Thor Nystrom dives deep to uncover the 2025 NFL Undrafted Free Agents for the NFC, featuring players who were bypassed at the NFL Draft.

Welcome to my annual UDFA class rankings series. The NFC edition.

A couple notes on process before we get going. My ranking methodology is based exclusively on my pre-draft rankings. Not every UDFA signed during this process is listed in the tables below—only those in my pre-draft position rankings (top-750 overall). If the prospect made the Thor500—my 500-player Big Board—his overall ranking is shown in the “Rk” column. 

Check back Thursday for the accompanying AFC UDFA class rankings piece. 

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1. Minnesota Vikings

This is the third consecutive year that the Vikings have finished top 5 in my UDFA rankings. GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has clearly prioritized this phase of the process. Over the past three years, six UDFAs have made the Vikings' Week 1 roster: Ryan Wright, Ivan Pace Jr., Gabriel Murphy, Taki Taimani, Bo Richter, and Dwight McGlothern.

This time around, the Vikings had a built-in advantage to make their argument to agents. Minnesota used a tied-for-league-low five draft picks while spending the second-least draft equity (ahead of only the Rams, who traded their R1 pick). 

The Vikings’ class is headlined by Kansas OL Logan Brown, my top-ranked overall UDFA. Brown, seen as a mid-rounder by most analysts heading into the draft, is going to make this roster. The Vikings have little in the way of proven OL depth behind Blake Brandel and Justin Skule. 

Because of that, OG Joe Huber is also someone to monitor in camp. Brown and Huber—former teammates at Wisconsin—will battle 2024 draft picks Walter Rouse and Michael Jurgens in camp for bench spots.

QB Max Brosmer and RB Tre Stewart, meanwhile, will take on QB3 Brett Rypien and RB3 Ty Chandler, respectively. Each has a legitimate shot. Because of the team’s precarious depth situation at tight end, TEs Benjamin Yurosek and Bryson Nesbit might ultimately be battling with one another for a roster spot. If neither impresses this summer, look for the Vikings to be monitoring August tight end cuts from other rosters.

EDGE Tyler Batty was right on the draftable line for me. He’s a four-year starter at BYU with a north/south game, generating speed-to-power. Batty has the frame and game to hang around as a 3-4 defensive end.

An NFL coach—not on the Vikings staff—told me after the draft that LB Austin Keys might have been a fifth-rounder were it not for injuries. This coach believes Keys will beat out sixth-round pick LB Kobe King if Keys stays healthy this summer.

2. Atlanta Falcons

The team that tied with the Vikings for least-picked players in the draft? The Atlanta Falcons. 

During the draft, the Falcons—always full of surprises under GM Terry Fontenot—showed ludicrous aggression in trading next year’s R1 pick to acquire James Pearce Jr. That same sort of aggression bled over into the UDFA free-for-all. 

Whereas Minnesota has made a regular home in the top-5 of my UDFA rankings the past three years, Atlanta’s UDFA strategy this process was in stark contrast to recent years. The previous two cycles, the Falcons finished bottom-4 in my UDFA rankings—including No. 32 a year ago.

This time, Fontenot came out swinging with three UDFAs that I had draftable grades on, each one ranked in my top-225 overall. It was shocking to see CB Cobee Bryant fall out of the draft. An NFL source told me that poor interviews played a part in that. Either way, Bryant picked the right spot—Atlanta has precious little depth at CB.

I believe OL Joshua Gray will make the roster as the backup center to Ryan Neuzil. The Falcons don’t currently have one of those, and Gray appears to have been signed for that reason. Gray has position versatility and can also provide guard depth.

The Falcons have very little behind starting slot WR Ray-Ray McCloud, giving WR Nick Nash a clear path to win a Week 1 gig on the roster. The Falcons would like to get bigger in the slot, and Nash can help with that.

3. Seattle Seahawks

I thought the Seahawks had one of the NFL’s better draft classes. They followed that up with a top-3 overall UDFA haul in the NFL.

EDGE Jared Ivey is a skilled power end with speed limitations and lower-body stiffness. Ivey’s combination of muscle and hand usage is likely to turn him into a long-term NFL backup. His pass-rushing production from last year—his 31 hurries were No. 14 in the FBS—is the thing he’s going to lose in translation.

CB Zy Alexander is another productive defender from the SEC with an ideal frame but poor athletic testing numbers. Alexander is an experienced press-man corner who was 81st-percentile PFF coverage grade last season. Blessed with long arms and sound technique, Alexander ranked No. 2 in this class with a 3.2% missed tackle rate last season.

