(#78) 2025 NEW Rankings! Pre-Combine Positional Tiers w/ 40 Players Ranked

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(#78) 2025 NEW Rankings! Pre-Combine Positional Tiers w/ 40 Players Ranked

The class is now set! We'll take a break from Deeper Dives to cover our first post-declaration rankings, covering our top 5-6 QB/TEs and our top 15-16 RB/WRs.

C.J. Freel

Jan 29, 2025

Transcript

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We’ll be back on the Deeper Dives in a few days with Ohio State audio and written Deeper Dives on the next several players we have to cover here.

If you would like more detailed information on any player ranked, keep in mind our Deeper Dives series is better for that. A listing of all Deeper Dive episodes by positional ranking can be found at the bottom.

Post-Declaration Tiered Rankings

(Honorable Mentions Alphabetical)

QBs

QB 2025 Draft Capital Chart:

Tier 1 - Round 1 ; Tier 2 - Round 2 to Round 3 ; Tier 3 - Round 3 to Round 4

Tier 1

1 Shedeur Sanders, Colorado

2 Cam Ward, Miami (FL)

Tier 2

3 Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss

4 Jalen Milroe, Alabama

Tier 3

5 Quinn Ewers, Texas

6 Will Howard, Ohio State

Honorable Mentions: Dillon Gabriel, Riley Leonard, Kyle McCord

RBs

RB 2025 Draft Capital Chart:

Tier 1 - Round 1 to Early Round 2 (Top 40) ; Tier 2 - Round 2 to Early Round 3 (Top 75) ; Tier 3 - Round 3 ; Tier 4 - Fringe Day 2 ; Tier 5 - Likely Day 3 with Fantasy Traits

Tier 1

1 Ashton Jeanty, Boise St.

Tier 2

2 Omarion Hampton, North Carolina

3 TreVeyon Henderson, Ohio State

4 Quinshon Judkins, Ohio State

5 Kaleb Johnson, Iowa

Tier 3

6 Jordan James, Oregon

7 Dylan Sampson, Tennessee

8 Devin Neal, Kansas

Tier 4

9 Trevor Etienne, Georgia

10 Damien Martinez, Miami (FL)

Tier 5

11 Cam Skattebo, Arizona St.

12 LeQuint Allen, Syracuse

13 Raheim “Rocket” Sanders, South Carolina

14 Ollie Gordon II, Oklahoma St.

15 DJ Giddens, Kansas St.

16 RJ Harvey, UCF

Honorable Mentions: Jarquez Hunter, Woody Marks, Kyle Monangai, Brashard Smith, Bhayshul Tuten

WRs

WR 2025 Draft Capital Chart:

Tier 1 - Top 10 ; Tier 2 - Top 20 ; Tier 3 - Round 2 ; Tier 4 - Round 3 ; Tier 5 - Fringe Day 2/3

Tier 1

0 Travis Hunter, Colorado

1 Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona

Tier 2

2 Emeka Egbuka, Ohio St.

3 Luther Burden III, Missouri

Tier 3

4 Matthew Golden, Texas

5 Elic Ayomanor, Stanford

Tier 4

6 Jayden Higgins, Iowa St.

7 Isaiah Bond, Texas

8 Tre Harris, Ole Miss

Tier 5

9 Ricky White III, UNLV

10 Jalen Royals, Utah St.

11 Xavier Restrepo, Miami (FL)

12 Tai Felton, Maryland

13 Jack Bech, TCU

14 Tez Johnson, Oregon

15 Jaylin Noel, Iowa St.

Honorable Mentions: Pat Bryant, Bru McCoy, Savion Williams

TEs

TE 2025 Draft Capital Chart:

Tier 1 - Mid-Late 1st ; Tier 2 - Day 2 + Unique Fantasy Upside ; Tier 3 - Day 2

Tier 1

1 Tyler Warren, Penn State

2 Colston Loveland, Michigan

Tier 2

3 Harold Fannin Jr., Bowling Green

Tier 3

4 Gunnar Helm, Texas

5 Mason Taylor, LSU

Honorable Mentions: Elijah Arroyo, Jake Brinningstool, Terrance Ferguson

Tiers which heavily involve Senior Bowl participants I will not be making much commentary on. These tiers are very likely to move a bit with these middling grades and players showing up together on the same field, and since I’ll be discussing the Senior Bowl itself, I’m largely going to bypass those tiers.

