With the 2024 NFL Draft in the books, it’s time to move on to the 2025 NFL Draft. The next college football season is still a few months away, but we can still take time to preview the prospects in next year’s class before their final season.
Unlike this past draft, next year’s class doesn’t have a strong group of quarterbacks, which has been noted by every single draft analyst on the planet. However, there are some intriguing quarterback prospects in the upcoming draft even if there aren’t any superstar prospects like Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, or Caleb Williams. Let’s take a look at the top four quarterbacks on the consensus big board for the 2025 NFL Draft and preview the quarterback class before the next college football season.
Carson Beck started for the Georgia Bulldogs last season for the first time as a 20-year-old redshirt junior. Despite having limited experience, he played very well, completing 72.2% of his passes and throwing for 3,949 yards, 24 touchdowns, and just six interceptions. He also ranked fourth among all quarterbacks in PFF grade.
There’s a lot to like about Beck’s profile as he doesn’t have many big weaknesses. He has good size for the position, he has solid arm strength and he already has a ton of skill as a passer. I am a big fan of his accuracy and sack avoidance, and he was great in these areas last season, sporting an adjusted completion percentage of 80.6% and a pressure-to-sack rate of 13.8%.
I also like how he manages the pocket and how he targets the middle of the field. His scramble rate was about average last season, which shows that he can move outside the pocket if necessary, but he prefers to stay in the pocket and deliver the ball within structure. Last season, he targeted the intermediate middle part of the field on 16.3% of his pass attempts, which is a very strong mark.
Although Carson Beck has a pretty clean profile, there are a few areas in which he could improve. I would like to see him be more aggressive as a deep-ball passer next season because his average depth of target and deep-ball attempt rate were both quite low last season. Also, I would like to see Georgia use him on designed runs more often because he is a good athlete and this would make their offense even more dynamic.
I think it’s fair to question how high Carson Beck’s upside is considering he doesn’t throw deep very often and doesn’t utilize his mobility as a rusher, but he is still a very strong quarterback prospect and looks like a first-round pick after just one season as a starter.
Shedeur Sanders spent his first seasons of college at Jackson State where his father Deion Sanders was the head coach. As a member of the Tigers, he produced two straight 3,000 passing-yard seasons and totaled 70 passing touchdowns compared to just 17 interceptions.
After the 2022 season, he transferred to Colorado, joining his father who was named the Bisons’ head coach. In his first season playing FBS football, he completed 68.5% of his passes and threw for 3,229 yards, 27 touchdowns, and just three interceptions. His box score numbers have been very good across his entire collegiate career, no matter what level he has played at.
There are a few things Sanders does very well as a passer: throwing accurate passes on short throws and limiting turnovers. Last season, he ranked top ten in adjusted completion percentage with a mark of 79.2%. He also ranked top five in turnover-worthy play rate with a mark of 1.6%. A big reason why his accuracy and decision-making looks great is because he throws a lot of short passes, but it’s good to see that he can execute at a high level on shorter throws.
I think Sanders also has pretty good mobility as he’s shown the ability to escape the pocket and make plays with his legs, scrambling on around 8.2% of his dropbacks and averaging around 34.5 rushing yards per game last season.
Unfortunately, there are some major red flags with his profile. For starters, he is reliant on short throws to an extreme degree. Last season, 62% of his pass attempts were behind the line of scrimmage or from 0-9 yards. It’s rare to see quarterback prospects get as much hype as he has while attempting this many short throws.
He also struggles mightily under pressure. Last season, he had a PFF grade of just 56.8 when pressured and he had a pressure-to-sack rate of 25.3%, which is insanely high. Having an extreme reluctance to attempt intermediate and deep passes while also taking sacks at an extremely high rate is a recipe for disaster.
I understand why some people like Shedeur Sanders because of his consistent production, good accuracy, great decision-making, and strong results throwing to all areas of the field. However, he isn’t a big-time playmaker who likes to throw the ball deep and he is bad at managing the pocket when it gets messy. He also doesn’t have elite mobility to make up for some of his weaknesses, which makes it hard to overlook his red flags.
I’m interested to see how Sanders develops next season, but I currently do not view him as a first-round pick and I think his issues as a passer are serious enough to give him a high chance of busting in the NFL if he doesn’t improve.
After redshirting as a true freshman at Ohio State in 2021, Quinn Ewers transferred to Texas where he has played for the past two seasons. His first season with the Longhorns was rocky, to say the least, as he completed just 57.8% of his passes, struggled with turnovers, and had a PFF grade of just 72.4. His next season in 2023 was much better as he improved his accuracy and decision-making and saw his PFF grade jump up to 86.8.