LB Jackson Woodard is an intriguing sleeper who profiles as a strong special teamer—he played 634 special teams snaps over five seasons in college and could immediately be a core special-teamer in the pros. A former walk-on at Arkansas, Woodard made good the last two seasons at UNLV. He was the Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year and a Second-Team All-American in 2024.

WR Tyrone Broden and EDGE Connor O'Toole are two other deep-deep sleepers who flashed on special teams in college and have projectable traits.

4. Philadelphia Eagles

In my metrics, there was a huge drop-off between the top-3 classes above and the rest of the pack. The classes between No. 4 (Eagles) and No. 8 (Bengals) overall were all packed closely together.

This is the fourth-consecutive process that the Eagles have finished with a top-8 UDFA class by my metrics. Philadelphia’s UDFA class consisted of three players with draftable grades on my board, headlined by OT Hollin Pierce.

There are some Mekhi Becton vibes, here. Pierce weighed more than 450 pounds in high school. He started playing football and ultimately lost more than 100 pounds, turning himself into a Second Team All-Big Ten performer in his fourth and final year as a starter.

Pierce has utterly ludicrous length, with a wingspan of 7-foot-4. His lateral shuffling has gotten smoother and quicker as he’s lost weight and improved his technique, playing up the effect of that length even more. Pierce is a hammer coming forward in the run game. Pierce needs to work on lowering his pad level in the run game. In pass-pro, his biggest issue is counter-moves that force the big fella to quickly adjust to rushers crossing his face.

Another name to keep an eye on here is S Maxen Hook, a first-team All-MAC selection in 2024. He finished top-25 in the FBS last year with 8.92 tackles per game. The Eagles, light on safety depth, have the room to roster Hook this fall if he impresses in camp.

WR Taylor Morin, Wake Forest's all-time leading receiver, is ostensibly being brought in as punt return insurance. Britain Covey signed with the Rams on Monday.

5. Green Bay Packers

Green Bay’s UDFA class checked in top-5 in the NFC and No. 9 overall in the NFL.

The above list doesn’t include one of their higher-priced acquisitions, UNLV nickel defender Johnathan Baldwin, who finished just outside my position rankings at the safety position. Baldwin received $115,000 in contract guarantees. 

Baldwin, along with CBs Tyron Herring and Kahzir Brown, made good decisions in picking Green Bay. Following the departures of CBs Eric Stokes, Corey Ballentine, and Robert Rochelle in free agency—only Nate Hobbs was added—the Packers’ cornerback depth is spotty. And that’s before resolution to the Jaire Alexander saga. Alexander reportedly nixed a trade around the draft because he wouldn’t rework his contract.

Elsewhere, I saw DT Nazir Stackhouse and LB Jamon Dumas-Johnson as top-200 prospects—each has a very real chance to win a bench spot. The same is true for the winner of the camp battle between UDFA RBs Jalen White and Amar Johnson. Green Bay doesn’t have much behind Josh Jacobs and MarShawn Lloyd on the depth chart.

6. New York Giants

In the UDFA free-for-all, the Giants clearly prioritized two position groups: receiver and defensive back.

CB O'Donnell Fortune is a fifth-year prospect with poor testing numbers and raw elements to his game on the field. But he’s well-built—tall and long—and I like his instincts in zone coverage. Fortune isn’t explosive, but he’s a fluid mover who doesn’t waste motion, and he gets good downhill jumps when his eyes are on the quarterback. When Fortune arrives on time, his length is a problem at the catch point. Last year, Fortune had a 91st-percentile PFF coverage grade as a boundary CB and 94th-percentile in zone coverage.

The Giants added three WRs in my pre-draft top-330: Da'Quan Felton, Beaux Collins, and Juice Wells. New York didn’t use a pick on a WR in the draft. Their UDFA strategy showed a clear desire to add size to the room. Expect the winner of this three-man camp battle to make the roster.

WR Felton has all the size, athleticism, and physicality he needs for the NFL, and he’s a really good blocker. On the boundary, he’s capable of getting downtown. But his routes and ball skills both need work, and that combination in an older prospect clearly spooked the NFL.

If you would have told me after WR Antwane “Juice” Wells’ true junior season that he would one day go undrafted, I wouldn’t have believed you. As a sophomore in 2021 at James Madison, he had an absurd 83-1,250-15 receiving line. 

The next year, Wells led the SEC in receiving (928 yards) at South Carolina despite starting only six games (13 appearances). But Wells fractured his left foot working out in Summer 2023. He rushed back from surgery, but was a non-factor in three games in September before an aggravation of the injury shut down the rest of his season. 

