Quarterback class for 2026 NFL Draft not shaping up as expected, but there are potential stars

Quarterback class for 2026 NFL Draft not shaping up as expected, but there are potential stars originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Not far from Acrisure Stadium on Pittsburgh’s North Shore, where the Steelers still are ascertaining what will become of their 2025 season, there is a countdown clock constantly ticking off the minutes until the start of the 2026 NFL Draft.

Those who had it installed will insist this is because the draft will be conducted in the city for the first time ever, which figures to draw some astonishing six-figure aggregation of football fans to the region. Those who live here, though, understand there’s more to it.

The Steelers need a quarterback, and their followers have been told for months the 2026 QB class is exceptional. That’s what they’ve been waiting to see next April 23, but a funny thing has happened on the way to Garrett Nussmeier and Cade Klubnik and Drew Allar and Arch Manning bro-hugging NFL commissioner Roger Goodell near the banks of the Allegheny River. Each of those top prospects sank in the first month of the college season.

The Steelers are not the only ones in this market, of course. The Browns and Jets, almost perennially, are searching for their futures at the position. We also should see the Falcons, Raiders, Saints and possibly the Panthers and Cardinals pondering quarterback selections. The picture they’re examining now is not the one expected back in “week zero”.

“With QBs, you’re always looking for development,” analyst David Payne of Drafttek.com told The Sporting News. “Projecting what this year’s class would look like was based on an assumption that the likely frontrunners would improve in the areas where they have been deficient beforehand.”

There are varying reasons that hasn’t happened for most of the established quarterbacks, and it’s forced those who are in the business of judging prospects to train their binoculars onto different players – Fernando Mendoza at Indiana, Dante Moore at Oregon, John Mateer at Oklahoma – and to look even more closely at those bigger names.

“I think it’s still going to be a really good quarterback class,” analyst Charlie Campbell of Walter Football told SN. “I always say where I value a player who I like isn’t relevant. What’s relevant is where NFL teams like them, where they value them. I always try to work my sources with scouting departments and find out which guys are grading out well.

“I study guys in the preseason, and they’re such young players, they can have a big change physically from year to year. They can grow a lot, they can get a lot better in terms of their mechanics, their mental aptitude, learning their offense and having more experience and comfort in the scheme they’re running. So I keep a real open mind as to where they could end up going, how they can rise or slide.”

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The NFL Draft QB sliders

In his initial 2026 mock draft for CBS Sports, Ryan Wilson projected in early June there would be five quarterbacks selected in Round 1 – even with him suggesting Manning would return to the Texas Longhorns for a second season as a starter.

Others, including Fox Sports, placed Manning at No. 1 overall in early mocks.

That was before his grandfather and namesake, Archie Manning, said in an August interview Arch would return to UT for the 2026 season. And since the start of the season, Arch has played like someone who needs another year (at least) to be ready for the NFL.

He lost both his starts against high-major competition and completed just 56 percent of his passes, including three interceptions and three TDs.

“Arch Manning has been really disappointing,” Payne told TSN. “He doesn’t possess great arm strength, and his anticipation/accuracy isn’t what you’d expect from a Manning. We have to remember he only has a handful of starts, however.”

Klubnik, projected to the Browns with the first overall pick in a late-June ESPN.com mock by Matt Miller, does not have that excuse. He is in his third season in charge of the Clemson offense, and he is 1-3 against Power 4 competition. (And the one win is against Bill Belichick’s farcical edition of the North Carolina Tar Heels).

Klubnik completed 57.3 percent of his passes in losses to LSU, Georgia Tech and Syracuse, and he produced only one more TD than picks.

“His high early season rank was pure projection, as he really hadn’t shown anything the past couple of years,” Payne said. “We all assumed Clemson would be better this year, but a lot of their big names have underperformed. Klubnik falls short in most categories, which is so frustrating, as he should have everything needed to be top dog.”

Look how open Antonio Williams was on Clemson’s 4th down play. And Cade decides to throw it waaaay too late. What is wrong with Cade Klubnik?? pic.twitter.com/Yls0Fz975H

— Juggs 🍥 (@OJuggernautO) September 20, 2025

Allar’s past four losses against Power 4 opponents finished like this: interception with under 2 minutes left down one score in the Big Ten title game; decisive interception against Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff in January; game-ending interception against Oregon in September; stuffed for a 3-yard loss on a read-option keeper against UCLA last Saturday.

Allar is big and mobile and more likely than most of the top college QBs to drop a perfect touchdown pass like the 35-yarder he threw to Devonte Ross to help force overtime in that Oregon game. Many who follow the game really want to like him. But how many successful NFL quarterbacks had such an overwhelming big-game failure rate at the college level?

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Payne sees the Penn State offense as a hindrance, not in terms of the talent around the QB so much as the approach. Allar running RPOs never does look quite right, does it? In a more conventional, pro-style attack, it seems possible he could leave his current struggles behind. Not many who’ve carried that sort of weight into the NFL have managed, though.

“From what I’ve heard, it sounds to me that team people have not been blown away with him,” Campbell said. “They feel he has, obviously, some traits there with definitely an NFL arm. He has no problems pushing the ball downfield. But it feels like kind of an ‘incomplete’ in terms of passing instincts, something teams would have liked to see more development with, and the performance in big games and showing he can put the team on his back. That has not changed enough to really give them the feeling they can move him up into the high first-round kind of player.”

