As I wrote about last week, NFL Drafts are currently in their feast-or-famine era when it comes to quarterbacks. In recent years, we’ve seen multiple drafts challenge the all-time record (set in 1983 and then matched in 2024) for the most QBs taken in Round 1. But we’ve also seen drafts like 2022, when no QB went any higher than 20th overall, and only one was taken in the first 73 selections.
Tonight’s 2026 NFL Draft figures to be more like the latter than the former. Heisman-winning Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza is basically assured of going No. 1 overall, if you believe the Polymarket odds, and Alabama’s Ty Simpson is nearly as certain to be the second QB taken:
However, it’s unlikely any more than those two QBs go in Round 1. In fact, it’s hardly certain Simpson will go that high, either. While some mock-draft aggregators have him going somewhere in the 20s overall, others — such as my buddy Ben Robinson at Grinding the Mocks — have him in the Top 100 but not in the consensus first round. Reflecting this divide, the Polymarket odds spent most of the week roughly split on whether we’ll get Mendoza + Simpson or just Mendoza in the first round (though they’ve moved a bit toward both being first-rounders overnight):
If things break more toward Ben’s forecast, that could make this one of the weirder QB drafts we’ve seen in recent decades. During the 2000s, we’ve only seen four drafts where just a single QB went in Round 1: that aforementioned 2022 class (with Kenny Pickett going 20th); 2013 (EJ Manuel went 16th); 2001 (Mike Vick was No. 1 overall); and 2000 (Chad Pennington went 18th, while some guy named “Brady” went 199th).
Earlier eras of the draft sometimes saw zero first-round QBs — like in 1996, when Tony Banks was the first passer taken at No. 42, or the deeply strange 1988 draft:
What usually marked those low-QB drafts of the past, however, was that the first QB taken usually had to wait a while to hear his name called. Very few drafts have been like this year’s is shaping up to be — with the first QB drafted going extremely high (first overall, in this case) and the next QB potentially not even be taken in Round 1 at all.
Again since 1980, only three drafts have fit that description, with the first QB off the board going Top-6 but the next not getting taken until the second round:
1981 - Rich Campbell goes 6th overall to Green Bay; Neil Lomax doesn’t get called until No. 33
1989 - Troy Aikman goes 1st overall to Dallas; Mike Elkins is next at No. 32
2001 - Vick goes 1st overall to Atlanta; Drew Brees goes 32nd
If, on the other hand, Simpson does end up getting taken late in Round 1 instead of later, this QB draft would resemble at least few more from history (including just last year):
1992 - David Klingler goes 6th overall to Cincinnati; Tommy Maddox is next at 25th
2005 - Alex Smith goes 1st overall to San Francisco; Aaron Rodgers (!) is next at No. 24
2007 - JaMarcus Russell infamously goes 1st overall to the Raiders; Brady Quinn is second at No. 22
2010 - Sam Bradford goes 1st overall to St. Louis; Tim Tebow (lol) is second at No. 25
2014 - Blake Bortles goes 3rd overall to Jacksonville; Johnny Manziel is next at No. 22
2025 - Cam Ward goes 1st overall to Tennessee; Jaxson Dart is next at No. 25
The distinction may seem academic. What difference does it make whether some team takes Simpson 25th or 33rd? But in draft history, it does seem to matter. We can see this when we track the early-career EPA value over replacement for the first and second QBs taken in the draft, splitting out when the QB2 is also a first-rounder versus not:
Obviously, at baseline there’s a huge drop-off in performance from the top QB off the board and the second choice — over the full five-year sample,1 the first QB taken tends to produce nearly double the value of the draft’s next-highest QB. (Put another way, QB2 produces only 54 percent the value of QB1.) But unsurprisingly, that gap is narrower — 60 percent — when QB2 is a first-round pick, and much wider — 37 percent — when he’s not.
There are certainly exceptions to this rule, many of which we just listed off. Drew Brees had a better career than Michael Vick, while Neil Lomax was obviously vastly better than Rich Campbell. But in general, the second QB in a draft has a significantly better chance to match (or at least be in the same neighborhood as) the first QB if they’re both taken fairly early on. When there’s a huge gap between QB1 and QB2, the latter doesn’t tend to be very good.
Which brings us back to this year’s class. If 2026 ends up as a “Mendoza-and-then-everyone-else” draft — Simpson, plus other names like LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier, Penn State’s Drew Allar, Miami’s Carson Beck, Arkansas’ Taylen Green, Clemson’s Cade Klubnik, Georgia Tech’s own Haynes King 😢 — then the odds are that teams are collectively telling us this class doesn’t really have a second quarterback with much of an NFL future at all.
For draft classes from 2021 or earlier, since subsequent classes don’t have five future seasons of data yet.