Thor Nystrom has produced his updated quarterback rankings, with Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders up top, and Tyler Shough climbing.

It's time to take a second look at the all-important quarterback position. Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward are the top two passers in a first five that hasn't changed from the first rankings, though Kyle McCord and Tyler Shough has moved up the board amid so much buzz about his combination of size and tools.

Who is going in the top 20?

2025 NFL Draft QB Rankings

Read THE THOR 500 here — Thor Nystrom's full ranks of the 500 best players in the 2025 NFL Draft!

Quarterback Rankings Analysis For The 2025 NFL Draft: The Top 12

1. Shedeur Sanders | Colorado | 6-1/212 | Comp: Baker Mayfield

From an early age, Shedeur Sanders set out to become a pocket passer. His game itself shows a resolute conviction in the pursuit of this idea. Sanders is plenty mobile in the pocket, making defenders miss, and scrambling out of danger. 

But Sanders always keeps his eyes downfield, and as long as the option is on the table, he will slam on the brakes before the line of scrimmage to continue surveying his options. Sanders’ scrambling machinations have a tendency to suck defenders downhill, away from their coverage assignments, an involuntary reflex that Sanders takes great joy in punishing them for. 

Sanders’ athleticism gets pooh-poohed because he very rarely tucks the ball and runs—but he has all the athleticism he needs to achieve his stated aim, which is to buy extra opportunities for his receivers to break free. Sanders does not have a huge arm. He doesn’t beat defenders with velocity, he beats them with timing, anticipation, placement, and good ol’ fashioned manipulation. 

Sanders doesn’t get nearly enough credit for being the toughest quarterback in this class. He played behind terrible offensive lines at Colorado, particularly in 2023. Both years, he played without the help of a legitimate running game. 

Sure, he played with Travis Hunter. But defenses knew what was coming against the Colorado Buffaloes, and defensive lines could pin their ears back against CU’s leaky line. Over and over again in college, Sanders looked down the gun barrel and stepped into the smoke to deliver a dime. 

Sanders is one of the rare quarterbacks whose motion doesn’t change when he’s about to get blasted. This is why Sanders’ accuracy holds true under heavy duress. That’s a trait that leads to a lot of extra yards for the offense.

By now, Sanders is used to maneuvering around bodies and contorting himself to unload passes in the hairiest of pockets. Sanders has some of this class’ most odd-defying trick-shot passes under pressure, getting balls into the hands of receivers from angles that appear to be optical illusions.

Sanders’ accuracy is an elite trait. He can put the ball wherever he wants it, to any sector of the field, shielding it from defenders and leading his receivers into space. Several quarterbacks in this class need to see an open receiver before throwing—Sanders is a step ahead, maneuvering his receivers to a clean catch point through placement, leading to primo YAC opportunities.

You can see how well Sanders has taken to coaching over the years from his repeatable upper-body mechanics; he throws like an archer shoots, quick and easy, tight, natural, and repeatable. Last season, Sanders’ 81.8% adjusted accuracy percentage—five points ahead of Cam Ward’s 76.3%—ranked No. 2 amongst FBS quarterbacks, per PFF.

Sanders was also 97th percentile in avoiding negative throws/dropback, per PFF. Last season, he ranked No. 3 in turnover-worthy play rate (1.2)—Ward’s turnover-worthy play rate of 3.1 was nearly three times higher. 

Sanders’  floor is sky-high. His game will translate to the modern NFL, and he will succeed.

2. Cam Ward | Miami (FL) | 6-2/219 | Comp: Jordan Love

Cam Ward has a high-voltage right arm, and there isn’t a throw in this world that he doesn’t think he can make. Ward’s game is a freewheeling, shoot-em-up display of aggression and creativity like John Wick. 

Ward is a full-field reader, and he trusts what he sees implicitly. He has an elastic, twitchy arm, shooting the pill out from unorthodox sidearm slots. This is a useful trick under duress, but the extra arm action and non-repeatable upper-body mechanics do have slightly deleterious effects on his overall accuracy and placement. He modulates speeds well, and has feathery touch when he needs it. 

Ward’s pocket work took a huge step forward in 2024, where his pressure-to-sack ratio improved from 24.9 to 16.4. He’s difficult to sack because he senses pressure and is a twitchy short-area mover with the feet to evade and escape. 

