After potential 2025 NFL Draft picks Drew Allar, Garrett Nussmeier and Cade Klubnik returned to school solely to have their inventory plummet with dangerous seasons, Moore’s choice to return to Oregon carries potential danger.
If he struggles subsequent season, Moore will go from probably first-round choose to a doable Day 2 or 3 choice. The 2027 class also needs to be stronger (on the very least, it could’t get any worse), which may make Moore much less enticing, too.
As for this 12 months, Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza appears like a protected guess to go to the Las Vegas Raiders at No. 1 total. Moore’s choice complicates the image afterward.
Groups such because the Jets, Arizona Cardinals, Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins want a quarterback, they usually’ll be preventing for scraps. Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson may be the second-best within the class, but his struggles dealing with stress throughout the second-half of the season make him much less reliable.
That diminished quarterback class ought to make groups out there rethink their draft technique. As a substitute of concentrating on a quarterback in Spherical 1, it might make extra sense so as to add higher gamers at different positions of want and choose one later within the draft.
The shortage of QB depth in 2026 may even be an enormous increase for spot starters this season, together with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Mac Jones and Green Bay Packers quarterback Malik Willis. Kirk Cousins and Marcus Mariota have been additionally serviceable backups in 2025, whereas Spencer Rattler was higher than his win-loss report signifies for the New Orleans Saints.
Over the previous few years, quarterbacks together with Geno Smith, Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones have all re-ignited their careers after failed stops of their first NFL properties, and the possibilities of one other reclamation undertaking understanding in 2026 may be extra probably than a second-rate rookie main a turnaround.
As naked because the upcoming quarterback class is, groups out there for one might want to get artistic to find a repair. The 2026 draft is not coming to save lots of them.
