Shedeur Sanders Tops Cam Ward, More as 2025 NFL Draft’s Top QB in Poll of Insiders

Julia StumbaughJanuary 11, 2025

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A recent ESPN poll of 20 NFL scouts and executives confirmed Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Miami’s Cam Ward as the consensus top two quarterbacks of the 2025 NFL Draft.

Eleven executives named Sanders as the draft’s top quarterback, while nine went with Ward, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

Scouts were much more divided when Thamel conducted the same poll in October. Back then, Georgia’s Carson Beck, Alabama’s Jalen Milroe and Texas’ Quinn Ewers received votes as the top quarterback in the class.

Consensus does not necessarily means scouts are confident in the 2025 quarterback class, Thamel noted.

“When picking their top quarterback, scouts and executives used words such as ‘reluctantly’ and ‘don’t love it,'” Thamel wrote. “One scout said he was unsure if there are any franchise quarterbacks in this draft.”

The Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns could each consider selecting a signal caller with the top two picks of the 2025 draft.

The New York Giants, who currently sit at No. 3 on the draft board, also need a quarterback. It’s the same story with the Las Vegas Raiders (No. 6), New York Jets (No. 7) and New Orleans Saints (No. 9.)

Who will these teams have to select from? Not Beck, who is headed to Miami for his final season of eligibility.

Ewers could be an option after he indicated to Thamel in an interview aired Friday night he plans to enter the draft rather than play an additional college season. Milroe also declared for the draft last week.

Other options include Ohio State’s Will Howard, Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart, Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel, Stanford’s Kyle McCord and Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard.

One scout told Thamel: “This is one of the weakest classes. There’s not a lot of depth to it, and there’s not a lot of high-talent players either.”

The relative weakness of the incoming quarterback class, at least as perceived by NFL scouts, could be part of the reason reports have been so mixed as to how high Sanders is expected to go in the upcoming draft.

NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero said last week that he had “talked to people within the league who don’t have anything close to a first-round grade on the guy,” and that he currently expected Colorado wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter to be selected higher than Sanders.

Six quarterbacks were selected in the first round of the 2024 draft. Five of them— Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix— ended the campaign as a starting quarterback. The sixth, Minnesota Vikings’ J.J. McCarthy, missed out on his own bid only because of injury.

It sounds like scouts aren’t expecting as many immediate starters in the upcoming draft. Given the number of teams who will enter the draft in need of a QB1, the ongoing College Football Playoff could offer second-tier quarterbacks like Ewers, Howard and Leonard a chance to significantly boost their draft stock heading into April.