Ward’s 2,329 career passing attempts in college all came in Air Raid systems. Ward is one of this class’ most cerebral quarterbacks pre-snap. Ward is keenly interested in the way that defenses align to match his receivers in space. 

He’s quick to relay information back to his teammates, and to adjust the formation, protection, or play as needed. By this point, Ward could call offensive plays in the booth for an Air Raid offense. 

Ward hates to check down, and he doesn’t like to throw the ball away. He will keep hunting until the bitter end. He generates explosive plays this way. But it’s also where you see wanton recklessness. Ward has a particularly bad habit of forcing impossible attempts across his body when he’s run out of options on a scramble—leading to interceptions over the middle. 

Ward’s turnover-worthy play rate of 3.3 in 2024 was spookily similar to every season he’d played before it (between 3.3-3.6 all five seasons). He managed that despite ratcheting up the aggression, with Dawson’s modified Air Raid calling for more downtown shots. Between 2023 and 2024, Ward’s aDOT spiked from 7.7 to 9.8, and his YPA jumped from 7.7 to 9.5.

Ward has more arm talent than Sanders. There’s no question. But Ward can be fooled by coverage looks, and he walks himself into unforced errors in ways you never see with Sanders. Ward has an exciting ceiling either way. He profiles as a Day 1 starter in the NFL.

3. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss | 6-2/221 | Comp: Jake Plummer

Dart has a broad-shouldered frame and a thick build. In the pocket, Dart is clever in his subtle movements to buy more space or an extra beat to throw. He throws from multiple arm slots, with a smooth, repeatable motion and a quick release.

He’s a strong athlete who lived up to his dual-threat billing in the SEC. When he tucks, Dart squirts upfield into the second level with surprising burst. He’s a tough kid who’d rather lower the shoulder than slide. He has played hurt. Dart could provide Bo Nix-like rushing utility at the next level.

Dart doesn’t have a downfield howitzer—deep balls flutter on him when his eyes get bigger than his stomach. But when Dart stays within his means, he has the touch and placement to confidently challenge single coverage. One area for development is footwork. Dart’s feet can have a mind of their own, a habit that can skew his accuracy down to the layups.

Dart’s arm shines brightest in the intermediate area. He knows how to spin it. Dart consistently beats defenders to the spot with fastballs into tight windows, big-boy NFL throws. Dart ranked No. 1 in this draft class in both intermediate and over-the-middle completion percentage.

Dart became a master of Lane Kiffin’s shotgun-spread system, the essence of which is flipping the natural order of things to force defenses to think more than offenses. Kiffin accomplishes this with untold manipulations, misdirection, eye-candy, false tells, and the like. Dart has quick hands for Kiffin’s patented RPO game. 

Kiffin simplifies things post-snap by cutting infinite options for his quarterback down to a manageable three-tiered hierarchy. Schematic garnish juices the odds of success for the initial reads. 

Dart went to the first one a lot. Between that, and the preponderance of quick-hitters and screens in the playbook, 34.2% of Dart’s attempts went to wide-open receivers, ranking No. 11 in the FBS, per ESPN.

Dart’s senior tape saw him snapping to the second read in his progression on time when called for consistently enough. But his third option was often tucking-and-running. Dart can, at times, be a bit mechanical in his thinking post-snap—sticking to the pre-snap script instead of taking advantage of the post-snap coverage look. 

Dart has the pedigree, statistical profile, and physical tools of a first-rounder. He checks all seven of Bill Parcells' QB criteria boxes. Dart chose Ole Miss in part because of the success departing third-rounder Matt Corral had in Kiffin’s system. Right or wrong, Corral’s subsequent failure in the NFL complicates Dart’s evaluation.

4. Jalen Milroe | Alabama | 6-2/216 | Comp: Malik Willis

Milroe has the same kind of twitchy, elastic arm strength that Michael Vick did. Milroe’s rainbow deep balls are a thing of beauty, and they arrive with touch—he is a legitimate deep-ball assassin. 

Over the last two years, Milroe accumulated an utterly ridiculous 36/4 TD/INT rate on +20-yard throws, with 42 big-time throws against only one turnover-worthy play on 123 attempts! Milroe also flexes his arm-strength muscles with outside-the-hash lasers down the sidelines. 

Milroe’s skill set is a nightmare to defend when he’s connecting down the field. You can keep two deep safeties on the field to prevent him from getting one-on-one looks. But if you do, it’s difficult to spy Milroe, or to send extra pressure at him. 

