NEWS AND NEAR NEWS

Pats, Cats favored to get top picks at 2025 draft … For those that haven’t seen it yet, ESPN has an article up this week forecasting the odds teams across the NFL have to acquire the #1 pick at the 2025 draft. Its probably no great surprise that New England and Carolina currently have the best odds of coming away with the first overall pick next April, with Denver, Tennessee and Washington rounding out the top 5. And with the start of the upcoming NFL season now less than 100 days and the 2025 draft less than 330 days away – and not much else going on around the league – we thought we’d have a little fun and project the first round of next  April’s draft based on ESPN’s forecast. Although please remember that with these very early projections we are not trying really to predict which particular player might go to which particular ream, but just give some idea where players might be selected next April based on the current intelligence. Here you go!

NCAA settlement to allow schools to pay players … In a decision that is sure to further disrupt the college football landscape, the NCAA and the 5-power conferences have agreed to allow schools to pay players after agreeing to settle three pending anti-trust cases. The NCAA will pay almost $3B in damages to past and current athletes over the next decade and each school will be allowed to share up to roughly $20M per year with its athletes. all D1 athletes dating back to 2016 are eligible to receive a share as part of the settlement. In exchange, athletes cannot sue the NCAA for other potential antitrust violations and drop their complaints in the three open cases. The terms of the settlement must still be approved by the judge in the 3 open cases, a process that is expected to take several months. Schools would then be able to begin sharing revenue starting in fall 2025. hard to know at this point what impact might have on the NFL, but it may be further incentive for college players, especially those not guaranteed to be high draft picks, to stay in school as long as they can.

Pittsburgh to host 2026 draft … The NFL confirmed this morning that the 2026 draft will be held in Pittsburgh. The 2025 draft will be hosted by Green Bay April 24-26 next year.

Chiefs claim 8th round signings title … With all the teams around the NFL having officially announced their post-draft undrafted rookie free agent classes we did our annual scoring based on our unofficial list of the top undrafted free agents following last month’s draft. and in one of those ‘the rich get richer’ scenarios, the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs came out on top. The Chiefs, for example, ended up signing 7 of the top 100 or so undrafted free agents on our list including two – #5 LB Curtis Jacobs and and #9 OT Ethan Driskell – who had top grades on our list as well as #11 DT Fabien Lovett. The Chiefs edged out Seattle for the ‘title’ followed by Seattle, Carolina and the NY Jets. For the record, here are the top undrafted rookie free agents and their signing status.

49ers name new director of scouting … San Francisco has promoted veteran scout Josh Williams to the post of director of scouting and football operations. Williams, who has been with the 49ers since 2011, was a national scout the past two seasons.

Broncos sign QB Nix … Denver has signed QB Bo Nix, the 12th pick overall in last month’s draft, to a fully guaranteed, 4-year $18.7M contract that comes with a $10.4M signing bonus. Like all first-round picks, Nix’s contract has a team option for a fifth year. Nix is the first of the 6 QBs taken in the first dozen picks in this year’s draft.

WashComs 2nd rounder to have foot surgery … Washington figured it had something of a steal in the 2nd round of last month’s when the Commanders were able to nab Illinois DT Johnny Newton with the 36th pick overall after he slipped out of the first round because of a foot injury. Newton ultimately had to have surgery on the foot and as a result was not able to work out for teams until just a couple of weeks before the draft. Now the team has confirmed that Newton will require the same surgery on his other foot with no announced timeline for when he will be able to play again.

Pats promote de facto GM Wolf to de facto GM … New England has confirmed the team’s worst kept secret and promoted Eliot Wolf to Executive VP of Player Personnel. Wolf had been the Patriots’ director of scouting the past couple of years and ran the team’s 2024 draft preparations after the departure of former head coach Bill Belichik. In the new job in which he will be GM in everything but name Wolf will have overall direction of the personnel department, the management of the salary cap, and control of the 53-man roster.

That did not take long! Bears name #1 pick starting QB … Even before they stepped on the field for their rookie minicamp, Chicago named Caleb Williams, the first player selected at last month’s draft as the team’s starting QB heading toward the season.

Texans get vet Rams TE for late round pick swap … Houston has acquired veteran TE Ben Skowronek from the LA Rams. As compensation the teams will swap late round picks in 2026 with the Rams getting the Texans’ 6th rounder, while the Rams get the Texans’ 7th rounder to complete the deal.

Panthers 1st to sign 2024 draft class … Carolina has become the first team to sign their entire2024 draft class including WR Xavier Legette, their first round pick whom the Panthers traded up to acquire at the end of the opening round.

