Day two of the NFL draft is in the books. On Friday, three more quarterbacks were selected, but not Shedeur Sanders, the NFL continued its love affair with Ohio State players, and Nick Saban was a breath of broadcasting fresh air. These are the winners and losers of rounds two and three.
Loser: Shedeur Sanders (again)
Selfishly, I was rooting for quarterback Shedeur Sanders to be drafted as early as possible entering day two, out of fear that the broadcasts would be held hostage by when (or, as it turned out, if) Sanders would be picked in the second round. But as the first few picks came and went, it was pretty clear that teams weren’t jockeying to get in position to draft him, and he was passed over again by quarterback-needy teams.
Cleveland used their second rounders on a linebacker and a running back, Seattle traded up for a raw safety in Nick Emmanwori. But the real sign that Sanders’s draft slide would continue came when New Orleans picked quarterback Tyler Shough with the 40th pick. Sanders’s draft stock was in free fall by late in the third round, when the Seahawks picked Jalen Milroe and the Browns drafted Dillon Gabriel with pick 94.
Gabriel isn’t just another old, oft-injured quarterback in this class. He’s also short, has marginal arm talent and athletic traits (far worse than Sanders), and, unlike Sanders, he hasn’t shown a high-end understanding of how to work through pro-level passing concepts or control the game from the line of scrimmage.
Sanders’s slide out of the first round on Thursday was dramatic, but unsurprising, given his tape. On Friday, his fall was, well, sad. It was also unexplainable. As the third round concluded, there were no concrete answers for why he was still on the board, just speculation about how his personality, fame, performance in the interview process and the influence of his famous father impacted the way teams viewed him.
The only thing that was clear was that the NFL’s coaches and executives aren’t just skeptical that Sanders can be the leader of a franchise, they don’t seem to believe he can even become a legitimate starter.
Winner: Geriatric Zoomer Quarterbacks
Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr., first-round picks a year ago who are now entrenched as the starting QBs in Denver and Atlanta, respectively, have blazed a trail for older college prospects to get a shot in the first few rounds of the draft. The latest additions to this club are 25-year-old Shough and 24-year-old Gabriel.
If you’ve been locked into the pre-draft process, then you’ve heard all the wild stats about just how old Shough is: He was in the same recruiting class as Trevor Lawrence and backed up Justin Herbert at Oregon; each of his three seasons at Texas Tech ended with an injury; and he’s just two years younger than Sam Darnold, who’s already on his fifth NFL team. Shough will be able to attend his 10-year high school reunion before he’s eligible for his second NFL contract.
Both Nix and Penix Jr. had questions about their age in last year’s draft, and what sort of developmental curve they might have left in the NFL. No one seems worried about that now.
Shough, however, isn’t nearly as impressive of a prospect as Nix or Penix were a year ago, and was a late riser in the draft process. Despite spending seven years in college, he has a limited amount of tape. He’s mature in age, but he has the passing profile of an all-tools/no-polish kind of quarterback. He can rip the ball at every level of the field, he can move well inside the pocket or out, and he’s willing to take a hit to deliver a pass. Still, you have to work really hard to convince yourself that what you saw most recently on film during Shough’s final collegiate season at Louisville is just the beginning of Shough’s career trajectory, and that his processing speed improves quickly once he gets into head coach Kellen Moore’s offense.
If New Orleans’ pair of young tackles play well—Taliese Fuaga and newly drafted Kelvin Banks Jr.—then I can see Shough’s raw arm talent pairing up well with the speed New Orleans has on the perimeter. The first order of business will be winning his competition with Spencer Rattler for the starting job, which is a perfect barometer of whether Shough has any chance to be a serious NFL quarterback. Even if he isn’t ready right off the bat, the success of Nix and Penix should buy him a bit of patience to develop.
Gabriel, meanwhile, is somehow even more of a project. He’s undersized and has subpar arm strength. His experience at UCF, Oklahoma, and Oregon was touted as his main strength. He joins a quarterback room in Cleveland that currently includes Kenny Pickett, Joe Flacco, and an injured Deshaun Watson.
Winner: Ohio State’s Future Recruiting Efforts
If there were any remaining questions of why Ohio State was able to roll through the 2025 College Football Playoff so easily, just look to the first two rounds of this draft, as seven of the first 45 players selected played for the Buckeyes. That group includes their top two offensive linemen, their best defensive tackle and a receiver, who were all first rounders. They were joined on Friday by the dominant rushing duo of Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson, taken in short succession near the top of the second round by the Browns and Patriots, respectively, and edge rusher J.T. Tuimoloau, taken by the Colts shortly thereafter.
The Buckeyes had one of the best championship runs of the modern college football era, and they’ll be the new standard of stacking a roster thanks to their ability and willingness to spend big with name, image and likeness deals. But NFL draft results like this will make head coach Ryan Day’s ability to recruit even easier. The top high school prospects and players in the transfer portal will know that the Buckeyes’ will fork over the money to bring in talent, and then when they play well, there’s a direct path to the NFL.
But here’s the craziest thing about this current crop of Buckeyes who have just landed in the NFL: none of them were the best offensive or defensive player on Ohio State’s championship team. Those titles belong to receiver Jeremiah Smith and safety Caleb Downs, neither of whom were eligible for this draft. Both should eventually be top 15 picks, keeping this Ohio State pipeline flowing.
Winner: Eternal Optimist, Nick Saban
As much as I’ve enjoyed watching our former Ringer colleague Ben Solak on ESPN’s draft broadcasts this weekend, the real star on-set analyst is Nick Saban. I couldn’t get enough of how he spoke so warmly and optimistically about the players getting drafted on Day 2, projecting just about every player to become a good pro. The former Alabama coach has a comprehensive scouting report on each prospect’s strengths, and he refuses to call any concerns a “weakness.”
It’s not unlike the phenomenon of watching your own formerly strict parents become unrecognizably soft and permissive as grandparents. Hearing about the players he missed in recruiting isn’t salty, it’s endearing. The players that beat him in his final years at Alabama are heaped with praise, with no tinges of anger at his team coming up short. I’ve spent enough time watching and listening to Saban to know he’s not a Belichickian-level curmudgeon, but we’ve come a long way from the guy who used to bang his hands on the podium at press conferences or always seemed close to popping a blood vessel because one of his players missed a block or blew a coverage.
Grandpa Saban’s more affectionate and optimistic side has been a fun touch on the draft, and a nice reprieve from all the quarterback drama over the last two nights.