Ewers has an interesting profile. On the surface, it looks solid, but nothing special and there are some red flags. However, there are some things to like about his game. For starters, his accuracy last season was good as he had an adjusted completion percentage of 76.3%, which ranked top 20 in the entire nation. That’s not an elite mark, but it’s good, especially for a quarterback who throws as many intermediate passes as Ewers does.
Speaking of intermediate passing, this is one of Ewers’s biggest strengths as a player. Last season, 26.6% of his pass attempts were between 10-19 yards down the field and he had a PFF passing grade of 93 on these throws. His willingness to throw over the intermediate middle part of the field is extremely impressive as these throws made up 17.5% of his pass attempts last season and he had a PFF passing grade of 93.1 on these throws.
Outside of these areas, the rest of Ewers' profile is murky. Two parts of his profile that concern me are his sack avoidance and deep ball passing. Avoiding sacks was a huge problem for him last season as he had a pressure-to-sack rate of 25.2%, which is a catastrophically bad mark. And although he was fairly effective as a deep ball thrower in 2023, he didn’t attempt deep throws at a high rate and he struggled mightily in this area in 2022.
On top of this, there are many parts of his profile in which he has been inconsistent across his two seasons at Texas, including accuracy, decision-making, and sack avoidance. He has performed well in all three areas at times, but he’s also struggled a lot in all three areas at times. This is why he’s such a difficult evaluation.
If Quinn Ewers has a strong season in 2024, he could be a very solid prospect worthy of a second-round pick and possibly even a first-round pick. I’m not sure he’s there yet, but there are enough green flags in his profile to see him reaching that level with a little bit of development.
I will always worry about his lack of mobility and deep ball passing, which hints at limited upside, but I think he has enough talent to be drafted in the first three rounds depending on what happens next season. If he doesn’t improve, though, I will be quite low on him and will be worried about whether or not he is worth the gamble early on the draft, just like Shedeur Sanders.
Spoiler alert! Jalen Milroe is one of the more intriguing quarterback prospects in next year’s draft and his profile is insane, for better or worse, in basically every area.
Milroe was the full-time starter at Alabama for the first time last season and the results were pretty good as he completed 65.6% of his passes and threw for 2,839 yards, 23 touchdowns, and six interceptions. He also added 806 yards and 12 touchdowns on the ground.
What makes him such an intriguing prospect are his physical tools, deep ball passing, and mobility. Milroe is 6-foot-2, weighs 220 pounds, and has excellent athleticism for his size. He’s not the tallest quarterback in the world, but he has a huge frame and a cannon for an arm.
You can tell that he knows how special his physical tools are because he uses them on the field. Last season, he threw deep at an extremely high rate, as he had an average depth of target of 13.4 yards and attempted deep throws on 23.5% of his pass attempts. He was extremely effective on these throws too, sporting a PFF passing grade of 96.9 when throwing 20+ yards down the field.
His mobility is also special, and he is by far the best rusher of all the quarterbacks in this article. Last season, he averaged 62 rushing yards per game and was extremely efficient on the ground. I have a statistical database for NFL prospects going back to 2017 and he will likely be one of the more productive rushing quarterback prospects we’ve seen over the last couple of years. This is extremely important because rushing quarterbacks give their offenses higher floors because quarterback runs are generally very efficient plays.
Unfortunately, there are a ton of major red flags with Jalen Milroe’s profile. For starters, he isn’t very effective when he doesn’t throw the ball deep. His production across the board on non-deep throws is extremely questionable for a quarterback who is viewed as a top fifty player on the consensus big board. This is why his accuracy numbers are very low despite being very accurate on deep throws.
On top of this, he is historically bad at managing the pocket as he leaves the pocket too much and takes sacks too often. Last season, he scrambled on 14.3% of his dropbacks and had a pressure-to-sack rate of 31.7%. Those marks are way too high and I don’t think we’ve ever seen a quarterback prospect take sacks at such a high rate. If Milroe continues to manage the pocket like this moving forward, the chance of him being a successful NFL quarterback is close to 0%.
As I said earlier, Jalen Milroe is one of the more intriguing quarterback prospects in next year’s draft. His upside is immense due to his physical tools, deep ball passing, and mobility. However, he can’t execute on non-deep throws at an NFL level and he struggles to manage the pocket, which is a very translatable skill.
Milroe can develop into a strong all-around quarterback with another year of experience under his belt, but he needs to improve upon his weaknesses. His strengths are amazing, but his issues are big enough to keep him from being in the NFL past his rookie contract. He is the quintessential boom-bust quarterback prospect who could be an early first-round pick if he improves or he could be a day-three pick if he stays the same. I can’t wait to see how next season plays out because he has such a wide range of outcomes.