Titans GM: Team Open To Trading No. 1 Pick
Mike Borgonzi is now in place as the Titans’ general manager, and while his authority will not reach the level of many of his colleagues around the league, he will have an interesting decision to make early in his tenure. Tennessee currently holds the No. 1 pick in April’s draft, but moving down the board is something which will receive consideration. 
“Draft picks are our biggest form of currency, so when there’s opportunities to trade back to collect more picks, we’re going to do that,” Borgonzi said during his introductory press conference (via ESPN’s Turron Davenport). “We’re going to look at all avenues as far as that number one pick,” president of football operations Chad Brinker added. “But we won’t pass on a generational talent with the first pick in the NFL Draft.”
Heisman winner Travis Hunter is widely seen as a the top prospect in the 2025 class, but the two-way star (who is viewed as being likely to play corner in the NFL at this point) would not fill Tennessee’s need at the quarterback position. With the Browns, Giants and Raiders respectively owning the second, third and sixth selections, Tennessee taking Hunter would add another layer to the QB sweepstakes in April. In general, though, Borgonzi’s stance about prioritizing volume of picks is a reasonable one.
The Titans currently own eight selections this year, but only two of those are in the top 100. Moving down would help Borgonzi reach his stated goal of making 30 total picks in the next three years, something which will be key in shaping the direction of the franchise moving forward. Given the demand for passers amongst many teams at the top of the board and the scarcity of available quarterbacks viewed as being Day 1 prospects (Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders), a strong trade-up market would likely exist if the Titans elected to entertain offers this spring.
Of course, the team’s stance on that front will depend on the evaluation of Hunter and the signal-callers who could challenge him for hearing their names called first on draft night. While Brinker is set to hold tiebreaking authority on many roster-building moves, it will be Borgonzi having the final say with respect to the draft. How the latter proceeds on that front will be one of the more interesting league storylines during the spring.
Steelers Unlikely To Add External QB In Free Agency?
As the Steelers’ high-floor/low-ceiling routine extended through another season, the team again has a decision to make at quarterback. After pulling the plug on the Kenny Pickett experiment late in the 2023 season, Pittsburgh identified a cost-effective but unremarkable solution in the Russell Wilson–Justin Fields tandem. Mixed results emerged.
Although Wilson provided a boost to help the team reach 10-3, Pittsburgh crumbled as its schedule stiffened down the stretch. After five straight losses closed out the Steelers’ season, Mike Tomlin was noncommittal about the futures of his top two passers. Wilson has expressed interest in staying on multiple occasions, while Fields is nearly 11 years younger and would provide more intrigue through a longer-term lens. It may be an either/or situation, but one of them coming back seems more likely than the team pursuing an outside free agent.
As it stands in January, veteran Steelers reporter Mark Kaboly writes that is is “highly unlikely” the Steelers sign an outside QB free agent to start. The team has two experienced starters under contract through March, holding exclusive negotiating rights with Wilson and Fields until the legal tampering period starts March 10. It looks more probable than not the team will determine which of the QBs it wants to keep working with, rather than start over with one of this year’s outside FA options. A report earlier this month pointed to Fields being perhaps the team’s more appealing target of the two incumbents.
Sam Darnold would represent this year’s prize, and his difficult finish may give the Vikings pause about potentially unholstering the franchise tag. More affordable options would include Kirk Cousins (once the Falcons release him) or Daniel Jones. Cousins would likely follow Wilson’s path by signing a vet-minimum deal, as the Falcons will be on the hook for his salary once he is cut. Jones also could be a Vikings bridge option if Darnold proves too pricey to tag or re-sign, but other teams will show interest. Beyond the underwhelming non-Fields contingent of 2021 first-rounders — Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, Mac Jones — a host of veteran backup types would round out the QB market. Aaron Rodgers could also loom, though the 41-year-old star has not determined if he will play a 21st season. Rodgers would represent an interesting variable here, even if, as PFR readers’ recent stance reminds, a fit with the Steelers would be a bit difficult to foresee.