The one possible exception in this category might be Nussmeier at LSU, whom Wilson of CBS Sports had going to the “hometown” Saints with the first overall pick. He has not reached 250 passing yards nor thrown multiple TDs in any game against a Power 4 opponent, and his second-quarter interception deep in Ole Miss territory prevented the Tigers from asserting command of what became his team’s first loss.

Nussmeier, though, has been playing through an abdominal injury that likely is compromising his ability to pass.

“He’s a guy who’s made some really big plays in tight moments, so I haven’t pinged Nussmeier too heavily,” analyst Chris Carter of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Locked On Steelers podcast told SN. “Now, there was a point where he was my top quarterback, because I thought coming into the season he was maybe the most complete and prepared guy, the guy closest to having everything you wanted.”

For all of these players, though, there remains the possibility of salvation: most have at least another seven games on the schedule, and maybe the postseason, and definitely pro days and the NFL Combine.

“At the end of the process that we get to evaluate, we get to assess how many good days versus how many bad days, how they responded to different things,” Carter said. “That, to me, is the more important thing.”

The NFL Draft QB Risers

Although Mendoza played last season in the relative obscurity that comes with playing for a sub-.500 ACC team at Cal, that early CBS mock draft presented him as the No. 15 overall selection by the Steelers.

As it stands, Pittsburgh wouldn’t draft that early.

And Mendoza probably wouldn’t be there.

Transferring from California to Indiana has placed him on a grander stage, and he’s been a star. Mendoza has 16 touchdowns to one interception through five games, although only two against Big Ten opponents.

“He’s 6-5, has a cannon arm, has made some elite reads in finding guys all over the field. He’s put the ball in some insane places,” Carter said. “Right now, to me, he is the most complete quarterback who could come out next year, and I think he should come out because he could go first overall.

“But, again, it takes time. What if he struggles down the stretch against Big Ten teams? Then, we see things different.”

Saturday at Oregon, the challenge for Indiana will be significantly greater than it has faced to date, in part because of the Ducks’ blossoming quarterback: 6-3 redshirt sophomore Dante Moore. He transferred from UCLA to sit behind Dillon Gabriel last season, and the move seems to have been fortuitous. He placed himself into the draft conversation by outperforming Allar in that visit to Penn State.

Can’t say enough about the poise of #Oregon QB Dante Moore vs. Penn State. He was nails on 3rd down and “gotta have it” moments throughout the game. pic.twitter.com/4rLNbFoGqH

— Jordan Reid (@Jordan_Reid) September 28, 2025

The analysts want to see more. Payne notices inexperience in some of his performances, and Campbell mentions the “limited sample size.”

And everyone wants to get a longer look at Oklahoma’s John Mateer, but when will they? He had surgery on his throwing hand in late September and missed a game against Kent State. OU plays Texas this weekend in the Red River Rivalry. Ole Miss visits Norman on Oct. 25 for a significant SEC showdown.

At 6-1, 225, Mateer plays with a creative spark that definitely translates to collegiate success. And those who follow the NFL can see it working there, as well.

“The size is important, but there are those that can shake it off. For a time, Russell Wilson was one of those. Drew Brees was one of those quarterbacks,” Carter said. “It does not eliminate you. But it does make it that much more important for you to be athletic, to scramble and escape. Your processing has to be so much better.”

And though he will not turn 21 until early December, 6-2 Sam Leavitt of Arizona State has forced his way into this discussion. Maybe it’s even because he is so young, because professional teams in every sport like to believe a young prospect with improve with age.

Payne calls him a “work in progress”, doesn’t “see a GM spending an R1 pick on him.”

There is time to change this, of course.

The river to April

One name you haven’t noticed in either category is 6-3, 240-pound LaNorris Sellers of South Carolina, because he’s not affirming those who believed in him and not convincing those who doubted him.

Campbell’s early feedback from team sources is Sellers should return for another season with the Gamecocks, that he simply needs more experience to develop a skillset that is “so dynamic”.

“The concern is accuracy and command of the offense,” Payne said. “He’s getting there, but you really want to see him completely take over games. I think he’ll get there, but there’s some hesitation in moving him too high up the board just yet.”

The fact there are nine different quarterbacks who are mentioned here – and that doesn’t include Ty Simpson of Alabama, Taylen Green of Arkansas and Miami’s Carson Beck – is an indication that there still are enough with potential to fulfill the projection of a rich QB class.

No, that’s not the right word. Of course they’ll be rich. They’re quarterbacks. But perhaps a few of them can be exceptional. That’s the true objective, especially for the teams that will employ them.

“There’s no foolproof way for these guys to pan out or disappoint,” Campbell said. “But I definitely think there’s a potential for this still to be a great quarterback class.

“You could end up having a class like 2024 or 2018.”

The draft was conducted at Jerry Jones’ AT&T Stadium in suburban Dallas seven years ago. Baker Mayfield was the first name called, and quarterbacks Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Drew Rosen and Lamar Jackson tread the same path across the stage before the first night was finished. That’s four Pro Bowlers and two MVPs.

It's not exactly the Elway-Kelly-Marino class of 1983, but this group still has time.