We are just under a month away from the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, and yet, we cannot stop looking ahead to next year’s class in Washington D.C. The main factor is The Ringer’s Todd McShay hyping the 2027 NFL Draft quarterback class as a potential all-timer, citing its talent.
Now, this song and dance is one we have seen before, but have you looked at the list of potential names who could be in the class? We are just two classes removed from 2024 that gave us the likes of Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, and Jayden Daniels. But could this class be even better?
We took a deep dive into it all and used one key stat to justify the hype, as at the very least, the talent pool in 2027 will be better than what we have in 2026.
There are several quarterbacks who seem like they are destined to be in this class, such as Arch Manning out of Texas, Julian Sayin out of Ohio State, and Sam Leavitt out of LSU, to name a few. However, if you add a new benchmark for players to be destined to be ready for the NFL by looking at games started, the class gets an extra level of talent.
Last year, Todd McShay looked at successful quarterbacks in the NFL and discovered that players who started 30 or more games had more success than those who didn’t. Before the upcoming season is even played, which will add more players to the list, here are just some of the players with 30 starts already secured:
By the end of the 2026 college football season, we said more players would be over this threshold. If we add just 12 starts to the following players, they would also seemingly be seen as ready for the NFL:
This is a lot of foreshadowing, but with so many teams having short leashes on quarterbacks, a number coming up on expiring deals, seeing how deep this class can be paints the right picture. And, we know this list isn’t full of household names or even top-tier talent, but a lot can change in one season. Recent examples of that are Fernando Mendoza and Cam Ward.
Neither of them was first overall in projections until the end of their final seasons.
Odds are someone we listed here will be the top pick, and of course, some players have better chances, but the transfer portal has proven that anything is possible. The bottom line is this class has some upcoming depth because so many players returned to college, and it may be a trend we see more of as the play of quarterbacks continues to expand and get sharper.
This article originally appeared on Bucs Wire: Will the 2027 NFL Draft QB class be as good as advertised?
Reporting by Andrew Harbaugh, Buccaneers Wire / Bucs Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
