The 2026 NFL draft class will test the patience of all but one quarterback-needy team. I wrote in last year’s article that the 2025 class was less heralded than 2024, and such teams might have to wait until 2026 for their quarterback of the future. But 2026 has arrived, and it resembles 2025 more than 2024. The Las Vegas Raiders will almost certainly select reigning Heisman Trophy winner and national champion Fernando Mendoza with the No. 1 pick, but there is a steep drop-off in the remaining quarterbacks’ projections.
The problem is that despite the lack of obvious solutions in the draft, the New York Jets, Arizona Cardinals, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers all have varying degrees of quarterback uncertainty. So will a general manager feeling the pressure to draft a franchise quarterback reach into the first round to select a prospect such as Ty Simpson? In recent years, we have seen a trend of riskier prospects getting drafted highly because of the quarterback position’s importance.
But this year also marks a new trend: Prospects returning to school because NIL (name, image and likeness) money makes it financially feasible to do so. As such, the real story might be the quarterbacks not in this year’s class, such as Dante Moore (who might have been the No. 2 pick) and Arch Manning. Given that they are likely to come out next year, will general managers show patience and wait for 2027?
Projecting NFL stats for top draft prospects
• Which WRs have the best Playmaker scores?• Which RBs have the best BackCAST scores?• Which Edges have the best SackSEER scores?• Which QBs have the best QBASE 2.0 scores?
With that background, we present this year’s QBASE 2.0 projections for 2026. QBASE 2.0 is a combination of Andrew Healy’s (2015) original QBASE model and Alexandre Olbrecht and Jeremy Rosen’s (2018) functional mobility model. It factors in a quarterback’s college passing statistics adjusted for the quality of his teammates and opponents, plus how many years he started. It also incorporates his rushing ability, and while it rewards improvements over time, it penalizes one-year wonders.
The quarterbacks below are listed in order of ESPN’s Scouts Inc. ranking, and interpreting each quarterback’s projection is straightforward. A value of 0 total defense-adjusted yards above replacement per attempt (TDYAR/A) is replacement-level, whereas any value over 1.5 is indicative of a Hall of Fame career. We run 50,000 simulations to provide a distribution of the number of times that each quarterback falls within a particular range.
Here are our 2026 projections for five quarterbacks who might go in the first three rounds.
Projections for the 2026 class
Scouts Inc ranking: 2
Mean Projection0.56 TDYAR/ABust (< 0 TDYAR/A)30.80%Adequate Starter (0-0.75 TDYAR/A)26.00%Upper Tier (0.75-1.5 TDYAR/A)23.30%Elite (> 1.5 TDYAR/A)19.90%
Of the quarterbacks who have gone No. 1 in the past decade, Mendoza’s career trajectory has been closest to the Bengals’ Joe Burrow. Both quarterbacks were relatively unknown heading into their final season of college, and both went on to win the Heisman Trophy and the national championship while putting up the highest passer rating in the FBS. Mendoza threw for 3,535 yards and 41 touchdowns in 2025.
However, Mendoza’s final season was not quite on the same level as Burrow’s statistically and because of QBASE 2.0’s one-year wonder penalty, Mendoza does not grade as highly as previous No. 1 picks such as the Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence and the Bears’ Caleb Williams, who had multiple seasons of top-caliber play in college and were viewed as safer prospects.
Nonetheless, Mendoza is a worthy top pick, and none of this year’s other quarterbacks come close to his projection. We estimate that there is only a 15.2% chance that at least one of the other four quarterbacks listed here develops into an “upper tier” or “elite” starter in the NFL.
Scouts Inc. ranking: 37
Mean Projection-0.69 TDYAR/ABust (< 0 TDYAR/A)73.60%Adequate Starter (0-0.75 TDYAR/A)16.90%Upper Tier (0.75-1.5 TDYAR/A)7.10%Elite (> 1.5 TDYAR/A)2.50%
Because multiple teams need a quarterback, and Mendoza is sure to be taken at No. 1, one of the other quarterback-needy teams might draft Simpson in the first round. As with any prospect, there is always a chance that Simpson becomes a franchise quarterback. But if he does, he will be the exception rather than the rule.
In 2025, Simpson threw for 3,567 yards with 28 touchdowns. As a true one-year starter, he stands alongside Mitchell Trubisky, Dwayne Haskins, Trey Lance and Anthony Richardson Sr., none of whom met the expectations of their draft positions. Even fellow inexperienced Alabama quarterback Mac Jones started for part of his second-to-last season of college football, and Jones put up much better numbers than Simpson, albeit with a stronger supporting cast. With neither experience, nor elite numbers or physical traits, Simpson will statistically be a reach if he is drafted in the first round.
Scouts Inc. ranking: 87
Mean Projection-1.56 TDYAR/ABust (< 0 TDYAR/A)92.00%Adequate Starter (0-0.75 TDYAR/A)6.10%Upper Tier (0.75-1.5 TDYAR/A)1.50%Elite (> 1.5 TDYAR/A)0.30%
The number that stands out the most for Nussmeier is his minus-2.2 career rushing yards per attempt. In college football, sacks are counted as negative rushing yards, so a negative number means that he is not only immobile but also prone to taking sacks.
Although some immobile prospects, such as the Lions’ Jared Goff, have succeeded in the NFL, immobile and sack-prone prospects have not. The list of quarterbacks since 2005 with fewer than minus-2.0 rushing yards per attempt includes Andrew Walter, Jimmy Clausen, Brandon Weeden, Nick Foles, Mike Glennon, Sean Mannion and Cody Kessler. While Foles had his magical Super Bowl-winning run with the 2017 Eagles, none of these quarterbacks lasted as a starter in the league.
Scouts Inc. ranking: 118
Mean Projection-1.39 TDYAR/ABust (< 0 TDYAR/A)89.70%Adequate Starter (0-0.75 TDYAR/A)7.70%Upper Tier (0.75-1.5 TDYAR/A)2.20%Elite (> 1.5 TDYAR/A)0.40%
Beck had an injury setback when he suffered a UCL tear in his throwing elbow in the 2024 SEC championship game. But he elected to stay another season in college following his injury, transferring from Georgia to Miami.
That extra season, in which he led Miami to the national championship game against Indiana, gave him more experience, but he was statistically less effective as a passer and rusher than in his 2023 season with Georgia. In 2023, he threw for 3,941 yards (third best in the FBS); in 2025, he threw for 3,813 yards. As a rusher, Beck had 60 carries for 116 yards in 2023, but 62 carries for just 43 yards in 2025.
Scouts Inc. ranking: 131
Mean Projection-1.65 TDYAR/ABust (< 0 TDYAR/A)93.20%Adequate Starter (0-0.75 TDYAR/A)5.10%Upper Tier (0.75-1.5 TDYAR/A)1.40%Elite (> 1.5 TDYAR/A)0.30%
Like Nussmeier, Allar is an imperfect prospect, but for different reasons. Allar is arguably the most mobile quarterback in this year’s class, rushing for an impressive 4.8 yards per attempt in 2025 before his season-ending ankle injury in October.
That said, he is not a true dual-threat quarterback such as the Bills’ Josh Allen or Ravens’ Lamar Jackson, and even before the injury, there were concerns about his 64.8% completion percentage and his 2025 passing numbers regressing from 2024. Of the potential Day 2 quarterbacks in this year’s class, Allar’s mobility and arm strength give him the highest ceiling, but his bust risk remains high.
Alexandre Olbrecht and Jeremy Rosen contributed to this piece.
