NFL Draft Newsletter: Dante Moore made his choice, what did others decide this week?

Hello, hello!

After months of speculation, we’re starting to get some real clarity on the identity of the 2026 NFL Draft. The deadline for (most) underclassmen has passed. Premium All-Star Game Rosters have been revealed. It’s all starting to feel real!

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OK, onto this week’s edition!

WHO’S IN AND WHO’S OUT FOR 2026?

The deadline for (most) underclassmen to enter the 2026 NFL Draft has come and gone. I say ‘most’ because for the players participating in Monday’s National Championship Game, they have until next week to make that announcement official. Until then, here are some of the biggest takeaways from the week’s biggest announcements!

Oregon QB Dante Moore – OUT – I’ve said it for the last couple of years, and I feel pretty strongly about it, but I think every quarterback should exhaust all of the eligibility they can before they enter the NFL. Patience is razor thin in the NFL; it is not the developmental league that people think it may be, even when teams and coaches have the best intentions. As a quarterback, you want to hit the ground running by being the best possible version of yourself before turning pro. I love this decision for Dante Moore … but this is not great for the New York Jets. Now this will almost be universally viewed as a ‘one quarterback’ draft, and if you have the No. 2 pick you are on the outside looking in. To be honest, I don’t think it matters – because this is a Jets team with three first-rounders for 2027 already in tow. I don’t think they were in a rush to get the quarterback position figured out this spring anyway, but you’d still love to have the option!

Ohio State LB Sonny Styles – IN – Styles was my LB1 entering the year and there’s a good chance he’s my LB1 going into the draft (assuming I push his teammate, Arvell Reese, to the EDGE group in my rankings). He’s lower on my board due to position value, but don’t get it twisted – he’s a phenomenal player. He’s big, strong and insanely athletic; all the physical traits you can ask for. He missed one tackle this year (in the playoff game against Miami). He’s a converted safety who has started the last two seasons as a pure off-ball linebacker, and his eyes and play recognition got better this year. That was all I needed to see in 2025. Here was what I wrote over the summer when coming up with his player comparison. He is what everyone hoped Isaiah Simmons would be.

Oregon TE Kenyon Sadiq – IN – Sadiq is in my Top 10 overall prospects for a reason. At 6-foot-3, 245 pounds, he is a truly dynamic athlete and he gets after people as a blocker. He’s a first-round talent all day. I am not surprised that he chose to enter the draft.

Oregon S Dillon Thieneman – IN – Thieneman is my third-ranked safety right now behind Caleb Downs and Emmanuel McNeil-Warren. He’s tough, instinctive and versatile. I like him most playing from depth where he can just read and go. He’s a fun player who I expect to go on Day 2.

Ohio State TE Max Klare – IN – Like Thieneman, Klare actually began his career at Purdue before transferring last offseason. A receiving-first tight end, I don’t know if he’s going to be viewed as a dynamic pass catcher in the NFL, and the blocking still needs work, but I thought the skillset was well-rounded enough that he’ll come off the board relatively early. I would say I’m not quite as high on him as others seem to be, but he’s a solid prospect who I’m excited to see work out in person at the Combine.

With all of these announcements, I’ve had to remove a LOT of names from the Diehard Draft Guide over the last couple of weeks. As of this writing, 37 names have already been moved to the 2027 Guide (which is already underway!). Some of those names were guys I had rated in the Top 50, including Moore’s Oregon teammate DT A’Mauri Washington, who I thought had a shot to go in the Top 15 this spring had he come out. Other notable names that we will have to wait until next year to see: Alabama S Bray Hubbard, Auburn T Xavier Chaplin, Wake Forest DT Mateen Ibirogba, Mississippi State S Isaac Smith, Penn State CB AJ Harris, Ole Miss LB Suntarine Perkins and many more.

A final list will be cultivated for NFL teams by the league next weekend after Friday, January 23rd (the deadline for players in the National Championship Game to declare). So we will get the final, ‘official’ list then.