Jets, Chiefs lead early 8th round signings … Roughly half the teams around the NFL have officially announced their post-draft undrafted rookie free agent classes. And based on our unofficial list of the top undrafted free agents following last week’s draft, the NY Jets and Kansas City have done pretty well for themselves. The Jets in fact signed former Miami DT Leonard Taylor, the top undrafted player on our list, along with former UConn DE Eric Watts, who came in at #7. For their part, the Chiefs signed #5 LB Curtis Jacobs of Penn State, #9 OT Ethan Driskell of Marshall, #11 Florida State DT Fabien Lovett and #22 RB Emani Bailey of TCU. Here is the full list of top undrafted rookie signings as of today. Hopefully, more teams will be formally announcing their undrafted rookie signings in the next day or so, particularly those teams that completed their minicamps this past weekend.

Tips for betting on the NFL … We don’t normally advocate that folks bet on the NFL or any other sporting event for that matter; however, we do realize that many do and for those that do, whether you’re a seasoned bettor or a newcomer to the sports betting scene, with the 2024 NFL season now just over 100 days away they’ll want to sharpen their skills and and strategy. This guide delves into essential tips that can transform your betting game from basic to brilliant. Prepare to approach NFL betting with a renewed perspective and tactics honed for this season’s unique dynamics. Read more.

Ravens, Cowboys projected to lead comp pick parade in 2025 … The compensatory picks for the 2025 draft won’t be formally determined by the league’s Management Council formula until after the upcoming season is over, but several sources have become pretty good at projecting which teams will be awarded which comp picks. One of those is projecting that both Baltimore and Dallas will be awarded the maximum 4 extra picks with the Ravens getting bonus picks in the 4th and 5th rounds and a pair in the 6th, while the Cowboys are projected to get three in the 5th round and another in the 6th. At the same time, the LA Chargers, Miami and San Francisco are each projected to get three comp picks. Another 5 teams – Buffalo, Cleveland, Kansas City, Las Vegas and Seattle are projected to get two comp picks each, while Green Bay, Minnesota, New Orleans, the LA Rams and the NY Giants get one each. Here is the full report.

Ravens first to sign 2024 draft picks … Baltimore became the first team to sign any of its picks from last weekend’s draft as the Ravens came to terms with 5 rookie selections including CB Nate Wiggins their 1st round pick. Also signing with the Ravens were OT Roger Rosengarten, a 2nd round  selection and 4th round CB TJ Tampa, along with C Nick Samac and DB Sanoussi Kane, a pair of 7th round picks.

Post-draft reading … For those still suffering a post-draft letdown, here are several draft-related articles for folks that have not seen them yet including one at ESPN with a discussion of next year’s QB class, another from USA Today with some stats on the success rate of different positions taken in the first-round, and a piece at CBS Sports about what the punditry got wrong at last week’s draft. Have a great day!

Giants Report: Thoughts on the draft … We kind of wanted several days to chew on last weekend’s draft before commenting too extensively, especially as it relates to the Giants. On balance, though, we thought the Giants had an outstanding draft, although of course the players chosen still have to play to their potential, but there’s a lot of potential there! Read more

CFL’s Elks make vet LB top pick … As expected, Edmonton chose former Cincinnati LB Joel Dublanko with the first pick overall at last night’s CFL draft of Canadian players. Dublanko actually came late to the process; he was a 2022 grad at Cincinnati and was in a couple of NFL camps last summer before playing the 2023 season in the USFL, but was granted late eligibility for the CFL draft when he was deemed eligible for the CFL draft  because his father is a Canadian. Ottawa with the 2nd pick overall chose Auburn WR Nick Mardner while Saskatchewan selected Boston College OG Kyle Hergel with the 3rd pick. Hergel has signed as an undrafted free agent with New Orleans, but is considered to be a long shot to make the Saints’ roster this fall. On the other hand, most of the CFL’s top prospects who were selected at last weekend’s NFL draft weren’t selected until the later rounds. In fact, OG Isaiah Adams, the CFL Scouting Bureau’s top overall prospect, wasn’t selected at all last night after he was taken in the 3rd round of the NFL draft by Arizona. Meanwhile, OG Giovanni Manu was a 5th round pick by Winnipeg, while TEs Tanner McLachlan and Theo Johnson went in the 6th and 8th rounds respectively to Calgary and BC.

Draft hilites Growing dominance of power schools … One of the underlying stories from the past two drafts has been the growing dominance of the of the so-called Power-5 programs. This past weekend, for example, 87% of all players selected at the 2024 draft were from a Power 5 school or Notre Dame. And that is up from 80% just a year earlier. Surprisingly, the difference was accounted for almost exclusively in adramatic drop in the number of players selected from non-Power 5 conference teams. In fact, just 19 players were selected this year from the so-called group of 5 conferences, literally half the number from the previous year when 36 prospects from the other FBS conferences had been selected.