The Steelers will have a major say in how the QB market plays out this year, with Fields and Wilson being perhaps the top two non-Darnold names available. Fields did not threaten Wilson’s job security after being benched midseason, but he might hold greater appeal due to his age (26 in April). Wilson is 36, and his post-Seattle performance has left much to be desired. That said, the Steelers’ failure to add a dependable No. 2 wide receiver undoubtedly affected Wilson, especially against better competition. With George Pickens‘ future with the organization potentially in doubt, the team will have WR questions to answer once again.
Holding a first-round pick around usual territory (21st this year), the Steelers have limited options in the draft. While one NFL scouting director predicts (via ESPN.com’s Jeremy Fowler) the team will draft a quarterback high, choosing one this year would remind — to a degree, at least — of the Pickett selection due to the criticism directed at this QB crop. Beyond Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward, the likes of Jalen Milroe (Alabama) and Jaxson Dart (Ole Miss) would be available. Supply-and-demand issues may push the SEC arms up the board, but neither currently profiles as a surefire Day 1 draftee.
Illustrating the much-rumored gulf between this year’s top two college prospects and the field, Mel Kiper Jr.’s first ESPN.com mock predicts Ward and Sanders will be gone within the top three and no other signal-callers will go in Round 1. Free agency, then, will be an important component of Pittsburgh’s latest QB plan. The Steelers will have until March 10 to keep either Fields or Wilson off the market. Otherwise, they will be competing with other suitors to retain one of the QBs.
Notre Dame CB Benjamin Morrison Declares For Draft
Notre Dame cornerback Benjamin Morrison is declaring for the 2025 NFL Draft, per ESPN’s Jordan Reid.
Morrison did not play in the College Football Playoff due to a season-ending hip injury suffered in October, but he dominated opposing receivers up to that point. He allowed just 12 receptions and a 58.4 passer rating on his 27 targets in 2024, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), solidifying his status as a first-round pick.
NFL teams will be excited about Morrison’s growth potential. He checks almost every box for a cornerback prospect, with a solid frame (6-foot, 190 pounds), smooth athleticism, excellent coverage skills, and willingness to defend the run. He burst onto the college football scene with a team-high six interceptions as an 18-year-old true freshman in 2022, earning All-American honors in the process.
Morrison followed that up with a superb sophomore year with three more interceptions and a semifinalist nod for the Jim Thorpe award, given to the top defensive back in Division I-FBS. He was on his way to more awards consideration in 2024 before his injury, but still put together a solid six-game performance before he went down.
Colorado’s Travis Hunter and Michigan’s Will Johnson are widely thought to be the top two cornerbacks in the 2025 class, with Morrison typically ranked third. ESPN’s Scouts Inc. ranks Morrison 13th overall in this year’s class. Hunter, obviously, offers elite upside as a two-way player, while Johnson enjoyed more team success and individual accolades at the college level compared to Morrison. All three are expected to be first-round picks in April’s draft.
Chad Brinker Confirms Personnel Control With Titans; Mike Borgonzi To Run Draft
Chad Brinker has made an interesting climb in Tennessee. He is the last man standing from a triumvirate that included GM Ran Carthon and assistant GM Anthony Robinson, being given authority to hire a GM of his own.
Mike Borgonzi is now in that chair, being hired from the Chiefs last week, but Brinker confirmed Wednesday (via TitanInsider.com’s Terry McCormick) he has final say over the Titans’ 53-man roster. Elevated to president of Titans football operations last year, Brinker said (via veteran Titans reporter Paul Kuharsky) he did not have full control in 2024.
Regardless of Brinker’s responsibilities last year, his Nashville rise has been interesting. The Titans had Brinker and Robinson as co-assistant GMs in 2023, but Brinker rose above the ex-Falcons exec last year. That climb eventually included Carthon being fired after two years on the GM. Hours after that news broke, the Titans fired Robinson as well. Brinker is still standing, however, and is leading the Titans in a pivotal offseason.
Tumbling to 3-14 in Brian Callahan‘s first season, the Titans hold the No. 1 overall pick. It will be expected Brinker plays a significant role in the Titans’ draft, but the team’s current personnel boss said Borgonzi will run that process. That undoubtedly provided appeal for Borgonzi, who follows Brandt Tilis as Kansas City execs to leave despite not being given final-say authority elsewhere. Tilis joined the Panthers as Dan Morgan‘s top lieutenant last year.