Senior Bowl Roster Reveal

On Wednesday morning, the Senior Bowl revealed their ‘final’ roster for the event, which will be wrapping up the week of practice two weeks from now down in Mobile, AL. I’m going to provide a full preview of the roster with players to watch and rankings and things like that. So stay tuned on that front. That said, here are a few of my initial takeaways from the 137-player list:

Six quarterbacks committed at the moment. If a decision comes down on Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss and he is forced into this class, I wonder if he becomes a late addition to the roster, and if there’s another quarterback on stand-by to join him to even out the numbers. With just three passers to a side right now, and LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier still on the roster, that means we can expect to see him participate throughout the week. Nuss was my No. 1 QB entering the season, and I’m still keeping the light on for him as a future starter in the league.

Color me impressed if Miami EDGE Akheem Mesidor actually participates, but as of now it looks like things are pointed that way! Mesidor, who is obviously playing in Monday night’s Championship Game, still was listed on the roster. It’s not completely unheard of to see guys go to these events off of late playoff runs, but it certainly is not the norm. Teams will look on that favorably if he does go down and perform.The same logic would apply to Indiana WR Elijah Sarratt. Both players have dealt with some injury issues this season.

The cornerback group features a ton of tall, long, ballhawks. If you have a team that likes size on the perimeter, you have a lot of options to study down at this game. Look at these guys! This will be a fun group.

Again, if you go into the Diehard Draft Guide, you can filter by position, round grade, class, All-Star game, and several other factors to see samples of players the way YOU want to see them. Go in and poke around!

The reason why I put quotation marks around ‘final’ above is that there will continue to be tweaks to this roster in the coming days. After the roster reveal on Wednesday, the Senior Bowl announced three new additions with Oklahoma RB Jaydn Ott, Texas CB Malik Muhammad and Tennessee CB Colton Hood on Thursday afternoon. Ott is a senior who transferred in from Cal but never really found his footing this year with the Sooners. This is a HUGE week for him. Muhammad is a true junior who is built a bit differently than those big, tall corners I listed above, but he’s a hell of a football player. He actually instantly becomes one of my favorite players attending the game, I’m a big fan of his skillset. His speed is the biggest question he has to answer for. Hood is a talented corner and had a big year with Jermod McCoy on the sideline; he’s played for three teams in three years.

We can always expect attrition to the roster in the leadup to the event. It feels like there was a little bit less of that this year, so credit Drew Fabianich and his staff on that front (at least for the time being). I tracked every acceptance as it was announced, and after checking my list against the roster posted this week, there were several names that did not make it: Alabama WR Germie Bernard, Michigan TE Marlin Klein, Baylor TE Michael Trigg, Oregon T Isaiah World, Texas A&M EDGE Cashius Howell, Oklahoma EDGE R Mason Thomas, Alabama LB Justin Jefferson, Alabama LB Deonte Lawson and Florida CB Devin Moore. For those of you that listened to Fabianich when he came on the ALL NFL Draft Podcast last month, he was adamant that players could certainly get exposed in this environment. I’m bummed to not see Devin Moore up close; I think he’s a legitimate Round One talent. With his injury history, however, this does not surprise me. Disappointed we won’t see either R Mason Thomas or Cashius Howell. It’s also interesting that so many Alabama players bowed out of the game; usually it’s an easy commit for those guys. After World left the Peach Bowl vs Indiana with an injury, this was the expected outcome on that front.

SHRINE BOWL ROSTER REVEAL

On Thursday, the Shrine Bowl unveiled their ‘final’ roster. I leave this coming Wednesday to head to Dallas for the event, and I’m excited to start seeing all of these players in person. Here are my initial takeaways from the announcement

It should be noted that six quarterbacks were included in the roster reveal, but with four quarterbacks on the ‘West’ team and just two on the ‘East’ side. Eric Galko said two more players would be added in the coming days that they could not quite announce yet. Could one of those spots be for Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss? Time will tell…

One position group, in particular, that I like from the Shrine Bowl so far is linebacker. I think there’s a good blend of intriguing ‘height, weight, speed’ prospects with room to develop along with traditional, safe ‘green dot’ middle linebackers who may lack the traits but qualities that make them attractive to NFL coaches from an intangible standpoint. USC LB Eric Gentry and Utah LB Lander Barton fit the former group, while Texas A&M LB Taurean York may be my favorite from the latter.

Like the Senior Bowl, the Shrine Bowl has had very little attrition up to this point. By my count, just two names that were originally announced as going to the game were not on the roster revealed on Thursday (aside from several names that later opted to accept Senior Bowl invites): Alabama OL Jaeden Roberts and Indiana LB Aiden Fisher (who is playing in the title game on Monday). Credit to Galko and his staff for keeping these guys locked in.

