The 2026 NFL Draft is now just hours away.
But according to several reports, the 2027 installment is already generating even more hype, and for a very simple reason.
Quarterbacks.
The closer the 2026 NFL Draft gets, the more stories emerge about this year’s crop of prospects composing a weaker class overall than in recent years. For example, draft analyst Matt Miller at ESPN identified just 12 players with a true first-round grade, his lowest number yet. Dane Brugler of The Athletic listed just 14 players with a first-round grade, another sign of the “lack of top-level talent available this year.”
And quarterbacks are part of that story.
We all know that quarterbacks move the needle during the NFL Draft cycle. The more top-flight QB prospects there are, the more non-QB talent gets pushed down the board, helping the overall depth of the class. For example, the 2024 NFL Draft saw three quarterbacks off the board to begin the first round, and a record-tying six quarterbacks were picked in the first round, matching the number that came off the board during the legendary 1983 class.
That pushed some true talent down the board, helping the overall depth of the class.
This year? After Fernando Mendoza goes first overall to the Las Vegas Raiders — perhaps the only selection close to a sure thing in the entire first round — we might not see a quarterback until Friday. In a lengthy piece on Monday, ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter talked about a potential “[q]uarterback gap year:”
After the Raiders select Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza at No. 1, this class could harken back to the drafts of 25 years ago, when there was typically a lengthy gap between the first quarterback selected and the next one. In the 2001 draft, the Falcons used the No. 1 pick on Michael Vick, and the next quarterback was not selected until the first pick of the second round (No. 32), when the Chargers took Purdue’s Drew Brees. And one of this draft’s most intriguing questions is where the second quarterback — widely expected to be Simpson — will be picked.
If Simpson does go to the Jets (No. 33) or Cardinals (No. 34) on Day 2, it would be very similar to that 2001 draft. But others say a team could trade up into the first round to take him.
Schefter notes that the New York Jets (who pick at No. 2, No. 16, and No. 33) and the Arizona Cardinals (who pick at No. 3 and No. 34) are the two teams most likely to select Ty Simpson as the second quarterback off the board. While there are rumblings that the Cardinals could try and trade back into the first round to leap ahead of the Jets (to gain that important fifth-year option) I’ve also been around enough draft cycles where the idea of a team trading back into the first round for that option never materializes.
And without several QB’s at the top of the board, the idea of teams trading up into the top ten (and therefore pushing talent at other positions down the board) also impacts the overall view of this draft class.
But let’s look ahead for a moment.
Because while the 2026 QB class is viewed as a thin group — “[t]his is really a bunch of backups” one scout told Bob McGinn for his annual scouting series — the potential 2027 QB crop is anything but thing.
For example, as we noted when Arch Manning announced he was returning to Texas, with “both Manning and [LaNorris] Sellers returning to school, you have two quarterbacks who were at least in the first-round discussion for 2026 getting another year of growth in college.”
But the potential 2027 QB class is bigger than just those two players. Addressing the likelihood that Mendoza and Simpson are the only quarterbacks taken early in this cycle, Albert Breer at Sports Illustrated, wrote this recently:
The 2027 class affects that, too. The list is long: Oregon’s Dante Moore, Texas’s Arch Manning, Notre Dame’s CJ Carr, Ohio State’s Julian Sayin, USC’s Jayden Maiava, South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, LSU’s Sam Leavitt, Texas Tech’s Brendan Sorsby, Ole Miss’s Trinidad Chambliss, Oklahoma’s John Mateer, Miami’s Darian Mensah and UCLA’s Nico Iamaleava.
You get the picture. Throw in dark-horse transfers such as DJ Lagway at Baylor and Drew Mestemaker at Oklahoma State, and you have 14 quarterbacks who at least have a chance of being taken high in 2027.
This has led to several teams not just kicking the 2026 quarterback decision to next year, but perhaps getting an early jump on studying those players. As Schefter wrote on Monday:
Though there might be only one quarterback drafted in this year’s first round, multiple are expected to be square in the first-round mix in the 2027 NFL draft.
Quarterbacks already on the NFL’s radar for 2027 include Oregon’s Dante Moore, Texas’ Arch Manning, Texas Tech’s Brendan Sorsby, South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss, Miami’s Darian Mensah, Ohio State’s Julian Sayin, Notre Dame’s CJ Carr, LSU’s Sam Leavitt, UCLA’s Nico Iamaleava and Oklahoma’s John Mateer. Not all of those players will be first-round picks, but there are great expectations for many of them, and it provides a glimpse of the potential.
But some teams aren’t even waiting. At least evaluator acknowledged that, while they were out at pro days scouting the prospects for this year’s draft, they took a long hard look at some of the aforementioned quarterbacks in next year’s class. At least one team put in some extra work with a few of these QBs while it was in those college towns, and chances are, that team was not the only one. The NFL is already thinking about the Class of 2027.
In some ways, this is reminiscent of the discussion ahead of the 2017 NFL Draft. At the Combine that year, during a cycle where there was not a ton of excitement about the quarterback class, the player generating the most buzz was not even draft-eligible.
USC quarterback Sam Darnold:
And while the 2018 QB class did live up to some of those expectations from 2017, with players such as Darnold, Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson comign off the board in teh first round there was a player who went in the first round back in 2017 who perhaps exceeded expecations.
Patrick Mahomes.
Still, the excitement about next year’s potential QB class is palpable, and it will have ramifications on this year’s draft. Between teams kicking their QB decisions to next year as they wait on next year’s group, to teams holding onto future draft picks because of the excitement over the next crop, the potential names in the 2027 QB class are going to play a big role in what we see later this week:
Or consider this from The Sporting News:
The largest hurdle in Draft day trades in 2026 will be what the draft prospects look like in 2027. Typically, teams are less resistant to trading away a future first round pick because they like the player this year enough to sacrifice the would-be player next year. That concept is inverted in 2026.
There have been some comments made by NFL teams, draft analysts and even former players about this draft. After Fernando Mendoza, this is not a great quarterback draft. This is a good offensive line draft, just not for Left Tackle. There is no Ja’Marr Chase or Justin Jefferson in this draft. For those positions often coveted at the top of the first, this is not the year to take big swings.
As the 2026 NFL Draft approaches, it looks more and more like teams are savign their at-bats for 2027, to continue with that baseball analogy.
And the potential in next year’s quarterback class is a huge reason why.