Brinker added (via SI.com’s Albert Breer) that Borgonzi will lead Tennessee’s free agency effort as well. Borgonzi confirmed this, via ESPN.com’s Turron Davenport, classifying Brinker as having the tiebreaker. This is a similar setup to the Seahawks’ long-running Pete Carroll–John Schneider arrangement, where the HC held the tiebreaker while the GM made the acquisitions.
Although Brinker classified Carthon as a friend, the team president said the Titans’ free agency strategy last year lacked some discipline. Carthon’s second offseason as GM involved a number of big-ticket contracts handed out. The team signed the likes of Calvin Ridley, Lloyd Cushenberry, Chidobe Awuzie and Tony Pollard before trading for L’Jarius Sneed and giving him $44MM at signing. Awuzie, Sneed and Cushenberry missed much of the season due to injuries, with Ridley and Pollard’s 1,000-yard showings unable to do much for Will Levis‘ development.
Carthon’s leadership notwithstanding, Brinker was certainly a key player in Tennessee’s 2024 strategy. He will be given another chance. The draft will be the centerpiece area for the Titans, who have seen Levis’ struggles create a quarterback need. Although Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders will be closely linked to the Titans at No. 1, in all likelihood, Brinker added (via Titans.com’s Jim Wyatt) the team will not force a quarterback over “a generational talent” at 1.
That path is a bit more interesting this year, as neither Sanders nor Ward are viewed as players who would have been candidates to infiltrate the Caleb Williams–Jayden Daniels–Drake Maye top three of 2024. But two-way phenom Travis Hunter will be available. The Colorado product is a mortal lock to go in the top five, with cornerback being viewed early as his most likely NFL position (though, that is not yet set). Still, Hunter being deemed a far superior prospect to Sanders and Ward would put the Titans to a fascinating decision — one that would please the QB-needy Browns and Giants (at Nos. 2 and 3).
Amy Adams Strunk‘s fingerprints are the clearest on the Titans’ mid-2020s decline. The owner fired GM Jon Robinson months after giving him an extension. Disagreements with Mike Vrabel led Adams Strunk to fire the former Coach of the Year following the 2023 season. The Titans are now in rebuild mode, only with a number of Carthon-approved contracts on their books for the 2025 campaign.
Brinker acknowledged the Titans’ front office hierarchy is “unique,” though he indicated Borgonzi will still carry considerable authority. Adams Strunk, however, does not want too much say on football matters, Kuharsky adds, further cementing Brinker as the organization’s current cornerstone decision-maker.
Borgonzi’s presence notwithstanding, it will be on the former Packers exec to make the final calls on a Hunter-or-QB decision at No. 1. With Adams Strunk firing two GMs and a head coach between December 2022 and January 2025, Brinker may well be moving toward a hot seat. Thus far, though, he has survived during the team’s decline.
Updated 2025 NFL Draft Order
Two weekends of playoff football have come and gone, providing us with 10 more draft slots cemented into position as NFL teams continue to be eliminated from the playoffs. The top 18 picks were already divvied up at the conclusion of the regular season to the teams who failed to make the playoffs, while picks 19-28 have been determined over the past two weeks.
For non-playoff teams, the draft order has been determined by the inverted 2024 standings plus a series of tiebreakers, starting with strength of schedule. The playoff squads are being slotted by their postseason outcome and the reverse order of their regular-season record.
The league’s Super Wild Card weekend resulted in the elimination of Chargers, Steelers, Broncos, Packers, Buccaneers, and Vikings after their respective losses. Tampa Bay benefitted from the three-way tie in record with Denver and Pittsburgh, just as the Chargers did over the Packers.
The divisional round of the playoffs resulted in the elimination of the Texans, Rams, Ravens, and Lions. This time, Houston held the tiebreaker over Los Angeles, gifting it higher draft priority.