MORE NEWS TO COME FOR THE ALL-STAR GAMES?

One big shoe left to drop? The coaching staffs for both games, and this is a big deal. Both events have evolved over the years on this front, and both have arrived at the same place in the last couple of draft cycles, and I love it.

My first trip to both events happened in January of 2012. The Shrine Bowl, at that time, utilized mostly former NFL coaches. Guys that were out of work or in-between jobs but had lengthy experience and, most importantly, deep connections in the league. Jerry Glanville, Romeo Crennell, Charlie Weiss, June Jones, and Mike Singletary are all names that come to mind when I think back on some of those trips. The selling point was that all 32 teams typically had connections to those staffs, so they could tap into their network to get another touchpoint on what those players were like in that environment, in the meeting rooms, on the practice field, etc.

At the same time, the Senior Bowl was utilizing full staffs of current NFL teams. Typically, the offer was made to the teams with the highest draft picks that did not fire their staff after the season. So this year, we likely would have seen Aaron Glenn and the New York Jets go up against Dan Quinn and the Washington Commanders in Mobile. They had done it that way for years, and it was certainly a really notable advantage for those staffs, who got to work hands-on with these guys for a full week. That was great access. The 49ers were a great example of this in 2019, when they selected Deebo Samuel and Dre Greenlaw (among other players) that they worked with down in Mobile for the week.

Then in 2017, the Shrine Bowl came up with the idea to utilize current NFL assistants to fill out the coaching staff. They leveraged two position coaches to be the head coaches of each squad, with various assistants from around the NFL to fill out the remainder of the staff. They followed that model up until 2023, when the event had a partnership with the NFL that allowed them to utilize the staffs of the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons for the event (the game was held in Las Vegas that January, in conjunction with the Pro Bowl and other league-related events). In response, the Senior Bowl took the Shrine Bowl’s previous strategy of utilizing assistants from around the league to fill out their staff.

Now? That is how both games operate, and it’s really a win-win-win all around for everyone involved.

While there were certainly positives to be gained from your entire staff heading to these events as an NFL team, not every single decision maker and staffer was on board. It does take a week away from any potential time off after the season that a coaching staff may take. In this scenario, teams volunteer a young coach, perhaps at a position that they’d like to get closer eyes on throughout the process, and don’t have to sacrifice an entire week-plus for their entire operation to get down there. It’s great for the young coaches, who get to network with other coaches from around the NFL for a week and establish relationships that could benefit them for years. The players get more direct, private access to staffers from around the NFL as opposed to just one team.

As of this writing, just two coaches have been announced, with Atlanta Falcons special teams coordinator Marquise Williams coaching the East Team for the Shrine Bowl (a job he’s actually held before as well) and Dallas Cowboys TE Coach Lunda Wells coaching the West. Stay tuned for more on that front, as I think this will all be announced by the end of the weekend for both events.

I do think it’s notable to track which coaches are with which positions during the week at both of these events, because I can guarantee you that their teams will be drafting players from their respective groups in April. It will happen multiple times from both games! The teams that have done this the most often over the last few years include the New England Patriots (including Joe Milton, Layden Robinson and Jaheim Bell), New York Giants (including Jaxson Dart, Theo Johnson, Tyrone Tracy and Darius Muasau), Arizona Cardinals (including Isaiah Adams and Tip Reiman), and Chicago Bears (including Darnell Wright, Tyrique Stevenson, and Zah Frazier), but you can find examples littered through the league over the last few draft cycles.

FAVORITE NEW PLAYER I’VE STUDIED THIS WEEK

Last week, I highlighted Florida CB Devin Moore. I’m going to stay in the SEC at the same position and talk about Arkansas CB Julian Neal. Another big corner, listed at 6-foot-2 and over 200 pounds, Neal looks every bit the part of a press corner in the league. He began his career at Fresno State and, surprisingly, didn’t play all that much. I want to dig into that a little more throughout the pre-draft process, because the film shows a guy who should have been on the field. He can flip his hips and run like a smaller corner. I don’t think he’s quite as freaky as Moore is, but for teams that are hunting for size on the boundary, he has starting traits. I’m excited to see him up close in Mobile, but I’m also interested to see him work out at the Combine. If these numbers from the Diehard Draft Guide are any indication, he could test extremely well.

