NFL Draft 2025 Roundtable: Counting QB Pro Bowls And Nightmare Landing Spots

Ian Hartitz, Dwain McFarland, and Matthew Freedman combine to tackle NFL Draft questions.

It's happening tomorrow. The night we've been waiting for. NFL Draft 2025 kicks off with the Tennessee Titans on the clock in Green Bay on April 24. It's time to take a look ahead with Ian Hartitz, Dwain McFarland, and Matthew Freedman to predict how these players will acclimate to the NFL, begging the question for how many Pro Bowls the quarterbacks will play in. The answers have some tantalizing possibilities.

After that our Fantasy Life trio talked dream landing spots in a previous edition, it's time to look at what might be the worst possible landing spots for some of their favorite NFL Draft prospects. Time to dive in.

Which quarterback in this class will have the most Pro Bowl nominations?

Dwain:The easy answer for Pro Bowl nominations is Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders, but honestly I am not the guy you want to ask that question. It isn't an angle I study or care much about. However, if you want to know who has the upside to propel your dynasty squad to multiple fantasy championships, my bet is on Jaxson Dart.

I am not a QB guru, but I have spent an inordinate amount of time studying variance while building ceiling/floor logic for the next round of Fantasy Life tools (get excited people), and the data is extremely clear: hitting big ceilings as a pocket passer isn't easy. Let's take a quick look at an example of what the floor and ceilings look like for an average dual-threat QB versus an elite pocket passer using per-game stats.

Now, think how hard it is to accomplish that top line. Essentially, that is Joe Burrow-esque—rare air! However, the second line is much more attainable and offers a similar ceiling (which is what we care about most). Dart averaged 47 yards per game over his final two collegiate seasons as a rusher (excludes sacks), and will be one of my primary targets in rookie drafts at QB assuming he secures late-Round 1 or earl- Round 2 draft capital.

Ian: This is a trick question because Pro Bowl nominations don’t necessarily correlate with, you know, being good at football. Two recent examples:

• Drake Maye was a Pro Bowler as a rookie after accounting for more combined interceptions and fumbles (19) than total touchdowns (17).
• Tyler Huntley made a Pro Bowl back in 2022 despite starting just four total games. He accounted for just three regular-season TDs and never reached even 140 passing yards in those starts.

So yes, Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders should be favored to ultimately wind up with the most Pro Bowl nominations from this class, but they also likely have better chances winning enough real-life games to have the sort of playoff opportunities that usually result in QBs skipping this glorified exhibition.

This brings us to my pick: Alabama QB Jalen Milroe. Sure, the man is far from polished as a pure dropback passer, but as Daniel Jeremiah has noted: Milroe arguably has the highest upside of anyone in this draft. This is mostly thanks to his big arm and (especially) freaky-fast ability on the ground. Consider: Milroe managed to average a whopping 16 fantasy points per game from purely rushing production during his final year at Alabama—good for the 25th-best single-season mark of any FBS QB in the last decade and more than what Jayden Daniels (15.4) had in his last year at LSU.

Moral of the story here: The Pro Bowl is dumb, and Milroe has a pretty, pretty, pretty enticing ceiling if he manages to fulfill his sky-high potential.

Freedman: Let's start with the fact that I think this is a subpar QB class. Cam Ward (Miami) is -20000 (DraftKings) to go No. 1 overall. He's a virtual lock there.

But after him questions abound.

Shedeur Sanders (Colorado) seems likely to go in Round 1 … but Daniel Jeremiah recently said this on Move the Sticks: "I won't say it's a rumor. It's a fact. In talking with teams … there's a lot of teams out there who think Cam Ward is the only first-round quarterback." 

And Albert Breer singled out Sanders in particular in a recent "NFL Takeaways" column: “I’m having a really hard time finding coaches or scouts who believe Sanders is a first-round talent.”

As a prospect, Sanders strikes me as being highly comparable to Geno Smith in 2013, when Smith was expected to go in Round 1 but fell to Round 2.

And I think we won't get any more than two QBs who go in Round 1.

Right now, the market total on QBs taken in Round 1 is currently 2.5 with heavy -500 juice to the over (BetMGM), which carries an 83.3% implied probability (per our Fantasy Life Odds Calculator).

But after Ward and Sanders the QB class is shaky. 

Both Jaxson Dart (Mississippi) and Jalen Milroe (Alabama) have a chance to go on Day 1.

But Thor Nystrom (our Fantasy Life NFL draft guru) has Dart and Milroe ranked at Nos. 41-42 in his Thor 500 big board. In my top-75 big board (I'll expand it to my top 100 this week), I have Dart at No. 45 and Milroe at No. 69.

