackson] when the [Baltimore] Ravens took him with the last pick [in the 2018 draft’s first round]. I’m not saying Milroe is Lamar Jackson — not at all — but I’m sure there are people still kicking themselves for not taking a gamble on the overall talent rather than the finished product.”

With all of this in mind, and having picked brains inside 10 teams, I can say this: I cannot 100 percent rule out that Sanders could go No. 3 overall to the Giants, although I believe a much more likely scenario would be New York taking Abdul Carter and then trading back into the first round to select Sanders if he slides toward the bottom of the first round. It’s a scenario that is absolutely possible, if not seemingly likely at this point.

As for Milroe, I was a little surprised how overwhelming the late second- to early third-round assessment was on him, and yet I still can’t rule out that we see a shocker (and it still would qualify as a shocker at this point) that ends up with him coming off the board in the first round.

As much as I have the “It only takes one to like you” cliché, it fits here. With both players, really.

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Now, on to a few other things as the final hours of the pre-draft clock whittle away …

• I think three franchises have some realistic buzz around them when it comes to trading on the clock: The Denver Broncos possibly moving up from 20th overall for a wideout or running back, the Pittsburgh Steelers moving back from 21st to accrue more draft capital and possibly take a quarterback closer to the end of the first round, and the Buffalo Bills moving up from 30th overall if a cornerback they like starts to come down the board and get in their range. If Texas corner Jahdae Barron gets to the 21st pick in the draft, I could absolutely see the Bills calling and inquiring about moving to 21 from 30. It’s worth noting the Bills have two second-round picks to help them climb up the board if they see an opportunity present itself in the first round.

• I think it would be a surprise if the Jacksonville Jaguars didn’t take an offensive skill position player at fifth overall. I’ll just leave it at that.

• I think I’ve been wrong for more than a month about the New Orleans Saints being locked into a quarterback with the No. 9 overall pick. I put Shedeur Sanders there in March … then I most recently adjusted that to Jaxson Dart. Now I think the pick will more than likely be an offensive tackle or RB Ashton Jeanty if he makes it to ninth.

• I think the San Francisco 49ers have been pounding high-end defensive line/edge players in their pre-draft work and it became obvious to a lot of teams. To the point that I’m now convinced they are taking a defensive line or edge player at No. 11 overall. (I will leave open the door for a trade back.) I don’t think there’s much appetite for a move to 11 right now, but if Ashton Jeanty somehow gets to that spot, I’d peg the Denver Broncos as a caller to move into that spot.

• I think we’re going to see a first round dominated by offensive linemen, defensive linemen and edge rushers, with as many as nine offensive line picks in the first, versus 10 first-round picks devoted to defensive tackles and edge defenders. Inside that group, you’re going to want to pay close attention to the offensive tackle spot because after the top five guys in the stack — LSU’s Will Campbell, Missouri’s Armand Membou, Texas’ Kelvin Banks Jr., Oregon’s Josh Conerly Jr. and Ohio State’s Josh Simmons — the evaluators that I spoke to had a significant drop to the next shelf, with the next set of tackles assessed as late second to early third-round grades. Bottom line: If your team badly needs a starting offensive tackle for 2025, it really needs to get him in the first round.

• I think the quarterback spot has some big variance based on a multitude of factors, but the QB stack for most teams is in this order: Miami’s Cam Ward, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, Louisville’s Tyler Shough, Ole Miss’s Jaxson Dart and Alabama’s Jalen Milroe. Interestingly, quite a few teams have Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord ahead of Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers in their stack, with Ewers assessed as a fourth- to fifth-round prospect. That surprised me after seeing some mock drafts with Ewers coming off in the second round.

• I think there’s a very good chance we have only three first-round wideouts in this draft and if Arizona’s Tetairoa McMillan comes off the board before the Dallas Cowboys pick at No. 12, we’ll end up seeing Dallas choose between Texas’ Matthew Golden and Ohio State’s Emeka Egbuka … unless there is a cornerback available that Dallas has higher on its board. At this point, I’d be surprised if the Cowboys pick wasn’t a wideout or corner, although I will admit simply taking the best available player — rather than for need — has worked out well for the Cowboys in recent years. If the Cowboys pull a surprise and take Missouri’s Luther Burden III, it would be a stunner. The vast majority of teams have Burden solidly in the second round in their stack. And one last thing about McMillan: he’s a much more acquired taste as a player than I initially thought. It was a pretty even split in terms of teams that had him as a top-10 pick, versus middle of the first round and late in the first round in their stack.

• I think the only thing that surprised me about the tight end stack is that so many teams have Bowling Green’s Harold Fannin Jr. solidly in the late third/high fourth area, and their fifth-best tight end prospect. A year ago, I spoke with some talent evaluators who thought Fannin was potentially the top tight end in this draft. That has definitely changed.

• I think defensive line and edge rusher is easily the most lucrative part of the 2025 draft — in all respects. Based on the stacks that I looked at, if you’re looking for high end or rotational depth along the defensive tackle or edge rusher spots, we very easily could see 40-50 players selected to fill those roles.

• I think the very recent buzz building around UCLA linebacker Carson Schwesinger flying up boards and landing as a first-round pick Thursday might be a little overcooked. Of the 10 teams I spoke to, none had him rated as more than a middle second-round pick. Perhaps he blew some teams away, but Alabama’s Jihaad Campbell was the only linebacker who had any consensus whatsoever as a first-round pick in this draft.

That’s it after a few days of calls. Let’s hurry up and get to Thursday already.