What will be the biggest surprise in this year’s 2026 NFL Draft?

Huge is no exaggeration, as QB Shedeur Sanders, projected by most, yes most, analysts as a first-round draft pick, fell. Oh, he didn’t just fall in the second round; he sank, he sank, from the second round, from the third round to the fifth round and the 144th overall pick by the Cleveland Browns.

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In Shedeur’s case, his father Deion could have been not just a reason, but the main reason for the huge drop in the draft. Deion, never wary of thinking he might not understand a situation better, confidently said on camera: “I’m not going to let my son fall for any nonsense. It’s not about who I’d like him to play for. These are a couple of teams I won’t let him play on. This is my profession. I know what’s behind the curtain.” The irony is not only that Sheduer fell about 140 spots, but that he ended up in Cleveland. Deion apparently possessed much less power than he imagined.

There have been these draft slides before, as Sanders is by no means the only one to fall on draft day. When this happens it can sometimes be a steal for the team as they pick the player who goes down. So you can often get a player who is highly motivated to prove NFL teams wrong, like Tom Brady, or you can get a player who will never truly live up to his initial draft projections. Conclusion? You never know who you’ll meet.

• Geno Smith was a very effective and mobile passing QB for West Virginia, throwing 42 touchdowns and only 6 interceptions. Early projections had Smith as a top-10 pick. But before the draft it was leaked that Smith had not been good in some interviews. This also scared other teams. Smith fell completely out of the first round to the New York Jets at 39th overall. Twelve years later, Smith is still in the league, which is a positive, while the flip side is that he has played for five teams and is now back with the Jets for his sixth stop.

• Following his junior season at Pitt, Dan Marino was considered the No. 2 quarterback in the 1983 draft, behind only John Elway. But when his senior season didn’t go so well, questions arose, resulting in a rumor of drug use. Although it was never corroborated or proven at all, Marino fell and fell all the way to 27th overall for the Miami Dolphins. In his second season in the NFL, he was already breaking NFL single-season passing records.

• Aaron Rodgers had grown up a San Francisco 49ers fan, played college ball in California, and many expected the 49ers to pick him first overall. To this day, we don’t really know what the 49ers went through and many other teams did the same. Rodgers fell to the Packers (who had Brett Favre) at 24th overall in the 2005 draft. That night on stage, Rodgers was interviewed and asked, “How disappointed are you that you’re not a 49er?” Rodgers, without hesitation, responded: “Not as disappointed as the 49ers will be that they didn’t draft me.”

• Louisville QB Lamar Jackson was by far the best running QB in the class of 2018. So good that some NFL analysts thought he might be better in the NFL as a running back. On draft night, Jackson fell to the last pick of the first round (32nd) to the Baltimore Ravens. At times he has shined in the NFL with super athletic plays, both in passing and running. Yes, his numbers have gone down in the playoffs, but Jackson has more than proven himself to be a top-tier quarterback in the NFL and is a two-time NFL MVP.

There have also been others who went down for various reasons, such as Commanders OT Laremy Tunsil, WR Randy Moss and WR DK Metcalf. Moss had been arrested and failed a drug test, costing him a scholarship from Notre Dame and dismissal from Florida State. Tunsil was one of the most shocking falls, when just minutes before the start of the 2016 NFL Draft, a photo of Tunsil was released showing him smoking marijuana through a gas mask. In 2007, Brady Quinn sat on the scene until the Browns selected him 22nd overall.