Milroe is a truly exceptional rushing threat. He’s built thick and strong, and he runs with rugged power. He was also usually the fastest player on the field in college, with angle-erasing top-end speed. 

Milroe ran for 806 yards in 2023, and 879 yards in 2024. He got there in different ways. In OC Tommy Rees’ system on Nick Saban’s last team in 2023, Milroe scrambled 55 times for 521 yards. In 2024, Milroe scrambled only 24 times for 200 yards. 

On passing concepts, Alabama HC Kalen DeBoer wanted Milroe to stay in the pocket and win as a thrower—Milroe’s struggles down the stretch were likely at least in part attributable to the push-and-pull that came out of his non-ideal fit for DeBoer’s pocket-passing scheme. 

Where DeBoer made use of Milroe’s legs were on designed runs, notably a far bigger part of Alabama’s playbook in 2024. Milroe went from 285 yards off designed runs in 2023 to 679 in 2024.

Where I think it’s fair to ding Milroe for hand size is ball security as a run-heavy quarterback. Over 27 career starts, Milroe fumbled 24 times. He needs to take extra measures to cut down on the fumbles in the NFL.

And while Milroe is a tremendous deep thrower, he continues to be extremely inconsistent short and intermediate. The hope was that DeBoer could polish Milroe—DeBoer famously developed QB Michael Penix Jr. at Indiana and Washington. 

Milroe appeared to be on that trajectory at the end of September. He threw for 374 yards on 27-of-33 passing with another 117 yards rushing in the victory over Georgia. Alabama was 4-0, and Milroe owned a sparkling 10/1 TD/INT rate. He looked like a top-5 overall prospect.

But Milroe went into the tank the rest of the season. Over the last nine games of 2024, Milroe posted a 6/10 TD/INT rate as Alabama limped to a 5-4 finish. It was hard to watch in losses to Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Michigan in particular.

At present, Milroe is a one-speed thrower. Between the hashes, Milroe struggles with rhyming his drop to receiver breaks on timing concepts, and he’s often late because he wants to see the receiver open. Milroe posted an unsightly 13/13 TD/INT rate the last two years on throws within 19 yards of the line of scrimmage. 

Milroe’s feet can get sloppy. His accuracy wildly wavers when he doesn’t reset them into a viable throwing platform before beginning his motion. Milroe has struggled in the red zone, particularly in 2024. With the field condensing, Milroe’s deep ball and the way it affects defensive spacing goes away, and Milroe’s margin for error evaporates. 

Milroe can be confused by unexpected post-snap coverage looks, delaying his progressions. You can short-circuit Milroe by taking the fight to him—his 90.2 PFF grade in clean pockets last year plummeted to 55.1 under duress. 

There are elements of the Milroe evaluation that evoke Anthony Richardson. Milroe is smaller physically, but he’s the more experienced (663 career attempts to Richardson’s 393), accurate (64.3% to 54.7%) and accomplished (45/20 career TD/INT rate to 24/15) passer. Milroe averaged 55.8 rushing YPG this season against Richardson’s 54.5 his last year at Florida.

Milroe is a high-variance, boom-or-bust prospect who needs at least one year of learning before he sees an NFL field.

5. Kyle McCord | Syracuse | 6-3/218 | Comp: Chad Henne

McCord is an aggressive pocket passer with average arm strength. He has a compact motion and a quick release. McCord is accurate, and his placement and touch hold to the third level. 

McCord had a redemptive final season at Syracuse after getting pushed out at Ohio State. He finished No. 3 among quarterbacks in PFF’s Wins Above Average metric while leading the FBS in big-time throws. 

McCord can deliver accurate throws from muddy pockets. He finished No. 4 in PFF passing grade under pressure. But McCord is pocket-confined, and he can be fooled by coverage looks when hurried quickly after the snap. 

The most extreme example of this occurred against Pittsburgh, with McCord pressured on 23 dropbacks—easily the most he saw in 2024. McCord threw five interceptions, including three first-half pick-sixes. 

In the other 12 games McCord played last year, he had a 34/7 TD/INT rate. He profiles as a strong long-term NFL QB2.

6. Tyler Shough | Louisville | 6-5/219 | Comp: Blake Bortles

Shough was a top-100 overall recruit in the 2018 class. He redshirted a season, backed up Justin Herbert for another, and stepped into the starting role in 2020. Shough looked like a potential future R1 pick through three starts, averaging 10.2 YPA with an 8/2 TD/INT ratio during Oregon’s 3-0 start.