Both plan to attend the draft in person, so there's a real chance one or both could go in Round 1. But I'm skeptical that either one warrants such an investment—and after them, guys like Tyler Shough (Louisville), Kyle McCord (Syracuse), Quinn Ewers (Texas), and Will Howard (Ohio State) fail to excite.

So all of this is to say that in this class it seems to be Ward … and then everyone else.

Ward has to be the answer to the question of which QB in this class will get the most Pro Bowls—but, again, this is a weak QB cohort.

It wouldn't surprise at all if Ward never even made a Pro Bowl, given that he's going to a team with an unproven coach and subpar surrounding talent.

Which landing spot would be a nightmare scenario for your favorite prospect’s fantasy value?

Dwain: Ashton Jeanty is my favorite fantasy prospect this season, like 99% of red-blooded Americans, and I have already outlined that he is near landing-spot proof above. However, I did list a few problematic landing spots for him, and those same spots would be even more challenging for backs not named Jeanty.

For our favorite pass catchers, below are my least favorite landing spots:

• Jets: I love Justin Fields as an upside fantasy quarterback, but I don't want someone fighting with Garrett Wilson in a 175-yard-per-game offense. Hard pass.
• Colts: Indianapolis has a low-key, solid WR room, but the QB situation is as scary as it gets with Anthony Richardson and Daniel Jones.
• Bengals: Long term, this could work out, but Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins just locked in long-term deals. Good luck finding playing time.
• Steelers: We are still waiting on a starting quarterback, and Metcalf/Pickens is already an overcrowded room under the run-heavy Arthur Smith dialing up plays.
• Vikings: Thor is going to be mad, but J.J. McCarthy is still an unknown, and the trio of Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and T.J. Hockenson is a lot to overcome in the near term.
• Eagles: A run-first offense with A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith blocking the entrance to playing time. We would need a trade or injury for a rookie to make noise.

Ian: Tyler Warren is a capital D DOG. He was the heart and soul of the Penn State passing game (104-1,233-9 receiving) while also supplying all sorts of goodness as a wildcat QB (26-218-4 rushing). The 22-year-old talent is a lot of fun to watch; he wore 44 as an ode to John Riggins for crying out loud!

And yet, Warren’s professional ceiling could be capped in early years in the wrong landing spot, especially if it’s the one that so many people seem to be calling for.

Enter: The Indianapolis Colts, who are entering the 2025 season hoping that one of Anthony Richardson or Daniel Jones supply something close to league-average play at QB. They also already have four quality WRs capable of demanding looks in the passing game. Oh yeah, and head coach Shane Steichen has made a habit of regularly rotating multiple TEs over the years.

Now, using the No. 14 overall pick on Warren would hopefully bring an end to Steichen’s TE-by-committee practices, but it’d still be tough to pencil the rookie in for a massive Year 1 target share while competing for opportunities next to guys like Josh Downs and Michael Pittman inside a likely run-first offense with the potential to include some rather horrendous play under center. Hell, Warren’s potential for run-game opportunities could also be at a minimum inside an offense likely fine simply featuring Richardson and/or Jonathan Taylor inside the 5-yard line.

The Colts need a TE, and Warren certainly has the potential to become a great one at the professional level, but that doesn’t mean the marriage would be something that fantasy managers should get overly excited about.

Freedman: Full disclosure: I don't know if I even have a favorite prospect this year. That's how modest the talent is in the 2025 draft class.

If I had a favorite prospect, it would probably be WR/CB Travis Hunter (Colorado), because he truly does have the potential to be a unicorn.

In his top 500 big board, Thor Nystrom (our Fantasy Life NFL draft guru) has comped Hunter to Shohei Ohtani, and the cross-sport comp makes sense given Hunter's high-level two-way skillset.

Last season, Hunter won the Fred Biletnikoff Award as the most outstanding receiver in college football with 96-1,258-15 receiving … and he also won the Chuck Bednarik Award as the defensive player of the year.

He's a truly fascinating prospect, and I'd love to see him play both ways in the NFL.

But my fear is that if Hunter landed with the wrong team—like maybe the Patriots—he'd be underutilized and misused and trapped in a suboptimal situation.

The Patriots have been a low-key dysfunctional franchise for years now. They're on their third coaching staff in as many seasons. QB Drake Maye is promising but unproven. He might not be able to support multiple pass catchers, and Hunter on offense might play behind WR Stefon Diggs, who (it's not hard to imagine) could be a poor teammate for the rookie.

And then on defense Hunter might struggle to earn consistent playing time, given that the Patriots are pretty set in the secondary with CBs Christian Gonzalez, Carlton Davis, and Marcus Jones.

I doubt Hunter will fall to the Patriots at No. 4 anyway, but if he did I could imagine him failing to distinguish himself on both sides of the ball as a rookie, which could then impact the two-way opportunities he gets later in his career.