The NFL draft is one of the most thought-provoking and complex parts of the NFL, and teams are constantly adjusting their strategy to achieve the best results each year. At the same time, the NFL’s play style is continually changing, not to mention the cycles in players’ careers and coaches moving from team to team. This makes scouting one of the most challenging tasks in the draft community.
Every draft scout has their own unique philosophy, from valuing positions differently to prioritizing certain intangibles to determine where the most value lies in each draft. One of my overarching ideas in the draft is that when you see a position you think is strong, let the players fall to you rather than taking “your guy” too early.
Maybe the best example of this was the safety class of last season, in which I felt there were SEVERAL top 100 prospects. Elite talents like Nick Emmanwori and Malachai Starks headlined the class, and NFL GMs were excited to get their hands on one of the top guys. I had top-15 grades on both players, but because safety is one of the most undervalued positions in football, both players fell in the draft.
While I did have top grades on both players, I argued that not taking either safety too early was the right move for NFL teams. I say this because the 2025 safety class was flooded with talent from top to bottom, while other positions lacked the depth seen in the safety group. This meant that other positions ended up more valuable in my eyes, and that I would not have drafted a safety until at least the second round.
While Emmanwori and Starks have looked great, this wound up being the right way to go, as several other late-round safeties have looked great as well. Jonas Sanker, Billy Bowman, Xavier Watts, and Andrew Mukuba were all in my top 100 and have made immediate impacts. Mukuba was a second-round pick, but Sanker, Bowman, and Watts were taken in the third or fourth rounds, and all have looked like steals in the draft.
This year, I have a similar feeling about the wide reciever class, where all the focus is on the top names in the draft, but there will be a lot of later-round guys who shock the league. Jordan Tyson, Makai Lemon, and Carnell Tate all appear to be first-round locks, but there are at least 12 guys I have in my top 50 as of today. Because of this, I would argue that, in a draft that is thin at most positions, teams should avoid taking round one receivers and instead let the talent come to them on days two and three.
This philosophy is doubly true given the depth of receiver talent in the 2027 draft, which features the best WR prospect I have ever watched, Jeremiah Smith. NFL teams will have a boatload of options at receiver in this year’s draft, and below I have listed examples (excluding Tate, Lemon, and Tyson) that could play each role in an NFL offense.
Do it all – Chris Bell, Omar Cooper Jr, Germie Bernard, Eric McAlister
Slot – KC Concepcion, Zachariah Branch, Antonio Williams, Aaron Anderson
Outside WR – Nyck Harbor, Denzel Boston, Chris Brazzell
This is a long list of players who I can confidently say are capable of playing a significant role in an NFL offense. While they are not all destined to be superstars, they all could be valuable additions to your expansive reciever room. This is why, when I look at this year’s draft, I think many NFL scouts will push for their team to take players at positions like OT, EDGE, or RB because of the limited depth of talent.
If your favorite team needs a reciever to help expand the potential of your offense, the top names in the draft may be very enticing. But I urge fans and scouts alike to take a look at some of the later round prospects in this year’s reciever class, and understand why some other positions may take priority early on in the draft this April.