SATURDAY SCOUTING

In the podcast this week I spent over 20 minutes talking about this game, so if you want a thorough breakdown of players to watch, matchups and different factors that could determine the outcome, be sure to check that out! For you guys, the approach I wanted to take was simple. Which matchup on both sides of the ball am I most excited to watch on film after this game?

Miami’s Defensive Line vs Indiana’s Offensive Line

Ultimately, I think this is the determining factor in the game. If Miami can dominate up front and impact Fernando Mendoza on a consistent basis, I think they’ve got a really good shot. If they can’t do it with consistency, Indiana’s going to put up some points, and it will then be up to the Canes’ offense to match. I said last week that Oregon had the best defensive line that the Hoosiers had seen all season, and I meant it … until now. EDGE Rueben Bain JR is an alpha dog up front. I expect he’ll get most of his work against the right tackle and I think he’ll make his presence felt in this one. On the other side, I think Indiana standout LT Carter Smith will see more of EDGE Akheem Mesidor, as long as he’s fully healthy. This one is ‘good on good’. Mesidor is older, more violent and, honestly, more physically developed than Smith is, but the blindside protector is no slouch. I expect both guys to get their share of wins. On the inside, C Pat Coogan (the Rose Bowl MVP in the win against Alabama) is a grinder and is the heartbeat of that unit. He gave Oregon standout DT A’Mauri Washington all he could handle last week, and he’ll have a different sort of challenge with this Miami front. DT Ahmad Moten has a quick first step and is a disruptor on the interior. DT David Blay is more of a run-stuffing nose tackle. They shuffle guys in and out, and injuries have mounted for this Miami defense during this playoff run, but I expect that group to lay it all on the line. There’s no ‘saving yourself for next week’ in this game.

Miami Freshman Phenom Malachi Toney vs Indiana CB D’Angelo Ponds

This is a classic ‘it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog’ situation. Both of these guys are undersized, tough as nails, and counted on as playmakers and tempo-setters on their respective units. When Miami needs a play, they’re looking at Toney. When the Hoosiers need a stop in the pass game, Ponds is the guy matching up with opposing top wideouts. A couple of Miami natives, battling in their home city with all of this on the line will be fun. Toney is obviously a couple of years away from the draft, but is certainly someone to know for the future. He’s a dynamo with the ball in his hands. Ponds is a shade of 5-foot-8 but he doesn’t back down from anyone. He’s a junior who has yet to make his intentions known (though we will get confirmation next week before their extended deadline). This will be a fun battle.

All season long, I’ve been somewhat of an Indiana skeptic. I love watching them, but I kept waiting for them to turn back into a pumpkin like they did a year ago, and they continue to prove me wrong. Conversely, I’ve been very high on the Canes since the summer. They’re tough, they play good defense, they have an experienced quarterback and a couple of playmakers on offense that get me excited. I picked them to win a couple of these games in the playoff because of my belief in them. All signs point to me continuing that now…

I just can’t do it. I can’t pick against Indiana right now. Not with how they’re playing in the playoff. Since beating Ohio State in the Big 10 title game, Mendoza has thrown more touchdowns than incompletions. That offense is humming beyond belief, and they dominated two of the best defenses in their respective conferences so far this postseason. Can Miami win? Yes. I think they’ll need to play nearly mistake-free football (something Oregon did not do), and they need to make Indiana pay for any mess-ups they have along the way, because they typically don’t have many. The Canes defense dropped multiple interception opportunities against Trinidad Chambliss in that game last week; that can’t happen here. I do think Miami has the advantage of being at home and sleeping in their own beds and living off their normal routine. I just don’t think it’s enough. Give me the Hoosiers by 13, but honestly? I hope I’m wrong. I hope this is a tight game down to the wire, and an upset here would just be so fitting, because this College Football season has been an absolute blast to watch from pole to pole. I’m sad to see it end.

That said … I leave for Dallas on Wednesday. I’ll be in Mobile two Mondays from now. Draft Season is in full swing!

Best,

Fran Duffy
ALLCITY NFL DRAFT ANALYST