Hello, hello! 

The playoff field is set. Underclassman and All-Star game acceptances are pouring in by the day. More NFL teams are getting eliminated from the playoffs. Draft season is upon us! We have a lot to get to, but unfortunately we start on a somber note, as this receiver class took a bit of a hit with some news this week.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Pete Thamel reported on Wednesday evening that Louisville WR Chris Bell suffered a torn ACL in the team’s game against SMU at the end of regular season. Bell had an outstanding senior year and really elevated his stock, finishing 10th in the country in catches before earning 1st-Team All-ACC honors. 

First off — I feel terrible for Bell. He felt like a really good bet to go early in the second round or, potentially, in the back half of the first with a solid pre-draft process (the Athletic’s Dane Brugler and ESPN’s Field Yates both recently had Bell in the top 32 selections in their most recent mock drafts). I have a bunch of these receivers bunched together in a really tight cluster, and Bell was right in the thick of it as my WR4 before the injury, settling in as the 34th player on my board. 

Now? Hopefully it’s a clean tear of the ACL and there are no complications with the surgery or initial rehab. Bell will be in Indianapolis at the Scouting Combine and teams will get to check his knee. If you go off the modern nine-month timeline, that puts him back on the field in time for the start of the regular season, but the conservative estimate right now is to anticipate that he is not on the field practicing for the start of Training Camp, with a potential stint on the ‘Reserve NFI’ list to start the year. How will teams view that? Here are some recent examples to draw from, with examples on both sides of the spectrum of outcomes:

Every injury is different, but teams will take recent history into account. These three notable skill players, all of whom were picked on Days 1-2, didn’t make it back into game action until, at least, Week 10. You’re always drafting for the future, and not for next season, but there’s no question that Bell’s injury will affect his stock in the spring. We’ll get a better sense of how teams feel about the situation after the Combine. It’s also notable that this is not the first major injury for Bell, who suffered a torn labrum that required surgery and forced him to miss the spring in 2023.

I updated Bell’s profile in the Diehard Draft Guide, and you can get all of my notes on his strengths and weaknesses as a player there as well as the full projection to the NFL.

Here’s a stat that stood out when looking at the complete profile!

My ‘Watch List’ for new players announced by the two major All-Star games grows by the day, as both the Senior Bowl and Shrine Bowl continue to add to their rosters. Here were five names that caught my eye over the last few days from both events. 

The guy I’m most excited to watch that I haven’t gotten to yet this fall is Georgia State WR Ted Hurst. At 6-foot-3, 195 pounds, the three-year college starter began his career at Valdosta State before transferring up to GSU before the 2024 season. He finished second in the Sun Belt in catches this year and is known as a big-bodied receiver who can roll off the ball and attack downfield. I’ll be getting to his tape soon. 

This is a strong group of senior edge rushers, but the senior group of interior lineman class doesn’t wow me. One guy with room to grow is Penn State DT Zane Durant. There’s a path to him becoming a starter as a pure 3-technique tackle in a one-gap scheme, where his explosiveness off the ball can really come in handy. The trouble spot comes in the run game, where he struggles to consistently hold his ground. Can he be a dynamic enough rusher to offset that? If he can’t, he should find a role in a team’s subpackage as a gap shooter on pass downs. One-on-one drills will be an area where he should shine. 

There won’t be many true ‘small school’ players at these games, as many of those prospects have gotten scooped up by larger programs in prior seasons, but one guy who fits the bill is Stephen F Austin CB Charles Demmings. He has outstanding size at 6-foot-2, 195 pounds and will fit well for teams that are searching for length on the boundary. I thought Demmings showed off a pretty well-balanced skillset, but there wasn’t one area (aside from his frame) where he wowed me; that can certainly change in a proving ground like Mobile. 

Be sure to check out this week’s ALL NFL Draft Podcast as well, where I caught up with Senior Bowl Executive Director Drew Fabianich, where we talked about a handful of players, including Florida DT Caleb Banks, Iowa CB DJ Hall, Missouri EDGE Zion Young and others! 