We are still at a place that, for the first time since the league expanded to 32 teams in 2002, there is a chance that every team drafts in the first round, as no first-round picks have yet been traded. It’s extremely unlikely that this will remain the case, as draft-day trades are a very common occurrence, but it’s still an interesting concept to note this close to the draft.
Here is how the draft order looks following two weeks of playoff football:
- Tennessee Titans (3-14)
- Cleveland Browns (3-14)
- New York Giants (3-14)
- New England Patriots (4-13)
- Jacksonville Jaguars (4-13)
- Las Vegas Raiders (4-13)
- New York Jets (5-12)
- Carolina Panthers (5-12)
- New Orleans Saints (5-12)
- Chicago Bears (5-12)
- San Francisco (6-11)
- Dallas Cowboys (7-10)
- Miami Dolphins (8-9)
- Indianapolis Colts (8-9)
- Atlanta Falcons (8-9)
- Arizona Cardinals (8-9)
- Cincinnati Bengals (9-8)
- Seattle Seahawks (10-7)
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers (10-7)
- Denver Broncos (10-7)
- Pittsburgh Steelers (10-7)
- Los Angeles Chargers (11-6)
- Green Bay Packers (11-6)
- Minnesota Vikings (14-3)
- Houston Texans (10-7)
- Los Angeles Rams (10-7)
- Baltimore Ravens (12-5)
- Detroit Lions (15-2)
- Washington Commanders (12-5)
- Buffalo Bills (13-4)
- Philadelphia Eagles (14-3)
- Kansas City Chiefs (15-2)
Raiders May Be Homing In On QB Shedeur Sanders
The Raiders did themselves a bit of a disservice by winning a couple of games down the stretch of the regular season and ruining their opportunity to own the No. 1 overall pick of the 2025 NFL Draft as a result. Despite the theoretical misstep, Las Vegas may still be in a good position to land their preferred option in April. 
As the influence of minority-owner Tom Brady continues to permeate throughout the Raiders organization, there seems to be an indication that Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders could be the object of focus for the team’s scouting department leading into the draft. According to Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports, Brady has “a great amount of respect for Sanders’ focus on preparation, his ability to learn and adapt, his accuracy and determination in the pocket, and his toughness to take hits and still be resilient.”
We continue to see reports from scouts that the top two passers in this year’s draft class, Miami’s Cam Ward and Sanders, wouldn’t have surpassed the top three passers in 2024 (Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, and Drake Maye). According to Connor Hughes of SportsNet New York, some have even claimed that J.J. McCarthy would be the QB1 in this class, which is hard to believe when comparing the statistics of the three. Apparently, McCarthy’s winning of a championship with Michigan is valued highly enough to overcome a severe difference in production.
Despite these claims and despite Sanders seemingly being ranked as QB2 behind Ward at the moment, the desperate need for quarterbacks in the NFL still makes it seem like Sanders may not make it to the Raiders at No. 6 overall. Three of the five teams in the first five picks of the draft (Titans, Browns, Giants) have also been connected to passers with quarterback being identified as a position of need. Still, there’s reportedly belief in draft circles that, as the evaluation process continues, Sanders has a chance to slip out of the top five picks.
Should that be the case, it would play perfectly into the hands of Las Vegas. There’s some hope that whoever is hired as general manager, as well as head coach, would be permitted some input on the decision of who is selected in the first round. If Brady and majority-owner Mark Davis have their way, though, the Colorado-product may be headed to the Raiders.
Texas T Cameron Williams Declares For Draft
The Longhorns are looking to put two offensive tackles in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft. Two days after teammate, left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr., announced his own intentions, Texas right tackle Cameron Williams announced that he would forgo his senior year in order to move on to the NFL, according to Pete Thamel of ESPN. 
Williams is certainly viewed as a bit of a project for the NFL. He came to Austin from Duncanville HS (TX) as a three-star tackle. Though not highly ranked, Williams had no shortage of offers. His senior-year size of 6-foot-5, 360 pounds garnered offers from the biggest schools in the country. After taking official visits to Oregon, Miami, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Texas, Williams committed to the Ducks before his senior year. After concluding his final high school season, though, Williams decommitted from Oregon and signed with the Longhorns.
