The NFL Draft is an annual fishbowl for overreactions in both directions — and the 2026 NFL Draft is shaping up to continue the trend.
Indiana Hoosiers quarterback and reigning Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza is universally expected to be the No. 1 overall pick of the Las Vegas Raiders. What happens after that is anyone’s guess.
NFL insider Tom Pelissero joined “The Rich Eisen Show” and level-set draft talk with less than two weeks to go before the Raiders are officially on the clock.
“Talking to a broad swath of coaches and scouts and executives throughout the course of this week, a few things jump out big picture 13 days out from the NFL draft,” Pelissero said on Friday. “No. 1: There are fewer blue-chip players in this draft than I can remember.”
Pelissero added: “If we’re talking about the legit first-rounders, the no-doubt first-round grades for the league, there are drafts where you may have 20 to 22 of those guys. Maybe 24. It’s never 32 with first-round grades, even though there’s 32 first-round picks. Last year, it was a little bit less than that. This year, we’re talking about somewhere between 13 and 15 players, which means if you’re a team that’s holding a pick just outside the top 10, you may be in a bind.”
Pelissero projected “a lot of potential movement and a lot of calls” from teams looking to move into either side of the 10th overall pick. He also noted that the “sweet spot” for this particular draft will likely be the second and third rounds.
His assessment is a bummer for fans hoping their team will use a first-round draft pick on a franchise-altering player, but Day 1-impact starters are annually discovered on Day 2 and sometimes even Day 3 of the draft.
As someone who grew up in Kansas City, the narrative around the 2026 NFL Draft immediately transports me back to 2013.
The Chiefs suffered a woeful 2-14 season in 2012, earning the No. 1 overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft. In a pre-Patrick Mahomes world, Chiefs fans were still desperate for the quarterback savior of the future, but the 2013 draft class was quarterback-barren. So, the Chiefs did the most underwhelming thing possible at the time.
They took former Central Michigan left tackle Eric Fisher at No. 1 overall.
Fisher turned out to be a solid left tackle in Kansas City for eight seasons and protected Mahomes as the supernova QB led the Chiefs to back-to-back Super Bowl appearances in the 2019 and 2020 seasons, winning Super Bowl LIV in the process.
But the Chiefs didn’t find their franchise-altering star until the third round of that 2013 NFL Draft, as they used the 63rd overall pick on tight end Travis Kelce. We all know how that turned out, three Super Bowl rings and multiple all-time franchise records later.
Point being, don’t get overly discouraged by a lack of overwhelming star power in this year’s draft class. There are always at least a handful of diamonds in the rough.
The first round of the 2026 NFL draft will commence on April 23, with 16 draftees expected to attend in Pittsburgh. See the official draft orderhere.
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