Shifting gears over to the Shrine Bowl, they got a commitment from one of the most highly-debated players in this class in LSU LB Harold Perkins. It’s been quite the journey for the highly-athletic and versatile linebacker, who burst onto the scene with 7.5 sacks as a Freshman All-American in 2022 off the edge. At nearly 200 pounds, he does not have the frame that teams are looking for up front, so they slid him further away from the ball as his career went on with mixed results. His usage in practice will be fun to track throughout the week. 

Lastly, I’ll hit on the first acceptance for the Shrine Bowl, Florida State NT Darrell Jackson. He’s actually my highest-graded acceptance for the event so far. Of the big run stuffers at nose tackle in this class, Jackson is one of my favorites. He’s got great length, is extremely stout and has the power to push the pocket at times as a rusher as well. The latter showed up a bit less often this season than I would have liked to see, but he’s a useful player in today’s NFL.

A few big names have made their intentions known for the 2026 NFL Draft. Clemson DT Peter Woods, Clemson EDGE TJ Parker and Clemson CB Avieon Terrell are all jumping up to the league, and I view the entire trio as first-round talents. Staying in-state, a pair of South Carolina defensive backs are jumping into the fray with CB Brandon Cisse and S Jalen Kilgore declaring. Of the two players, I prefer Cisse, who I project as a starting corner who could excel in man-to-man coverage. 

One of the biggest names did not even play a down this year in Tennessee CB Jermod McCoy. The junior tore his ACL shortly after the 2024 season concluded, and while he returned to the practice field he did not see any game action for the Vols this fall. Currently my No. 16 player on my Big Board, McCoy is a big, rangy ballhawk on the outside. 

He was joined by teammate WR Chris Brazzell II, who burst onto the scene in the Vols huge win over Georgia early in the season. I mentioned earlier that I have all of my top wideouts in one big cluster at the top, and Brazzell is right in the middle of it. He has a unique combination of height/weight/speed, and he is fluid enough to sink his hips and fly out of breaks at the top of the route as well. There are inconsistencies in his game that must be ironed out, but there aren’t a lot of guys built the way he is. 

You can find write-ups on ALL of these guys in the Diehard Draft Guide!

The Heisman Trophy ceremony is Saturday night, and while I don’t think it’s a lock - I do find it tough to imagine that Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza does not win the award. The Hoosiers finished in the No. 1 slot after knocking off the previously undefeated Buckeyes in the Big 10 Title. He’s the most deserving of the hardware this season, and has had multiple moments where he has proven to play his best when his best is required, leading the team on multiple game-winning drives and come-from-behind victories. I’ve been asked on multiple platforms since last Saturday’s victory why I am not higher on Mendoza, and I wanted to address that here. 

I like Mendoza! He’s a good player. He has a skillset that translates well to the league and I think he has staying power. I do have questions about his ceiling and whether or not I feel great about his ability to become a top 15 or so starter. Could he become Kirk Cousins? Absolutely. That is well within the range of outcomes, and if he does - he will have been worth a Top 5 selection. I’m just not sure that he can get there. 

So much of the conversation this week around the sport of college football surrounded the college football playoff field, particularly with Notre Dame being left out and the fall out from that decision by the committee. I could honestly write an entire email JUST on this topic and the evolution of the sport, but here are my quick, high-level thoughts on what I think is going to happen in the coming years. In my opinion, it all comes down to one thing:

We’re heading for further expansion of the College Football Playoff … and I’m here for it.

Agree with me? Disagree? Respond to this email and let me know! I want to hear from you!

I have a jam-packed episode this week on the show as the Senior Bowl’s Drew Fabianich was kind enough to visit with us to talk about his first year on the job and to break down several of the latest acceptances for the Senior Bowl next month. We also welcomed in Brandon Thorn, one of the pre-eminent offensive line analysts in the space, to talk about his evaluation process for the offensive tackle position. If you’re a football nerd like me, you don’t want to miss this one!

