It's officially NFL Draft week, aka the best time of the year. To kick off the week, we've rounded up our three favorite draftniks—Thor Nystrom, Gene Clemons, and Matthew Freedman—to gather their favorite NFL Draft bold predictions.

How spicy will they get? Let's find out.

Bold Predictions for the 2025 NFL Draft

The Browns will draft Travis Hunter at No. 2 overall, and either Shedeur Sanders or Jalen Milroe with their second draft pick

Thor Nystrom: We know three things for certain regarding Cleveland heading into next weekend:

  1. Travis Hunter will be announced as the No. 2 overall selection
  2. Cleveland has oodles of draft equity after that pick, starting with the first pick in Round 2
  3. The Browns desperately need a quarterback.

I’ve heard multiple times this process from NFL sources that Cleveland is vetting the possibility of a big swing up the board from No. 33 if Shedeur Sanders falls into the teens—a move that would keep Sanders on the same NFL team as his collegiate teammate Hunter.

I don’t have any inside information on Jalen Milroe, but the dot-connecting is extremely straightforward here. First, Milroe was shockingly invited to the NFL Draft—an indication that the NFL believes he has a real chance to go in Round 1. That would imply that there’s at least one mystery team ready to invest serious draft capital in him. Who makes more sense than the Browns?

Milroe looked broken down the stretch in 2024, but in 2023, for the last few months of the season, he looked like a future No. 1 overall pick. Milroe’s offensive coordinator that year? Tommy Rees, who now holds the same position for the Browns.

Cleveland GM Andrew Berry effusively praised Milroe at a press conference earlier this week, stating: “He may be the only quarterback when he gets in the NFL, who’s faster than Lamar [Jackson].” Berry was then asked about the prior Rees-Milroe connection: “It helps a lot. I mean to have been at Alabama with him for a full year, calling plays for him, knowing his strengths and weaknesses—it helps a lot.”

It would have been easy for Berry to sidestep those questions. Instead, he not-so-subtly implied legitimate interest, even overtly stating that the team has already considered how it would build an offense around Milroe (“[A]ny system that you build around him, you want to take advantage of the fact that he has things that no other players at the position have.”).

The Cleveland Browns never seriously considered taking a quarterback No. 2 overall, which isn’t to say that they aren’t dead-serious about coming out of this draft with their quarterback of the future. Cleveland’s plan is to take the draft’s best player (Hunter) and then monitor the quarterback situation and move up from No. 33 if needed.

I think you will see one of three scenarios play out for Cleveland following the Hunter pick:

  1. Trade into the teens to stop Shedeur Sanders’ slide
  2. Trade a Day 3 pick to move up a slot or two to get the fifth-year option on Jalen Milroe at the end of Round 1
  3. Simply select Milroe in the No. 33 slot if a small trade-up is deemed unnecessary or outright not available.

Much of that will come down to when QB2 is taken off the board—and if that becomes late enough for Cleveland to pony up to do the deed themselves.

Three running backs will get drafted in Round 1

Gene Clemons: In my lifetime, there have been only six instances in the NFL Draft where three or more running backs were selected in the first round of the same draft; six in 45 years! So the idea that running backs have only recently been devalued in the draft is not exactly true. Three running backs have not been selected in a draft since 2012 when the Browns selected Alabama running back Trent Richardson with the third pick. Doug Martin and David Wilson were selected with the final two picks in the first round.

2025 is a talent-rich draft class at the position. At the end of the day, that is what makes GMs grab a back early. You have rushing champions, multiple Doak Walker Award winners, and backs of every size, shape, and ability. That is why this draft will be the first to have three backs taken in the first round since 2012.

Obviously Ashton Jeanty and Omarion Hampton have been the two names discussed the most in the first round. There are so many different talents left at the position that all it takes is for one team to miss on their first or second options on their big board, and suddenly, a running back has a high enough grade to warrant taking in the first round.

It’s difficult to predict who might be the other guy in the first round because that could be based on taste, but there are multiple guys to consider. Backs like Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson, and the Ohio State duo TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins, are a few more of the 10 backs in the top 100 of the Thor 500. There will be a team that falls in love with one of these guys and possibly grabs them at the end of the first round.

No more than two quarterbacks will go in Round 1

Matthew Freedman: 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).

I'm not saying it's a lock that we see only two QBs in Round 1, but this is way more of a 50/50 proposition than the market is suggesting.

I take a "wisdom of the crowd" approach by surveying recent sharp mock drafts and aggregating their information to see what they collectively say.

Right now, on average, they have 2.44 QBs in Round 1. The median and mode are two.

In these sharp mocks, under 2.5 Round 1 QBs hits 56% of the time.

In our free Fantasy Life Bet Tracker, I recently logged this exact bet—under 2.5 Round 1 QBs—for +340 odds at BetMGM. See the tracker for all my draft props.

Over the past six years (since I started submitting mocks in competitions), I’m the No. 2 mocker for accuracy, and I'm a lifetime 484-424 (+102.6 units) betting on the draft.

Bettors are expecting Cam Ward (Miami) and Shedeur Sanders (Colorado) and then at least one of Jaxson Dart (Mississippi) and Jalen Milroe (Alabama) to go on Day 1.

But Thor Nystrom (our Fantasy Life NFL draft guru) has Dart and Milroe ranked next to each other at Nos. 41-42 in his top 500 big board.

In my top 75 big board (I'll expand it to my top 100 this upcoming week), I have Dart at No. 45 and Milroe at No. 69.

Both have gotten Round 1 hype, and both plan to attend the draft in person, which means that they (or their agents) anticipate (or are at least optimistically hopeful for) a Round 1 selection.

But I'm skeptical that we will actually see them go in Round 1. It's hard for teams to get trades done—especially when they don't want to overpay to get an extra Day 1 pick—and neither Thor nor I have these QBs graded as if they're worth mortgaging the future for.

The market strongly suggests that we'll see three-plus QBs selected on this upcoming Thursday, but I'm betting otherwise.