On my pre-draft board, Sanders and Ward would be in the same tier as J.J. McCarthy, with McCarthy as the highest rated QB in that tier. That is important because it is partially why Sanders is above Ward: if I am purely judging by what normally goes into being a #1 overall pick, Ward is closer. Sanders lacks significant high-upside traits, and he is not purely safe either as he takes far too many sacks and bad sacks. But I do feel more confident in Shedeur Sanders’ ability to develop at the NFL level. Perhaps that will be a significant mistake, but I do worry about the negative tail outcomes more with Cam Ward. Ward is incredible at avoiding pressures when they get to him, but he doesn’t always avoid getting himself into poor situations, and he is very risk-prone when pressured. Miami mitigated Ward’s downsides by having a good OL and incredible run game, with over 200 rushing yards per game. I’m worried that under NFL-pressure, Ward may be too mistake prone to survive long in the league. Still, he possesses enough upside that after 4.5 years of development, he is someone graded in the 1st Round.

At this point, the top 5 in this RB class looks excellent. Most notably, my NFL and Fantasy rankings would diverge a bit in the second tier. Omarion Hampton is my #2 RB because of Fantasy Football, but I’m not quite as sure he would be there for the NFL. However, considering that he is at least in this tier and has both high volume and high pass-catching volume throughout his career, he is the easiest RB in this class – even easier than Ashton Jeanty – to project into a high-volume 3-down role.

It is not all about youth and profile, but it is hard to deny the fact that my RBs 6 - 10 are all very young. 4 of the 5 are early declares, and Devin Neal was one of the youngest players in his class, so he is also below the median line for a Day 2 Fantasy prospect’s age. Tier 3 in particular has some of my favorite players in the RB class, though I do question some of their ultimate fantasy upsides. None of them were particularly involved as pass catchers, and none of them are particularly large, which does at least sometimes help with volume. Still, those 3 RBs are players that I would love to see go to a situation with a semi-open RB room or path to significant carries. I feel far less confident about Trevor Etienne and Damien Martinez. Perhaps Etienne should be in the next tier, but aside from showcasing three down ability, Etienne is still very young. He is the third youngest player in these rankings. Damien Martinez is my favorite big, powerful RB in the last several classes coming into the early part of the process, but there are a few things that definitely scare me. While Martinez did take some steps forward with his pass catching ability in 2024, I still have significant questions here.

If Travis Hunter ONLY played WR, he would be my #1 WR in this class. I have no idea what I’m going to do for Fantasy, so we will cross that bridge when we have better information. That said, McMillan is an excellent WR prospect who could profile similarly to Drake London. Burden had a down season, and Egbuka is not the best athlete, but I believe these players both have a very solid floor and ceiling at the next level. Matthew Golden appears to be the biggest late riser of this class. After being an early declare, he has at least checked enough of my analytical boxes between good very-early production and a solid peak in important games. Stylistically, Golden does have some ability that reminds me of Garrett Wilson, though the profile/production is obviously significantly worse. I do have some questions with Ayomanor, but he is ultimately someone who has great numbers generally speaking given his passing environment, and also has the potential to test very well, particularly given his size. Ayomanor is a well-sized WR with a track background, though he did sustain a devastating knee injury in 2022. Jayden Higgins has excellent size and some juice with the ball in his hands. He has also been one of the most consistently productive WRs on this list throughout his entire career. Isaiah Bond has universal utility to an NFL team, but at this point, the upside may be more Darnell Mooney. Tre Harris is admittedly a player who is very controversial. The Ole Miss system and history of producing these massive games is also hard to read analytically. Harris missed a couple games this season, and in one his replacement had over 250 yards and 5 receiving TDs.

I came very, very close to ranking Colston Loveland as my #1 TE. There seems to be a growing gap or at least a gap on some boards between the two. I have no gap, and if Loveland has marginally similar draft capital and a better landing spot, he will be my TE1. This is far too early to get this specific, but two of the most popular early draft landing spots are Tyler Warren to the Colts at 14 and Colston Loveland reuniting with Jim Harbaugh and the Chargers at 22. Loveland would actually quite easily be my TE1 in this scenario.

For further reading, the Deeper Dives (Podcast Episode #):

QBs

Sanders & Ward - #73

Dart & Milroe - #74

Ewers - #76

Howard - #79 (Next)

RBs

Jeanty & Skattebo - #74

Hampton & Smith - #72

Henderson & Judkins - #79 (Next)

K Johnson - #69

James & Martinez - #75