Before he broke the Chris Bell news on Wednesday, Adam Schefter also shared this nugget about night one of the NFL Draft.

This shortens the first round of the draft by, at least, an hour. As Schefter noted, the teams were on board with this - but there is one interesting layer of it that I’m interested to see play out. 

Teams are almost never deliberating about who they would select when they’re on the clock. Those debates and discussions happen in the weeks and months leading up to the event, and as you’re getting closer to your pick you become focused on a potential cluster of players, so conversations naturally start flowing at that point between the lead decision makers in the room. When teams are officially ‘on the clock’, they almost always know who they are going to pick. It’s just a matter of getting the player on the phone.

That said, this does tighten up the window for potential trade conversations. Again, most of the groundwork for trades is laid in the final run up to the draft, not when teams are on the clock, but it will cause the urgency level of any final negotiations to rise up a notch. We’ve all watched the access videos that teams do such a great job of sharing these days, and there have been times when GMs may try and make a last-minute change to a deal, tweaking the terms or changing a pick from a fourth-round pick to a third. With time being of the essence in this new structure, those things will be harder to solidify this year. 

Will that lead to fewer trades this spring? Time will tell. Teams are used to a tighter timeline on the second and third days of the draft, but obviously the stakes are higher on Thursday night.

As an East Coaster, I can (selfishly) appreciate the fact that the first round will be over well before midnight for the first time in a long time.

We have just one college game to take in this weekend but, for a lot of people, it’s a special one. Army and Navy kick off at 3pm ET in Baltimore. They’ve held the game in Philadelphia a few times over the years, and I must say if you have never been to the game and consider yourself a college football fan, you have to add it to the bucket list. (Side note - I’ll also contend that Michie Stadium, where Army plays their home games at West Point, is one of the most beautiful places to take in a game in the fall).

Usually there is MAYBE one draftable prospect in this game on a yearly basis but, to be honest, I think there are a couple of guys that are real deal prospects in this year’s game! 

I’ll start with a guy that I have studied already in Navy ATH Eli Heidenreich. I’m labeling him as an ‘athlete’ because there are some that view him as a running back and others who view him as a slot receiver. Regardless, I think he’s a versatile role player on offense. That’s the skillset. He’s smooth and shifty, he’s really strong through contact and he’s VERY physical. He had really fun usage as a blocker this year. He’s dropped one pass in the last two years on 119 targets. He’s been a starter on all four special teams units. I can absolutely see a path to him being a very useful player in the right hands in the NFL.

Heidenreich I have studied, but there is a prospect with likely higher upside who has been on my radar since he basically got to campus, and this year he had the production to back it up. Navy DL Landon Robinson is listed 6’0 286 pounds, but he’s a three-time member of Bruce Feldman’s Freaks List as one of the Top 100 athletes in the nation (he checked in at No. 92 in 2013, 48 in 2024 and all the way up at 13 this past summer. The numbers Bruce has shared in those pieces are impressive, and this year Robinson was named the AAC Defensive Player of the Year after finishing third in the conference in sacks. He’s a player to keep an eye out for in this one.

A couple of other Mids to watch here are QB Blake Horvath (who can run and is a better passer than you may expect from a service academy, which are typically known for their option rushing attacks) and S Rayne Fry (Navy had a safety drafted last year in Rayuan Lane, I don’t think Fry is on the same track but file him away)

On the Knights’ sideline, CB Jaydan Mayes is probably the top name to watch. The undersized senior corner took an interception to the house in their last game against UTSA, and he is certainly on the NFL radar. Senior captain LB Andon Thomas, who was named 2nd-Team All-AAC this month, will make his presence felt in the game as well.

Excited to get back to more games next weekend! Until then … back to the film of these All-Star Game acceptances.

Fran Duffy

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