NFL Draft: Ranking leads for the most recent first round QBS vs 2025

Matt MirrorMarch 1st, 2025, 06:55 am at

Clowmatt Miller is ESPN’s NFL Draft Analyst and offers detailed scouting on top professional prospects in the country. Missouri native Matt joined ESPN in 2021 and has also contributed to sports centers, NFL live and ESPN radio. Before joining ESPN, Matt spent 11 years as a senior draft analyst at Bleacher Report.

After the Banner 2024 NFL Draft where six quarterbacks were drafted on the first 12 picks, the 2025 QB conversation is dominated by two passersby, Come Ward of Miami and Shedure Sanders of Colorado. How do they rank as signal characters in the recent first round?

To answer that question, I stacked up 19 passersby who were taken to Round 1 from 2020 to 2024, then dropped the only first-round quarterbacks in my latest mock draft, Ward and Sanders, into the mix. The conversation covers Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Blythe Young, Caleb Williams and others.

I voted for NFL scouts, decision makers and analysts to help me build the list, and pre-draft performance was the only consideration here. We added pro performances for each quarterback for additional context, but it has nothing to do with these rankings. This is just a 21 quarterbacks stacked together, as if they were in the same draft class. So who is the number one on the list for top QB leads dating back five years? How are the 2025 groups compared?

Jump from each class to the top QB:
2020 | 2021 | 2022
2023 | 2024

Top 2025 QBS Rank:
Word|Sanders