Lou Pickney's NFL Draft Insight
July 14, 2025
If you have any questions/comments, feel free to contact Lou Pickney by email (lou@loupickney.com).
Year 24 begins. I've been in the NFL mock draft biz going back to the 2003 NFL Draft, nearly half of my life now.
My first 2026 NFL Mock Draft is online. I think it's ridiculously early for such a thing, but the people demand it. And at least I can use the Tankathon draft order and let them take the heat.
In the early days of Draft King, some of my first interactions with readers stemmed from emails complaining about where I had a given team slotted. The griping annoyed me, though it showed that people really were reading.
At this point of the process there's little in the way of nuance to be found. The Saints used a Top 40 pick on Louisville QB Tyler Shough in the 2025 NFL Draft, but if New Orleans has the #1 pick and Texas QB Arch Manning goes pro, would they really pass on him?
As it is, I'm not sure Manning, or any other top-level QB prospects with remaining eligibility past 2025, are a lock to go pro. We're in a new era.
Things are so upside-down now that Carson Beck got a reported $4,300,000 to stay in college and transfer to Miami, while Shedeur Sanders is stuck in Cleveland with a rookie NFL deal that, if it goes to completion, would pay him $4,647,380 over the course of four years.
The NFL Draft is a terribly unfair process for the players being drafted. You have no say in where you go, you're bound by the terms of a collective bargaining agreement that was negotiated years ago, you have to run an intentionally humiliating gauntlet of a pre-draft process, and you don't have the power to fight it.
There's no salary cap in college football. Then again, there's no actual salary for players, either. And that's the big complicating factor.
You can tell the power-hungry types are very wound up about it, trying to put artificial limits and controls on boosters giving money to players instead of the schools.
That's what it was always about: controlling the money. But there are too many disparate forces involved to contain it. That ship has sailed.
Financial pressure has been good for the sport in some ways, finally forcing an actual full-sized playoff. Even the unsavory bowl barons couldn't stem the tide of television money.
In other ways, it has some people very angry. Not that athletes are now actually able to earn from their own name/image/likeness (and shame on those of you who fought it), but the widespread transfers and double-transfers. The lack of team continuity.
Look at what happened to Marshall University, which went 10-3 last season and won the Sun Belt title, only for head coach Charles Huff to bolt for Southern Miss.
It fell apart fast. Marshall had a mass exodus of players to the point they had to decline a bowl bid because of it, yet another expose on how irrelevant those glorified exhibitions really are in the era of a full playoff.
There's no way to stop it now. If they expand the playoff, it won't be to make room for the smaller conference champions.
My outlook is different than most. I have no rooting interest; the University of Evansville dropped football during my junior year after the 1997 season. I was a college football widow at the age of 20.
This is a business. Never forget that.
2027 NFL Draft Prospects
AFC East: Buffalo Bills | New England Patriots |
New York Jets | Miami Dolphins
AFC North:
Baltimore Ravens | Cincinnati Bengals | Cleveland Browns | Pittsburgh Steelers
AFC South:
Houston Texans | Indianapolis Colts |
Jacksonville Jaguars |
Tennessee Titans
AFC West:
Denver Broncos |
Kansas City Chiefs | Las Vegas Raiders | Los Angeles Chargers
NFC East:
Dallas Cowboys |
New York Giants |
Philadelphia Eagles |
Washington Commanders
NFC North:
Chicago Bears |
Detroit Lions |
Green Bay Packers |
Minnesota Vikings
NFC South:
Atlanta Falcons |
Carolina Panthers |
New Orleans Saints |
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
NFC West:
Arizona Cardinals |
Los Angeles Rams |
San Francisco 49ers |
Seattle Seahawks
Fantasy Football - ADP: Average Draft Position - Solid Locks and Sleepers
