2025 NFL Draft: Jaxson Dart emerging as a First-Round pick

2025 NFL Draft: Jaxson Dart emerging as a First-Round pick

Quarterback is arguably the most valuable position on the football field in all sports. Having the right one can be the difference between winning a Super Bowl and being mediocre. That’s why, year after year, we see teams get desperate to move up for a guy. This always allows for an extra quarterback or two to rise up the boards and sneak their way into the first round.

Heading into the 2025 NFL Draft, it looks like that guy could be Jaxson Dart.

The two quarterbacks at the top of this class have always been Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders. It is assumed that those two will be gone before the fifth pick is up. However, the dropoff in talent from those two seemed to be pretty steep, leaving teams limited in their options at the position.

That was until an apparently strong showing from Jaxson Dart at the Senior Bowl had scouts wondering just how big that drop-off actually was. Read more about how the practices/drills went and how they affected players’ stocks here. Trey always does a great job covering the Senior Bowl, and this year was no different.

If you read those notes, you will see, though, that Trey isn’t very high on Jaxson Dart, and I can see where it comes from. The kid has raw talent with an arm that sometimes looks like it could succeed at the next level. But he often seems too reliant on that big arm and lets his footwork/mechanics suffer.

He probably had the best week of any quarterback at the Senior Bowl, which sadly wasn’t saying much about the level of play at the position throughout the week.

Although the interceptions were reduced to just six this past season, it was still clear that his decision-making wasn’t always the greatest. We all remember some of the throws from that Florida game, right? Outside of the throws, it looked like he lost his cool and ability to lead his team as soon as things started going south.

This is arguably the worst possible trait for an NFL quarterback. As the quarterback of an NFL team, you need to be a leader of men. The way it stands now, I just don’t think Jaxson Dart is cut out for what that entails. The kid has talent and shattered records during his three years at Ole Miss.

But as I previously mentioned, teams are desperate for a quarterback, and there is probably one who will fall in love with Dart’s arm or “raw arm talent.” I just don’t view Jaxson Dart as a leader of men, and that’s what I want from my first-round quarterback.

2025 Reese’s Senior Bowl: American Team Game Notes

None of this says Jaxson Dart won’t succeed in the NFL. It will just take some extra work, and you wouldn’t want to waste a first-round pick on that. Despite all this, I do think a team will panic and trade up to take Jaxon Dart. We saw 6 QBs go in the first round last year. Why can’t we get three this time around?

For now, you can just hope your team didn’t fall in love with one week of average QB play. Yeah, he has some mobility and great arm talent at times, just not consistent enough for me to take in the first round.

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