The 2026 NFL Draft has an interesting development. Since only Fernando Mendoza and Ty Simpson are viewed as potential first-round QBs, there will be many teams that will look to draft a quarterback in the middle rounds of the draft.
Apart from Mendoza and Simpson, two other well-talked-about quarterbacks are Garrett Nussmeier and Drew Allar, but it’s unclear when they will hear their names called.
Garrett Nussmeier, Drew Allar Expected to Fall in NFL Draft
NFL insider Albert Breer recently shared his thoughts on the quarterbacks in this year’s draft and how the three days in Pittsburgh could play out.
“There’s a good chance Mendoza and Ty Simpson will be the only quarterbacks taken during the first two days of the draft,” Breer wrote on Sports Illustrated.
“That would be the first time only two quarterbacks went in the first three rounds since back-to-back years in the 1990s: It was only Jim Druckenmiller and Jake Plummer in 1997, and Tony Banks and Bobby Hoying the year before that. It also, by the way, sort of makes sense.”
Breer then spoke of what he felt teams would do:
“If you think a quarterback can be your full-time starter, you’re probably drafting him in the first round. And if you don’t see a guy that way, you probably won’t take him in the second or third rounds, where full-time starters are probably going to be available to you at other positions.
“I think this year could be a sort of case study in that. Mendoza is the first pick, a potential franchise player. Simpson has NFL starter tape, but maybe not NFL starter tools, which is why he’d go in the second round (that’s where I think he’ll land) rather than the first.”
He then broke down what to expect for Nussmeier and Allar.
“Then you have LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier, Penn State’s Drew Allar, Miami’s Carson Beck, Arkansas’s Taylen Green, and North Dakota State’s Cole Payton, and I feel like teams would be taking fliers on those guys. Is it possible a couple of those guys will be taken in the third round? Sure. But I don’t know which ones, and I’m not sure it’s likely, either.”
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Nussmeier and Allar are currently ranked fourth and seventh, respectively, among quarterbacks in this year’s draft class on PFSN’s Big Board. The former LSU star is currently projected to be a third-round pick, while Allar is projected to be a fourth-round pick.
In PFSN’s latest seven-round mock draft by Alec Elijah, Nussmeier is projected to be selected by the Miami Dolphins in the fifth round, while Allar finds his way to the New York Jets in the same round.
