Draft night looks chaotic
- Final mocks project heavy trade activity on Round 1, with teams expected to move up rather than stand pat tonight. - Daniel Jeremiah specifically forecasted four first-round trades and named the Eagles and Saints as potential move-up players. - Coverage tonight is framing the draft as a trade-heavy, volatile night rather than a predictable chalk event. ( )
Round 1 of the 2026 National Football League draft opens Thursday night with analysts expecting teams to trade up, not wait for the board to come to them. (nfl.com) NFL Media analyst Daniel Jeremiah published his final mock draft on April 22 and projected four first-round trades. He specifically named the Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints among the teams he expects to move up. (nfl.com) ESPN’s Peter Schrager wrote Thursday that his final Round 1 projection includes “a few trades” and described the top of the board as chaotic beyond the expected No. 1 quarterback. He pointed to a class with one top-tier quarterback and thinner groups at offensive tackle, edge rusher, cornerback and wide receiver. (espn.com) That setup tends to push teams toward aggression: clubs that love one player often have to jump the line when there is not a deep pool of similar prospects. ESPN’s draft coverage and NFL.com’s mock packages both framed Thursday night as a board that could break unpredictably after the first pick. (espn.com) (nfl.com) The draft begins at 8 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, April 23, in Pittsburgh, with Rounds 2 and 3 on April 24 and Rounds 4 through 7 on April 25. The Las Vegas Raiders own the No. 1 pick, followed by the New York Jets and Arizona Cardinals. (nfl.com) The first-round order is already less stable than a normal year because several teams do not currently hold their original top pick. ESPN’s draft order page says the Atlanta Falcons, Green Bay Packers, Jacksonville Jaguars and Indianapolis Colts are among the teams not scheduled to pick in Round 1. (espn.com) NFL.com has spent the week leaning into that possibility. Its draft hub on Thursday highlighted Jeremiah’s final mock, a separate item on “six trades that could rock Round 1,” and an updated seven-round mock that also projected four Day 1 trades. (nfl.com) Jeremiah’s trade-heavy forecast did not appear out of nowhere. An earlier five-round mock from NFL.com, published two weeks before the draft, also projected four first-round trades and described Round 1 as getting a jolt from quarterback movement. (nfl.com) By kickoff Thursday night, the cleanest prediction is not which player goes at No. 8 or No. 14. It is that the order on the screen at 8 p.m. Eastern may not look much like the order by midnight. (nfl.com) (espn.com)
