With the 2025 NFL Draft getting underway with Round 1 on Thursday night in Green Bay, many analysts are rolling out their final mock drafts. This week, Daniel Jeremiah of NFL Network, author of multiple mock drafts, took a wide range of questions from the news media in a pre-draft conference call.
And although he addressed specific questions about teams' potential picks in the draft, the conference call kicked off with a question that previously had not been widely discussed: The impact of NIL (name, image and likeness) payments to football players (and in other sports) and how they may or may not influence decisions to leave school early and enter the NFL draft.
"I think it has a big impact, and I wouldn't say it's even specific to quarterback," Jeremiah said in response to the first question of the session. "I think other positions, it's had a bigger impact. I think in years past the easiest sell for an agent was to a running back, even if he had middling production, which was to say, 'Hey, you've got to start getting paid for these carries you have in your body as soon as possible.'
"So I thought you saw a lot of guys come out when maybe they weren't quite ready yet. And now those kids are getting paid either by their school or somebody else. And so they have opportunities, and it's kept a lot of those kids in school.
What ESPN's Adam Schefter Is Hearing
NFL insider Adam Schefter spent the last few weeks on the phone with front offices and coaching staffs seeking information before the draft.
In his look at the Jets, Schefter noted the "move in silence" philosophy HC Aaron Glenn spoke about during the NFL's Annual League Meeting in Palm Beach, FL in March. "There has been less talking out of their building as they begin to focus on how to turn around a team that went 5-12 last season," Schefter said.
He acknowledged that when it comes to the Green & White's plan, particularly with the No. 7 overall selection, has been "the subject of speculation, shrouded in more secrecy than usual."
He reported that Penn State TE Tyler Warren, who has been mentioned widely as a possible target for the Jets, "recently and quietly" did visit with club officials at 1 Jets Drive (he also met with the Giants). Warren is considered to be the top TE in the draft, a position the Jets will probably address at some point over the three-day draft. He is reportedly thought of highly by some in the organization, as is Missouri T Armand Membou.
"If the Jets target the other side of the ball, some people around the league believe Glenn could target a cornerback, with Texas' Jahdae Barron as an option," Schefter wrote. "Glenn, of course, played cornerback for 15 seasons in the NFL."
Leger Douzable of CBS Sports: 'I'm Going Trenches'
At No. 7 in the 2025 NFL Draft the New York Jets select ... and if it's up to CBS Sports Leger Douzable ... there's no argument who the answer to that intro will be: Missouri T Armand Membou
"You know me, I'm going trenches," he told team reporter Eric Allen during a draft preview last week. "I think putting Armand Membou with the other four starting guys [left to right, Olu Fashanu, John Simpson, Joe Tippmann and Alijah Vera-Tucker] would make one of the best young starting offensive lines in football. And when the Jets had success in 2010, 2011 it was based off a young, aggressive offensive line."
But what if the two top tackles -- Will Campbell of LSU and Membou -- are snapped up before the Jets are on the clock?
"That's why they were strategic in the kind of moves they made [in free agency]," Douzable said. "They went after guys that maybe didn't have their best career year the year before, but in the past have played really good football. So there's upside there. Talk about [Chukwuma] Okorafor, talk about Josh Meyers and I think that's a reason they brought those guys in so they wouldn't feel pigeonholed and feel like we have to take a right tackle with our first pick. But I just think the writing's on the wall, Membou has the highest upside in this draft."
