The 2024 NFL season continues to roll along and while the playoffs are still within reach for a lot of teams, the focus is slowly (but surely) shifting to the 2025 NFL Draft. And the 2025 NFL Draft class is going to be interesting in the way it’s perceived by NFL teams. There are a lot of players generating hype right now, but are there enough?
Every NFL team currently owns its own 1st-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft and there are only a couple of teams that have traded away their 2nd-round picks, but this class is not projected to be the “deepest” we’ve seen in recent years.
NIL has a lot to do with that as players have less incentive to leave school early unless their draft stock is where they want it. They can make more on NIL contracts than they can on an NFL contract. Perhaps that’s something the NFL will revisit at some point to try and load up these classes again.
For now, there remains plenty of quarterback intrigue with a handful of potential top 10 candidates and possibly another emerging 1st-round player out at LSU. We’re going to do our best to project the first two rounds in our latest 2025 NFL mock draft with fun twists and turns all over the board.
2025 NFL Mock Draft: Cam Ward officially emerges as QB1
1. Jacksonville Jaguars: Travis Hunter, CB/WR, Colorado
If the Jacksonville Jaguars land the #1 overall pick, it’s going to be fascinating to see what they do with it. Depending on who is sitting behind them in the draft order, we could potentially see the Jags trade this selection for a king’s ransom to whatever team wants to secure the #1 overall quarterback on their board.
But right now, we’re not projecting trades just yet and the Jaguars have a chance to stay put here and get maybe the best overall player in the entire 2025 NFL Draft class: Travis Hunter.
Hunter is a two-way player who has been at the top of everyone’s Heisman list all season long because of the way he makes plays on both sides of the ball. He doesn’t just play offense and defense – Hunter is legitimately a top-10 prospect at either spot. He’s just a tremendous talent and should be a game-changing playmaker for whoever drafts him.
2. New England Patriots: Will Johnson, CB, Michigan
The New England Patriots are another team that we could see potentially trade down, but it’s difficult to know what teams are going to prioritize in free agency and where their needs will be. We also don’t know any sort of “consensus” right now as to what teams feel about certain players like Will Campbell and Kelvin Banks, who would probably fill New England’s biggest “need”.
But are either of those guys worth the 2nd overall pick in the NFL Draft?
We’ll find out the closer we get to the draft itself. But for the time being, the Patriots make it back-to-back corners at the top of this draft class, and I don’t think that’s ever happened before. Cornerbacks are at a premium in today’s NFL, but they’ve never been valued that highly. Johnson is a shut-down player who would give Jerod Mayo a pair of really talented corners to dominate opposing receivers for the foreseeable future.