Still, 94% of all players selected last week were from an FBS school, while barely 6% – just 14 players in total – were from outside the FBS ranks and just 11 were from FCS or lower U.S. programs. In fact, the FCS/DII total was roughly half the figure it was just two years ago when 23 players selected in 2022 came from outside the ranks of FBS programs. Maybe the only modicum of solace for the smaller schools is the fact that two players from their ranks – Houston Christian DE Jalyk Hunt and Yale OT Kiran Amegadjie – were second day picks with Hunt going to Philadelphia and Amegadjie to the Chicago with 3rd round picks.

At the same time, 3 international players were selected on Saturday including UBC OG Giovanni Muni, whom Detroit actually traded up in the 4th to acquire, and OG Travis Clayton, a former English rugby player who was taken in the 7th round by Buffalo. For the record, Muni was just the 7th Canadian from a Canadian university ever selected at the NFL draft, and the first since Dr. Laurent Duvernay-Tardif who was selected by Kansas City in 2014. Also for the record, a total of 4 Canadians were selected this weekend along with Muni including OG Isaiah Adams, a 3rd round pick by Arizona, and TEs Theo Johnson (a 4th to the NY Giants) and Tanner McLachlan (a 6th by Cincinnati). That tied last year’s record of 4 Canadians being selected in a single draft year. The other ‘international’ player selected this weekend was CB Qwan’Tez Stiggers, the CFL defensive rookie of the year last fall with Toronto, who was selected in the NY Jets in the 5th round.

Also to absolutely no one’s surprise, the SEC once again had the most players of any conference selected at the 2024 draft. Indeed, it was the 18th straight year in which the SEC had the most players selected in a draft. Overall, the SEC had 59 players taken at this weekend’s draft, down slightly from 62 in 2023 and 65 in the previous two years, but still well ahead of the Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC which were bunched with 43, 42, and 41 picks respectively, while the Big XII followed with 31. In contrast, among the other conferences, the Sun Belt had 6 picks, the American Athletic had 5, and CUSA had 3, while the Mountain West and MAC had only 2 apiece. Note, though, that the MAC’s Quinyon Mitchell, taken 22nd overall by Philadelphia, was the only non-Power 5 player taken in this year’s opening round.

However, while the SEC once again led all conferences in picks at the 2024 draft, national champion Michigan actually had the most players selected from any one school. Indeed, 13 former Wolverines were selected this past weekend, the 4th highest total from one program ever. Michigan was followed by Texas with 11, Alabama, LSU and Washington with 10 apiece, Georgia, Oregon and Penn State with 8 each and Notre Dame and Southern California with 7 each. In fact, those 10 schools accounted for over 35% of all players drafted this past weekend. In the end, one can see  why the NFL is quietly pushing the idea of a ‘super’ conference format for college football to ensure that the top prospects play other top prospects every week.

Don’t trade on me … Anyone who got the sense that there didn’t seem to be all that many trades at this year’s draft weren’t dreaming. There actually were significantly fewer trades than in recent years. This year, for example, there were 28 trades made during the draft, compared with 43 last year. Indeed, it used to drive us a little batty when teams would trade up 10 spots or so in the 7th round. Really? It appears, though, that somebody forgot to tell Philadelphia GM Howie Roseman about the plan as Trader Howie, as our Pigskin Paul Guillemete used to affectionately call him, and his Eagles tied an NFL record with 8 individual trades this week. Included in those trades were a trio that netted the Eagles three mid-round picks in 2025. In particular, the Eagles got a third rounder from Miami, a 4th from Detroit and a 5th from Houston in separate deals. That trade with the Lions for a 4th next year is particularly interesting as we wondered if it might actually be for the Eagles original pick in that round which they sent to Detroit last year in the deal for RB D’Andre Swift. Carolina, though, got the highest 2025 pick over the weekend as the acquired the LA Rams pick in the second round in 2025, while Jacksonville got 3rd and 4th rounders from Minnesota in the deal in which the Vikings moved up in the opening round to snare DE Dallas Turner at #17. For the record, it was also a pretty good deal all-around for the Jags who were able to take WR Brian Thomas with the 23rd pick, a guy they liked had targeted with their original selection. What’s interesting about the whole deal is that so far no first round pick in 2025 has been traded and we are not sure the last time that a future #1 wasn’t swapped before or during the draft. Meanwhile, for those that missed it during the draft, the NY Jets acquired a 6th round pick in 2026 from Denver in exchange for DE John Franklin-Myers. Here is the updated list of trades already in the books for 2025 and beyond as we have them.