In his first two seasons with the team, Williams held a fairly small role, though not small enough to redshirt. He appeared in every game as a freshman, playing primarily on special teams. As a sophomore, he appeared in nine games and made his first start at right tackle in a game against Kansas State.
This season was Williams’ first as a full-time starter at Texas. Williams started every game this year at right tackle and, though the unit was solid this year, Williams delivered mixed results. While he only allowed 14 pressures on the year, he also was near the top of the nation in penalties committed. He’s extremely raw and unpolished at the moment, but his athletic ability at an ideal size (he’s trimmed down to a more manageable 335 pounds) has lots of scouts drooling over his potential.
Out of the four ESPN analysts’ rankings, only Matt Miller has Williams as a top-five offensive tackle. In his midseason rankings, Dane Brugler of The Athletic was willing to overlook Williams’ FBS-leading penchant for penalties, listing him as the third-best offensive tackle and the 27th-best prospect overall.
In a draft class that lacks a truly elite group of tackles, players with high potential, like Williams, have a strong chance of rising up draft boards. The runup to the draft will be important for Williams, as he’ll get a chance to show in the NFL scouting combine and his pro day just how athletic his perfect frame is.
Two Oregon Big Men Declare For Draft
The Oregon Ducks have come a long way from 2022 when defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux was their only selection in the NFL draft, seeing six players selected in 2023 and eight players selected last year. This year, though, the Ducks have a chance at doing something they haven’t done in 10 years: land two players in the first round of the draft. They last accomplished this feat in 2015, when Marcus Mariota and Arik Armstead were taken within the top 17 picks. 
The two players that could make it happen this year are defensive tackle Derrick Harmon and offensive tackle Josh Conerly Jr. Harmon announced on his Instagram that he would be forgoing his redshirt senior year to declare for the 2025 NFL Draft, while Conerly announced the forgoing of his senior season on X.
Harmon has come a long way since committing to Michigan State as a three-star defensive lineman out of Loyola HS (MI). His biggest offers came from the Spartans, Ole Miss, and Purdue, while he received a few others from Group of 5 and FCS programs, as well. In East Lansing, Harmon redshirted his freshman year after only appearing in four games. He began to make an impact as a redshirt freshman, making 30 total tackles, including three for loss and two sacks in 12 appearances with five starts. He doubled his start total as a redshirt sophomore, racking up 40 total tackles, four tackles for loss, and 1.5 sacks.
Following a solid 2023 campaign, Harmon entered the transfer portal after the Spartans fired then-head coach Mel Tucker. After taking visits to Oregon, Ohio State, and Auburn, he opted to withdraw his name from the portal and remain with new head coach Jonathan Smith. When he re-entered the transfer portal in April, he immediately became the most-coveted defensive lineman available and eventually committed to the Ducks.
In Eugene, Harmon made an immediate impact, taking his play to another level and performing as one of the top interior defenders in the country. In his single season as a Duck, he set new career highs in tackles (45), tackles for loss (11), sacks (5.0), passes defensed (4), and forced fumbles (2). The stats only tell half the story of how disruptive Harmon is as an interior defender. His quickness and power make him a menace inside the tackles, but he’s handled his own lining up over tackles plenty this season, giving him versatility to play all over the line.
Conerly was the gem of the Ducks 2022 signing class. Coming out of Rainier Beach HS (WA), Conerly was the team’s only five-star recruit and the top tackle in the country, per 247Sports. With offers from all over, Conerly took his time with the recruiting process, taking official visits with Michigan, Oklahoma, Miami, Oregon, and USC. Many believed he was destined to become a Trojan, but he shocked the recruiting world and committed to the Ducks.
Conerly didn’t start at all as a true freshman, but he was too talented to keep off the field. He played often on special teams and established himself as a reliable extra lineman in jumbo packages. It was as a sophomore that Conerly became a full-time starter at left tackle. He was considered the key factor of an offensive line that gave up the fewest sacks in the nations (5) and the third-fewest tackles for loss (44). In 2024, he was once again served as the prime example of dependability. He only allowed one sack and five pressures this season.
