NFL Rumors: Execs Don’t Feel 2025 Draft Has a Franchise QB amid Sanders, Ward Buzz

While it wouldn’t be a surprise to see quarterbacks taken with the top two picks in the 2025 NFL draft, there’s not a lot of enthusiasm for the signal-callers in this year’s class.

Per The Athletic’s Jeff Howe, some executives around the league don’t believe there’s a franchise quarterback available in the draft.

Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward are generally regarded as the best quarterbacks in this class, but the long-term ceiling for both players is a big question mark.

It would be hard for the 2025 draft to produce a quarterback class as exciting as the one from 2024 that featured Daniels (No. 2 pick) and Bo Nix (No. 12) making the playoffs, Caleb Williams (No. 1) and Drake Maye (No. 3) flashing tremendous potential while being in bad situations with a lack of talent and/or poor coaching around them.

That doesn’t even include Michael Penix Jr. (No. 8) and J.J. McCarthy (No. 10) simply because we didn’t see enough reps from them to make any big proclamations. McCarthy missed the entire regular season due to a knee injury. Penix started the final three games for the Atlanta Falcons after Kirk Cousins was benched due to his struggles.

B/R’s NFL scouting department has Ward (No. 6) ranked as the only signal-caller among the top 15 overall prospects. Sanders is the No. 2 quarterback in the class at No. 16 overall. No other player at the position has a first-round grade.

Sanders’ biggest issue is being unable to avoid pressure consistently. He was sacked an FBS-high 94 times in the past two seasons combined. Some of those can be pinned on Colorado’s offense line, but not all of them fall at their feet.

There are some numbers that work in Sanders’ favor when compared to Jayden Daniels’ final season at LSU when there were concerns about how his game would translate to the NFL.

A key difference, though, is Daniels showed himself to be a much better runner than Sanders ever has. Sanders only had two games with at least 25 rushing yards in two seasons at Colorado. Daniels ran for at least 25 yards in 42 of 55 games in college.

Ward has big tools and, by his own admission, wants to push the ball down the field at all times. But he has a tendency to take risks in ways that can pay off at the college level that likely won’t work against NFL defenses.

Both of them are almost certain to come off the board very early in the draft because that’s what happens with quarterbacks, especially with three quarterback-needy teams picking at the top (Tennessee Titans, Cleveland Browns, New York Giants).