The NFL Draft has become a massive national event, with view counts of its first round surpassing even that for the NBA finals. The prospect of watching NFL teams select the most talented graduating college players to hopefully contribute to that team’s future success has drawn more and more fans, with 600,000 viewers present at the three-day draft event in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
This year, there was no lack of “blue-chip prospects,” the term for a draftee touted with the skill and potential of a generational player who has the ability to come into any team and make an instant impact.
No one personified this term better this year than Colorado University cornerback and wide receiver Travis Hunter. A 2025 Heisman Trophy winner, Hunter managed to be one of if not the best player in college at both positions he played. The rarity of a two-way player at the collegiate level cannot be overstated, his excellence on both sides of the ball provided teams with the opportunity to get twice their draft pick’s worth. Hunter would be selected second overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars, after they traded assets to move up in the draft order and guarantee their selection of such a prospect. Jaguars fan and junior Ryan Pham commented on his team’s selection.
“My favorite team is the Jaguars, and I think Travis Hunter is the best in the league now. I’m very happy with their pick,” Pham said.
Penn State defensive end Abdul Carter also exemplified this term, being the consensus best player at his position and someone who was nearly unblockable during his college career. Taken by the New York Giants this year, Carter was ranked the number one overall prospect per ESPN and ranked second by analyst Daniel Jeremiah, only behind Travis Hunter. The Giants would take him with their third overall pick, and Giants fans everywhere seem happy with the selection.
“We won the draft, definitely. Abdul Carter is the GOAT, and we’re going to win the Super Bowl,” Lucas Ahn, junior and lifetime Giants fan said.
Aside from these phenomenal players, however, the most intriguing and buzzworthy story came from a prospect ranked much lower by NFL teams. Colorado University quarterback and Travis Hunter teammate, Shedeur Sanders, originally came into the draft scene with a large amount of hype and was predicted by many, especially analyst Mel Kiper, to be the first or second quarterback off the board among the first ten picks.
“I definitely thought he was going to be picked in the top ten picks, and I also thought that he was the second best quarterback this year,” Ahn said.
Sander’s perception among the media would then be seen to be completely inaccurate and false, extremely unusual for the NFL. Originally given a tiny 3% chance of falling into the second round of the draft, all 32 teams picking in the first round passed on Sanders in a completely unexpected event.
“I feel kind of bad for him, like Shedeur Sanders got embarrassed in front of his friends and family,” Pham said.
Sander’s fall past the first ten picks was a surprise, and his fall out of the first round was an even bigger one. No one would have thought in a million years that the formerly highly touted prospect would fall past the second, third, and fourth rounds before finally being taken by the Cleveland Browns with the 144th overall pick. For context, most players taken in the fifth round of the NFL draft become career backups or failed projects that get cut a few years after the team takes them.
“I still think that he should have been picked earlier, he’s not that bad,” Pham said.
Some thought the reason he fell so far in the draft was because of his upbringing due to his father, Deion Sanders, who had been a Hall of Fame cornerback in the NFL. Others thought that he merely wasn’t that talented, and NFL teams saw that where the media didn’t.
“His dad probably hyped him up a lot more than he should’ve been,” Ahn said. “Teams don’t want to deal with someone annoying who’ll make the media attention a lot bigger.”
Whatever the case, Sanders’ fall was an unprecedented event that took over talks of the draft across the country. His situation matched with the stand out prospects of the year that were taken highly have turned the 2025 NFL draft into a memorable one.