While Harmon is an almost guaranteed first-rounder, Conerly will be the deciding factor of whether or not the school can get two players selected on Day 1. The talk around Conerly reminds me of the talk around former Oklahoma offensive tackle Orlando Brown Jr. Brown was polarizing in that his technique and combine performance were considered downright poor, but he got the job done time and again. Conerly’s technique is raw when hand-fighting, and he could stand to get stronger, but elite recovery speed has saved him from otherwise damning attributes.
As mentioned before, Harmon should be securely in the first round. ESPN’s Mel Kiper lists him as the 18th-best overall prospect, and he and his colleagues (Matt Miller, Jordan Reid, and Field Yates) all have him as either the No. 2 or No. 3 defensive tackle prospect. The Athletic’s Dane Brugler has Harmon as the second-best interior defender and the 14th-best prospect. Conerly ranges from the third- to sixth-best offensive tackle prospect among the ESPN analysts, while Brugler has him as the fifth tackle and the 33rd-best overall prospect.
Harmon and Conerly will both be hoping to hear their names on the first night of the draft. Harmon can likely book his ticket to Lambeau for the event. Conerly may be just on the outside looking in for now, but a strong pre-draft performance, combined with a relatively weak class of offensive linemen, could result in a boost into the first round.
QB Quinn Ewers Declares For Draft
Following Texas’ CFP semifinal loss to Ohio State, Quinn Ewers said he did not expect to be playing college football next season. The multiyear Longhorns starter made that official Wednesday.
Ewers is entering the 2025 draft, he announced on his X account. While Ewers is not currently viewed as a no-doubt first-round pick, he is expected to be one of the first QBs chosen in a crop that has generated significant questions. Ewers’ Austin exit also clears a path for Arch Manning, who is already drawing down-the-line NFL interest.
Going 21-5 as a starter under Steve Sarkisian, Ewers enjoyed a quality college career. He held off Manning for two seasons, remaining the starter despite the super-prospect seeing time as a redshirt freshman this past season. The 6-foot-3 QB piloted the Longhorns to back-to-back CFP semifinal games.
Ewers threw 31 touchdown passes and 12 interceptions this season, helping the Longhorns back to the semis. This season did bring a completion percentage step back, dropping from 69% to 65.8%, and a lower yards-per-attempt number (8.8 to 7.8) compared to his sophomore season. Ewers was unable to solidify himself as a surefire first-rounder, but he will get to work on attempting to do so before the draft.
ESPN’s Scouts Inc. rates Ewers as the No. 60 overall prospect. Among quarterbacks, that places him third in the class — behind Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward and ahead of Jalen Milroe. That said, Sanders and Ward are candidates to be top-five picks. As far back as November, we heard a tier gap existed between the Colorado and Miami arms and the rest of the 2025 QB class. Nothing has yet emerged to indicate that assessment was inaccurate, and a more recent report pointed to evaluators being more intrigued by the 2026 and ’27 QB classes — one of which could well include Manning — compared to this year’s group.
With Manning on track to start for Texas in 2025, Ewers could have entered the transfer portal and commanded a lofty NIL payout to stay in college and further his stock for the 2026 draft. He had a senior year of eligibility to use. Georgia’s Carson Beck is taking this route, passing on a 2025 NFL entrance and transferring to Miami. Milroe, however, will join Ewers in declaring for a draft that features extensive question marks at the QB position.
An Ohio State recruit once upon a time, Ewers had reclassified to enter college earlier. He did redshirt as a first-year collegian, eventually using up three years of eligibility at Texas. Ewers will turn 22 a month before the draft. Rather than take the Jayden Daniels–Bo Nix–Michael Penix Jr. route to better his prep and enter a draft in his mid-20s, Ewers will follow the more traditional route Caleb Williams and Drake Maye took last year.
Georgia Defensive Stars Declare For Draft
Stop me if you’ve heard this story before, but the University of Georgia is set to produce multiple first-round picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, specifically on the defensive side of the ball. Bulldogs linebacker Jalon Walker, safety Malaki Starks, and pass rusher Mykel Williams all took to social media last week to announce their declarations to enter the draft. All three players were five-star recruits in an incredible 2022 signing class for the Dawgs, with Williams ranking as the 10th highest rated signee in school history at the time. 
