I had lunch with a friend who’s a National Scout swinging through Houston this week and the topic of traits came up. Are teams drafting on tools more than film these days, I asked? He agreed that it definitely seems that way, and also contended that “traits-only” players that might have been seventh-round fliers now seem to go in the fourth and fifth round.
There are others who agree (like this person, whose opinion is relevant — check out the 22:50 mark), but proving that is hard. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to the NFL Draft.
Still, with the 2026 Freaks List published this week, it gave me an idea. How many of the 101 players considered most gifted athletically last year in college football do in the 2026 draft? Again, this is far from a perfect gauge of draft trends, but it’s still worth looking at. So I dove in, and here’s what I found.
- First off, 46 of the 101 were not draft-eligible and are still playing, so the pool is only 55 players.
- Of the 55, 10 (or 18 percent) not only went undrafted, but they even went unsigned. In other words, they didn’t get anywhere near an NFL camp, even on a tryout basis. This group includes some real college achievers like Cincinnati’s Dontay Corleone and Texas Tech’s Davion Carter. So, once again, simply being gifted athletically is no guarantee of anything.
- Thirty of the 55 got drafted. Seven were first round, 16 were Day 1 or Day 2 (so less than a third).
- Ten were signed as UDFAs.
- Another six got tryouts only (none of the six converted to UDFAs).
- Bottom line, 40 of the 55 got contracts (drafted or UDFA) and 46 made it at least as far as an NFL camp.
If I’m being honest, this doesn’t really support my theory. In fact, it may be more of an endorsement of the “film is still king” belief.
I look forward to repeating this exercise next year. This year’s list has several repeat performers, such as South Carolina’s Nyck Harbor, Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith, Oregon’s A’Mauri Washington (the top three on this year’s list) plus many more. Maybe half are back from last year. We’ll see how the players on this year’s list correlate to next year’s draft in a year.