But he trailed off badly down the stretch, dipping to 8.5 YPA with a 5/4 TD/INT ratio during a 1-3 finish. The Ducks benched him. Shough transferred to Texas Tech as the hand-picked quarterback of HC Matt Wells, who had sent QB Jordan Love to the NFL while at Utah State. 

Shough was a colossal bust, posting a 20/11 TD/INT rate over three seasons while dealing with a different serious injury in every campaign—a broken collarbone in 2021, a re-injured shoulder in 2022, and a broken fibula in 2023.

Shough transferred to Louisville in 2024 and had a resurgent final season for HC Jeff Brohm, an underrated quarterback whisperer who previously sent Mike White, David Blough, Aidan O’Connell, and Jack Plummer to the NFL. 

Shough is an above-average athlete in a big frame. He’s got arm talent, and has shown the ability to win in the quick game and also beat defenses downfield. Shough is a creative thrower who uses multiple arm angles. He throws a catchable spiral.

My two-fold concern with Shough is that he didn’t break out until his seventh season in college, and he had significant durability issues in college. He’ll be 26 as a rookie and is tapped out developmentally. All that said, Shough has NFL QB2 skills if he can stay healthy.

7. Quinn Ewers | Texas | 6-2/214 | Comp: Kenny Pickett

Ewers started three seasons at Texas, posting a 68/24 TD/INT rate and helping the Longhorns reach back-to-back CFP semifinals. After a strong 2023 in which Ewers posted 9.3 adjusted yards/attempt on 69.0% completions with a 22/6 TD/INT rate, he took a step back in 2024, with 7.9 AY/A on 65.8% completions and a 31/12 TD/INT.

The No. 1 overall recruit in the 2021 class, Ewers has an adaptable throwing style, with his arm slots running the gamut from true sidearm to near over-the-top. Ewers’ unshakable confidence in his arm is likely why he’s never perfected his lower-body mechanics. 

Ewers has a habit of starting to sling right when a decision has been made, skipping over the beat it would have taken to set up a proper throwing platform beneath him. This is maddening in clean pockets, because it puts to chance accuracy and placement. 

By his junior season, Ewers had a mastery of Sarkisian’s system. One area where the work showed was on timing concepts. Ewers tended to be right on schedule with his primary reads on three- and five-step concepts, putting balls on platters for receivers as they turned. 

Ewers delivers a tight spiral and a catchable ball, and has shown a feel for touch and layered passing in the intermediate area. This is an area of Ewers’ game that will translate—playcallers around the league will recognize this skill on tape and appreciate it.

My issue with Ewers’ game is what we’ve seen when the primary looks are taken away and he has to create. I see a mechanical thinker whose effectiveness wavers the further he goes down the progression line. 

This is why Ewers struggles with pressure despite having the arm elasticity and comfort throwing without a platform to theoretically be good at it. Pressure forces Ewers to make a slap-bang decision between non-ideal options outside the original design of the play as taught.

The 2024 regular-season game against Georgia provided the most extreme example of this. Georgia took away his primary reads while a fierce pass rush collapsed the pocket. Ewers looked like Sam Darnold in the final two games of the Vikings’ regular season, a deer in the headlights, frozen by indecision. 

When Ewers was being hailed as the best high school player in the country, he drew ubiquitous comps to fellow Texan Matthew Stafford because of their mutual side-winding deliveries. But Ewers didn’t have nearly the juice in his arm that Stafford had at Georgia. 

The acknowledgment of this can be seen in Texas’ shift in aerial philosophy during Ewers’ tenure. The percentage of deep balls Ewers attempted as a senior in 2024 was slashed more than 5% from his first year as a starter in 2022.

That was for the best. Ewers can spin it in the intermediate area, but he labors to get the ball downfield. Ewers’ all-arm throwing style doesn’t help him in this area. Balls flutter when he tries to push it too far downfield. In 2024, Ewers completed 38.2% of throws 20+ yards downfield.

8. Will Howard | Ohio State | 6-4/243 | Comp: Mason Rudolph

Howard is a big, strapping pocket passer. He throws a tight spiral with NFL-caliber velocity. No prospect helped himself more in the College Football Playoff than Howard.

My biggest issue with Howard’s NFL evaluation was sloppy lower-body mechanics for an older prospect (24 as a rookie). Howard’s accuracy and placement had always suffered because of that. 