Walker, out of Salisbury HS (NC), was 247Sports’ third-best linebacker and 26th-best overall recruit in the class. As a true freshman, Walker played sparingly on special teams and as a reserve insider linebacker. While getting slightly more time as a reserve insider linebacker in his sophomore campaign, Walker still found a way to lead the team with five sacks. Finally earning a full-time starting role as a junior, Walker set a career high in tackles (60) while leading the team with more career highs in tackles for loss (11) and sacks (6.5). Walker was awarded the Butkus Award for the nation’s best linebacker this year.
Now, Walker is almost certainly going to be a first-round draft pick, the only question remaining is: at what position? ESPN’s Mel Kiper and Field Yates and The Athletic’s Dane Brugler all view Walker as the top off-ball linebacker in the draft, with Kiper and Brugler rating him as the ninth- and seventh-best prospect, respectively, overall, touting his sideline-to-sideline capabilities with his elite pass rushing abilities adding versatility to his portfolio. ESPN’s Matt Miller and Jordan Reid, though, have Walker ranking third amongst edge rushers alongside Williams, predicting that Walker’s elite pass rushing ability will land him as an outside linebacker or defensive end in the NFL.
Williams, out of Hardaway HS (GA), was even higher ranked than Walker coming out of high school, with 247Sports listing him as the second-best defensive lineman and the seventh-best overall recruit in the nation. After an initial commitment to USC, Williams made a flip late in his senior year, deciding to go to Athens, instead.
As a true freshman, Williams led the team in sacks (4.5) despite only making two starts in 15 appearances of the team’s championship campaign. While Walker led the team in that stat each of the past two years, Williams was second on the team in both 2023 (4.5) and 2024 (5.0). Williams started 10 of 13 games as a sophomore, but after failing to take much of a step forward, Williams would only earn five starts this season, getting out-snapped by players like Chaz Chambliss, Damon Wilson Jr., and Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins.
We’ve seen plenty examples before to show that physical tools and potential can easily outweigh a lack of production in college, and that seems to be the case with Williams. Despite his inability to show more consistency and production at Georgia, Williams’ speed, power, and bend are viewed as top-tier traits that could make him a scary weapon on an NFL defense. Kiper and his colleagues and Brugler consistently have Williams ranked as the second- or third-best pass rusher in the draft behind only Penn State’s Abdul Carter and sometimes behind Tennessee’s James Pearce Jr. Kiper lists Williams as the 16th-best overall prospect, while Brugler slots him up at eighth. 
Perhaps saving the best for last, Starks was the jewel of Georgia’s recruiting class that year out of Jefferson HS (GA), ranking as the top athlete and the fourth-best overall prospect, according to 247Sports. Starks made the biggest impact of the three as a freshman, starting 14 of 15 contests. In the championship-winning campaign, Starks tied for the team-lead in passes defensed (7) while finishing second on the team with two interceptions. He finished second in both categories as a sophomore, as well, with three interceptions and seven more passes defensed. While his ball-hawking took a backseat this past season, Starks took the team-lead in another category with 77 total tackles.
While Kiper lists Starks below Walker as the 13th best overall prospect in the draft, he and his colleagues all list Starks as the top safety prospect in the class. Brugler has Starks ranked as the fourth-best overall prospect. Starks projects so highly because of his high football intelligence and his versatile ability to make plays all over the field. He has a build closer to that of a Brian Branch than a Kyle Hamilton, but he possesses the ability both pros have to make tackles in the box, close quickly in coverage, and finish plays with good hands. It may take him a moment to live up to that comparison, but the potential is absolutely there.
While there has been a large number of perceived “busts” out of Georgia in the last few years, Starks, Walker, and Williams won’t be coasting off of the boosts often applied to winners of a national championship like Travon Walker, Quay Walker, Devonte Wyatt, and Lewis Cine, who perhaps have not lived up to their relative draft stock. Regardless, Georgia is on a three-year streak of producing multiple first-round picks, and that trend will likely continue as Starks, Walker, and Williams prepare for April.