Unlike a year ago, QBs are off the board early
• 1 min read
It’s Senior Bowl Week. And while there won’t be a Justin Herbert, Jordan Love or Kenny Pickett on the roster, first-round talents are in Mobile, Alabama, looking to solidify, or even improve, their draft stock. There could be a Jalen Hurts; a quarterback who folks had somehow forgotten about, but who quietly continues to solidify their draft stock in the eyes of evaluators, and a few years from now we’re all acting surprised when that player is balling out.
Which reminds me: Rick Spielman and I will be at the Senior Bowl all week, and we’ll recap everything Thursday on “With the First Pick,” our weekly NFL Draft podcast. (You can watch all of our clips, as well as the full-length shows, on the NFLonCBS YouTube channel, and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.)
As for this mock draft, there are no trades. That, most likely, won’t be reality, but we still have the Senior Bowl, Super Bowl, combine and free agency to get through, so there’s no rush on hitting every draft-trade permutation in late January. Instead, the Bears go defense at the top, there’s a run on quarterbacks and edge rushers, and then a couple of cornerbacks round out the top 10.
All told, four quarterbacks are gone after nine picks, which means the Jets, currently occupying the No. 13 spot, remain in search of their next face of the franchise. Trading up could be a legit option, but as CBS Sports NFL Insider Jonathan Jones wrote Sunday, “the Jets will be looking closely at Aaron Rodgers, Jimmy Garoppolo and Derek Carr. They won’t limit their search to just those three quarterbacks — and sources stress it’s still early in the process — but that’s where the focus will begin.”
That means the team can use its first-rounder to address another need, which is what happens in this mock draft. Alright, let’s get go it.
Remember: there are only 31 selections in this mock draft because the Dolphins were stripped of their first-round pick due to tampering.
For more extensive draft content, check out our latest prospect rankings and mock drafts, as well as our new weekly podcast, “With the First Pick,” featuring former Vikings general manager Rick Spielman.