Wells transferred to Ole Miss for his final season and finished No. 4 in both catches and yards. He has skill at the catch point, and gets his Juice nickname from his YAC ability, but Wells is a mediocre athlete with a history of foot injuries. Signing with the Giants reunites him with R1 QB Jaxson Dart.

7. Carolina Panthers

OG Luke Kandra, a multi-year standout starter in the Big 12, had the size, strength, and athletic profile of a Day 3 interior offensive lineman. But Kandra has stiff hips—making it difficult to consistently win the leverage game—and has feet that can get stuck in the mud on sudden direction changes. It’s possible that he’s a Quadruple-A player, but it’s also possible that Kandra will wind up being a valued depth piece.

DT Jared Harrison-Hunte is raw and old—25 as a rookie—but he’s a fun developmental flier. A former basketball player and a great athlete, Harrison-Hunte didn’t begin playing football until his junior year in high school. He was mostly a rotational player for five years at Miami, but Harrison-Hunte had a scintillating TFL/snap rate. Last year as a full-time starter at SMU, he posted 6.5 sacks and 8.5 TFL. 

K Ryan Fitzgerald was probably a little chapped that two kickers were picked in the draft and he wasn’t one of them—but he couldn’t have asked for a better landing spot than this. Eddy Pineiro wasn’t re-signed. The only competition for Fitzgerald— first-team All-American in 2024—is perennial camp leg Matthew Wright.

8. New Orleans Saints

I’m a big fan of Delaware RB Marcus Yarns, an undersized speed demon. He runs with shot-out-of-a-cannon urgency and keeps to his straight-line path. Yarns is a really interesting weapon in the passing game.  

He was an unfair assignment for FCS linebackers or safeties. Yarns would sprint past them on wheel routes, or leave them in the dust with a one-cut direction change on an angle route. Among all RBs in this class, only Yarns posted 1.8 YPRR or better each of the last two seasons.

Yarns looked like a natural on concepts where Delaware shifted him into the slot (7.6% of snaps). In 2023, only three running backs in the FCS or FBS had 20-or-more catches with an aDOT higher than Yarns’ 3.2. And despite missing time with injury in 2024, only nine D-1 RBs had more catches with a higher aDOT than Yarns. The NFL asked Yarns to work out as a receiver at the NFL Combine—that’s a second developmental bullet if the RB thing doesn’t work out.

I thought P James Burnip was better than Jeremy Crawshaw—the only punter taken in this year’s draft. Burnip, my top-ranked punter, will battle incumbent Matthew Hayball—a 2024 UDFA signing, and a fellow Australian. I expect Burnip to win that competition.

9. San Francisco 49ers

WR Isaiah Neyor is a worthy size/speed dart-throw with a real shot to stick. Neyor looked like a potential future star at Wyoming in 2021, posting a 44-878-12 line. But he suffered a non-contact ACL injury the next summer after transferring to Texas—between that and an ensuing re-injury to the same knee, his next two seasons were basically wiped out. Neyor had 34 catches last year after landing at Nebraska.

But Neyor is huge—6-foot-4, 218 pounds with a nearly 7-foot wingspan—and he has big league speed and explosion, with a 4.40 40 and a 38-inch vertical. Neyor is a north/south linear mover who needs to show he could develop into a Marquez Valdes-Scantling-esque field-stretcher.

RB Corey Kiner has poor measurables, but he’s a deep-deep sleeper to monitor in the RB-friendly environment he’s found himself in. Kiner is a tackle-breaker who moves better on the field than his pre-draft testing indicated. Kiner had a 91st-percentile in-game athleticism score, according to Reel Analytics.

10. Washington Commanders

Washington’s UDFA class checked in at No. 20 overall in the NFL.The Commanders signed one player I had a draftable grade on, Florida State CB Fentrell Cypress II. 

Cypress is a sixth-year prospect with 38 career starts in college. His calling cards are length, 4.43 speed, and peskiness at the catch point (93rd-percentile forced incompletion rate the last three seasons). He is susceptible to giving up chunk plays, however, a consistency issue that must be addressed if he is to hang long-term.

Louisville WR Ja’Corey Brooks has a shot to stick. He’s a former four-star Alabama signee who broke out with a 61-1,013-9 line last season. He’s thin and lacks athleticism, though, so his game isn’t likely to be flattered in translation.

Washington’s highest-priced UDFA signing was NC State OL Timothy McKay, who got an eye-opening $275,000 in guarantees. That indicates he’s an odds-on favorite to win a spot on the Week 1 roster. McKay split 2,784 collegiate snaps mostly between RG and RT—he’s a projected guard at the next level.

11. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Tampa Bay didn’t have a backup to C Graham Barton on the roster, and it didn’t take any offensive linemen in the draft. So the Bucs got aggressive in the UDFA process, shelling out a combined $525,000 guaranteed to Cs Jake Majors and Ben Scott. 

Each received contracts typically indicating that a team will carry an undrafted rookie into the regular season. What makes this two-step interesting, then, is that neither Majors nor Scott—despite both playing heavy career snaps—have ever played guard. 

Scott played a season-and-a-half at RT at Nebraska, and is the better bet to be able to handle guard duties. That’s of importance, here, because Tampa Bay’s depth at guard is also thin.

Speaking of the offensive line, the Bucs won a spirited post-draft bidding war for Georgia State OT Ben Chukwuma, giving him $300,000—the most guaranteed money any UDFA received this cycle. Chukwuma isn’t listed in the table above because I only ranked out 58 offensive tackles in the pre-draft process—and, looking back into my larger 2025 draft database, Chukwuma ultimately finished as my OT60.

Clearly the NFL was higher on Chukwuma than me. I can tell you why: He’s a really interesting ball-of-clay lottery ticket who scouts can dream on. On the one hand, Chukwuma struggled in the Sun Belt last year in his only season as a starter—his only season starting on a football field ever. Chukwuma tested poorly during the pre-draft process—at 6-foot-6/303 pounds with a 3.43 RAS, he's more smooth than explosive—and he’s as raw as it gets on the field.

But this is where it gets interesting from a projection standpoint: Chukwuma never even played high school football … he barely even knew about the sport in high school. Chukwuma moved to the U.S. from Nigeria at 17. He found himself on the GSU football team after showing up for a walk-on tryout his freshman year. The coaches decided to take a chance on developing him because of his physical dimensions.

12. Los Angeles Rams

The Rams signed two of this draft class’ most-popular undersized warriors, iOL Willie Lampkin and LB Shaun Dolac. Both were outstanding collegiate players whose measurables were questioned by the NFL during the pre-draft process.

Lampkin is a former wrestler with an understanding of grappling and leverage that are suited for his sawed-off frame. Lampkin was a five-year starter in college who made the all-conference team each year. That culminated last year in First-team Associated Press All-American honors at UNC. He’s got a shot to stick as a backup center.

Dolac is a tweener with the build of a safety. But he’s a strong athlete with good instincts who was ultra-active in the MAC. Last year, he posted 168 tackles, 19 TFL, 6.5 sacks, and 5 interceptions en route to consensus All-American honors.

13. Dallas Cowboys

The headliner of the Cowboys’ class in both my rankings and contract guarantees was UCF S Alijah Clark, who got $259,000. The winner of the camp battle between Clark and fellow UDFA S Mike Smith Jr. is making this roster.

14. Arizona Cardinals

Arizona mostly stayed out of the UDFA free-for-all. The biggest signing was Ohio State OT Josh Fryar. This feels like a good marriage. 

Arizona had an offensive line need but ended up spending only an R7 pick on it during the draft, taking Texas OG Hayden Conner. The Cardinals’ new offensive line coach is Justin Frye, who coached Fryar at Ohio State the past three seasons. I expect Fryar to make the team out of camp.

15. Chicago Bears

Lackluster effort from the Bears, here—Chicago was apparently content with its eight-man draft class.

LB Power Echols is an aggressive downhill linebacker with cement feet. He had nearly 300 tackles over the last three seasons as a starter at UNC. If Echols is to win the last linebacker spot on Chicago’s roster, it’ll be because he won a role on special teams. Echols logged 464 special teams snaps during his career at UNC. 

16. Detroit Lions

Low-impact class by the Lions here, but they did sign a pair of skill guys to monitor in camp.

WR Jackson Meeks has two national championship rings from his three years riding the bench at Georgia. Meeks followed assistant coach Fran Brown to Syracuse and popped off for a 78-1,021-7 receiving line in 2024 as one of Kyle McCord’s favorite targets. Meeks doesn’t create separation, but he’s extremely competitive at the catch point, as his 21 contested catches last year attest (No. 2 in FBS).

TE Caden Prieskorn will be competing with offseason signing TE Kenny Yeboah—another former UDFA—for a roster spot. Prieskorn, 26 as a rookie, is a mediocre athlete, and a mediocre blocker. But he’s got strong hands and enough receiving skill to give Yeboah a run for his money.

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