The regular NFL 2020 season is complete. There is only one college football game to be played – Monday’s National College Football Playoff Championship between Alabama and Ohio. Eighteen of the 32 NFL teams know where they will select in the 2021 NFL draft and have turned their attention there. So it seems like a good time to predict how the first round will evolve in April.
It’s still very early. This month’s Senior Bowl will give scouts a chance to see players who haven’t had much bandwidth this year in a short season, and the NFL scout combination will be the teams ’first look in more than a year at numerous potential projects famous who opted from the 2020 season against the background of the coronavirus pandemic. The evaluators, including me, still have many tapes to watch and many interviews to do. Rankings will change, as will the back half of the sketch order used here – which was determined by ESPN Football Power Index projections.
But this is certain right now, at just four months old: the class is full of talent. Currently, I have 22 players with a 90 degree plus – which I use to identify the true potentials of the first round – including a handful of defenders. So how will everything happen? Let’s predict the first 32 selections of the NFL draft in 2021, starting with a Jaguars team with only one victory. And be sure to check out our fake project, live on ESPN + at 5:00 p.m. ET.
Note: The draft order is set for election no. 1-18. For the elections no. 19-32, I used projections from the ESPN Football Power Index (FPI). Subclasses are marked with an asterisk.
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Trevor Lawrence, QB, Clemson *
Did you expect someone else? In almost a decade, I haven’t seen a quarterback prospect like Lawrence, and the Jaguars are definitely on the market. Gardner Minshew II, Mike Glennon and Jake Luton combined for the NFL’s second worst Total QBR in 2020 (43.7). Jacksonville will have a new general manager and a new coach after losing 15 games, and the 6-meter Lawrence, who has a huge arm, good mobility in his pocket and all the intangibles you could ask for – would give the new direction of the team, a starting quarterback who should soon be among the best in the NFL. Lawrence said Wednesday for the project.