This was a stated area of developmental emphasis for HC Ryan Day and OC Chip Kelly (now the Raiders OC—something to keep in the back of your mind when considering Howard’s possible destinations in the draft). 

Howard showed notable progress with his footwork and overall lower-body mechanics during the latter portion of Ohio State’s run to the national championship. Far more often, Howard was driving off his back foot with increased hip torque and a sturdy platform under him.

His accuracy began to improve, and his downfield passes showed a bit more zip. At Kansas State, Howard would fall into stretches where his lower-half wasn’t married to his upper-half, or where he’d leave it behind entirely with all-arm throws.

It’s true that Howard was blessed with incredible skill talent at Ohio State. But he also had to work with an offensive line that briefly fell apart in November following a pair of season-ending injuries to standout starters. 

Howard is a solid athlete and a tough runner with goal-line/short-yardage utility. Howard might not have any “A” traits outside of size, but the rest of his report card would be filled predominantly with B’s. That, in conjunction with the improvement he showed in the biggest of spots in 2024 give him the looks of a Rounds 3-4 target.

9. Dillon Gabriel | Oregon | 5-10/202 | Comp: Poor Man's Tua

A pint-sized lefty with physical limitations, Gabriel is a timing passer who’ll run your scheme for you. He throws a nice, soft, catchable ball. Gabriel bounces around naturally to manipulate spacing and find throwing lanes.

Gabriel’s arm had a bit more zip live than I was expecting at the Senior Bowl. AtoZ’s Travis May's "Speed & Spin Score" metric—using velocity, spin rate, and air yardage data from the Senior Bowl—ranked Gabriel No. 1 among quarterbacks in Mobile. Gabriel identifies coverage looks quickly and lets it rip with loft early, right when he deciphers 1-on-1 coverage. 

A 2024 Heisman Trophy finalist, Gabriel ranks No. 2 all-time in FBS passing yardage behind Houston’s Case Keenum. His processing, accuracy, and ability to follow a passing script and stay on time give him the look of a long-term QB2 in a West Coast-type system. 

10. Kurtis Rourke | Indiana | 6-4/231 | Comp: Aidan O'Connell

Kurtis Rourke led Indiana to an 11-1 regular season and a Cinderella run to the CFP—on a torn ACL! After the season, we learned that Rourke had re-torn his ACL in camp in August and elected to hold off surgery until after the season.

At the time Rourke originally tore his ACL—in November 2022, while he was at Ohio—he was PFF‘s highest-graded quarterback in the entire FBS. Rourke had an accelerated rehab to rush back for the start of the next regular season. The Oakville, Ontario native has a hockey player’s toughness.

Rourke’s most recent knee surgery occurred in January. Because of it, Rourke is expected to miss the entirety of his rookie season. That development, of course, hurts his draft stock.

I still believe Rourke is worth a Day 3 pick. He is an experienced pocket passer with the arm to make every throw. Rourke has proven especially proficient at attacking the intermediate sector between the hashes. 

This is where he first caught my eye—it’s an area that the NFL greatly values. He modulates throwing speeds to fit the occasion, and has a pool shark’s touch when he needs it.

Rourke is slow-footed, and thus can’t dance out of pressure. His pressure-to-sack ratio ballooned from an acceptable 15.5 in 2023 to a problematic 26.7 in 2024—but we’re gonna forgive him for a bit of that with the context of his torn ACL in mind.

Rourke’s brother Nathan got a cup of coffee in the NFL and is now in the CFL. Kurtis is bigger, and he has a stronger arm. We believe he’ll spend a season on IR in the NFL and be given a chance to win a backup job in 2026 camp.

11. Riley Leonard | Notre Dame | 6-4/216 | Comp: Righty Tebow

A good athlete, and a tough runner. Adept at the short passing game. Takes care of the ball. Difficult to sack. He lacks arm strength—can’t be trusted throwing over the middle downfield. 

Intermediate accuracy comes and goes. A bit too eager to tuck-and-run when initial reads aren’t there. In Leonard’s defense, he played with precious little receiving talent in college. Will need to show more as a thrower to have a chance to be an NFL QB2.

12. Max Brosmer | Minnesota | 6-2/218 | Comp: Shane Buechele

Small, with limited arm talent. Makes very quick decisions, generally plays it safe. Takes care of the ball. Rhythm thrower who’ll run your offense for you as written, just can’t stretch his arm beyond its means.

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