- Xavier Watts’ ball skills are that of a first-round player: The Notre Dame safety racked up 14 interceptions and 10 forced incompletions over the past two seasons.
- An Ole Miss cornerback isn’t being talked about enough: Trey Amos is a potential Day 1 pick whose size and consistency give him a chance to succeed in the NFL.
Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
While some 2025 NFL Draft prospects are locks to go off the board in the first round, there are plenty of unknowns, as is the case in any draft.
Each year, there seems to be a surprise Round 1 player who wasn’t viewed as such by the consensus, including Ricky Pearsall in 2024, Cole Strange in 2022 and Jordyn Brooks in 2020.
Here are five prospects who don’t appear in first-round mock drafts too often but could hear their names called on Day 1.
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S Xavier Watts, Notre Dame
Mock Draft Sim ADP: 42.9
Every year, there seems to be a prospect whom every NFL fanbase wants their team to draft on Day 2. I have some bad news for those fans: If everyone wants a player in Round 2, there’s a good chance he might not be on the board by then.
Watts is that player in the 2025 NFL Draft class. He was Notre Dame’s highest-graded defensive player, helping lead the team to a national championship appearance this past season. He improved his PFF overall grade from 72.8 in 2023 to 89.2 in 2024.
Coverage has been his category of impact over the past two seasons, having notched 14 interceptions and 10 forced incompletions. He’s a true free safety type who does his best work in space from single-high and split-safety alignments. His ball skills and range are difference-making, so it’s hard to not see him as a good candidate to sneak into the first round. Versus his peers, he has more fluidity and natural ball skills than Nick Emmanwori and is bigger than Malaki Starks.
CB Trey Amos, Ole Miss
Mock Draft Sim ADP: 41.9
Amos has long been a fringe top-32 player on the PFF big board. His adequate height and length for the position are boosted by a 79th-percentile wingspan. That allows him to comfortably play in press-man coverage, but his work this past year in zone was also impressive with more playing time. He earned a career-high 85.9 PFF coverage grade in 2024 and did not record a season-long PFF coverage grade below 75.0 in the past four years. He also uses those long arms to his advantage, recording a forced incompletion percentage above 20.0% in each of the past three seasons.
The Ole Miss product’s body type and data points suggest he can be a scheme-versatile CB2 to start his career with the potential to develop into a CB1. With as valuable as consistent cornerback work is in the NFL, that should be worth putting him in the first-round conversation.
RB Kaleb Johnson, Iowa
Mock Draft Sim ADP: 59.9
Johnson didn’t quite have the athletic showing at the NFL Scouting Combine some expected, but his name still sneakily carries first-round potential simply because his tape at Iowa shows that there aren’t many running backs with his combination of size and speed.
Johnson’s height (6-foot-1), weight (224 pounds), wingspan (78 1/2 inches) and hand size (9 5/8 inches) were all above the 78th percentile for the position. His 4.57-second 40-yard dash placed him in just the 46th percentile, but weight-adjusting that score makes it just fine. Still, some were expecting more, and because of that, his stock seemed to cool.
But make no mistake, this is a big, explosive back who, behind a zone-heavy blocking scheme, could be a 1,000-yard back early in his rookie contract. Teams such as the Broncos and Steelers (teams that ran a heavy amount of zone in 2024) could at least consider him on Day 1. The Commanders, who deploy more of an even split between zone and man/gap run blocking, are also an intriguing landing spot.
EDGE Bradyn Swinson, LSU
Mock Draft Sim ADP: 52.2
Swinson wasn’t a high-profile name when people really started to turn their attention to the 2025 NFL Draft, so his being a “riser” is more of a product of people getting around to his evaluation (the same is true for me).
Since watching Swinson, I can’t help but feel some teams will at least consider him in the first round. He earned a 90.3 PFF pass-rush grade in 2024 and earned PFF pass-rush grades above 79.5 in each of the past three seasons, dating back to his time at Oregon before becoming a starter at LSU. His 22.2% pass-rush win rate was one of the highest in college football last season, and on a high volume of pass rush pass-rush snaps (313).
He didn’t do much at the NFL Scouting Combine, but his three-cone and short shuttle numbers were both above the 65th percentile, showcasing his flexibility to bend and corner as a speed rusher. His burst and hand speed are also pluses in his game as a 3-4 outside linebacker edge rusher. The league is always looking to take chances on guys who can get after the quarterback at the rate that Swinson does.
LB Carson Schwesinger, UCLA
Mock Draft Sim ADP: 52.2
Schwesinger is a great story, working his way up from a walk-on to an impact starter in UCLA’s defense, but could that story also continue to include a first-round selection? I wouldn’t say it’s above a coin flip’s chance, but it is possible.
Schwesinger didn’t do much at the NFL Scouting Combine, but at UCLA’s pro day, he worked out in front of 30 NFL teams. He has incredibly quick processing; when he anticipates, he makes some of the most impressive plays you’ll watch for any linebacker prospect in this year’s class. He racked up positively graded plays this past season (93), but also a good number of negative ones (68).
While some in the draft community may devalue the linebacker position just because of overall supply each year, the league still drafts them in the first round, even when it’s not expected. Right now, Jihaad Campbell is the only projected first-round pick at the position, depending on how you view Jalon Walker. Schwesinger is a much more likely Day 2 player, but if a team believes he can play at any linebacker spot and be valuable when they go to nickel formations, perhaps he sneaks into the first round.
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