2026 NFL Draft Landing Spots: Which Teams Are Chasing the Class’s Most Wanted Players?
New Las Vegas head coach Klint Kubiak didn’t need to see Fernando Mendoza throw a single pass at the Raiders’ pro day. He’d already watched the tape thirty times. The Indiana quarterback—Cal transfer, Heisman winner, national champion—stood inside Allegiant Stadium last month with silver and black bunting still clinging to the end zone walls, and the building felt like it was already his.
Mendoza managed 72% completions, 41 touchdown passes, six interceptions, and a perfect 16-0 record en route to a fairytale Natty in his final season as a Hoosier. He launched that 48-yard dagger against Miami in the national title game from the pocket, feet set, no hesitation—a throw that NFL scouts rewound until their keyboards wore out. The Raiders pick first. The Raiders need a franchise quarterback. Make no mistake, destiny has already been written, and the latest betting odds are testament to that.
The latest NFL lines at Bovada make Mendoza a whopping -17500 to be selected first overall in this year’s draft. To put that in layman’s terms, it’s a certainty. But that’s the easy story. Every draft has its foregone conclusion at No. 1, and Mendoza is about as foregone as it gets.
The real drama lies deeper in the first round, where prospects with blue-chip ceilings and genuine question marks force front offices to choose between conviction and cowardice. Free agency already scrambled the board, with the Chiefs’ addition of Kenneth Walker III ruling them out of the running back sweepstakes. Still, there are plenty of question marks surrounding these four in next April’s annual extravaganza.
Jeremiyah Love
Notre Dame needed a miracle in the 2025 CFP quarterfinal, and Jeremiyah Love simply ran through everyone. Ninety-eight yards. Longest rush in College Football Playoff history. 27-17 victory secured.
He ran a 4.36 40-yard dash at the combine—and that surprised nobody who’s studied his 10.76 high school 100-meter tape. Last season, he posted 1,652 scrimmage yards at 6.9 YPC, 21 touchdowns, won the Doak Walker, and became the first Notre Dame running back in decades to earn unanimous All-American status. And all of that on a team that didn’t even make the playoffs one year on from that 98-run and a National Championship game appearance.
Most mocks see Love to the Titans at No. 4, and that’s the right call. Cam Ward desperately needs some support, and a back who threatens every box safety on passing downs and punishes eight-man fronts when defenses sell out should provide exactly that. Both Kansas City and New Orleans cooled their interest after snapping up Walker and Travis Ettienne, respectively, removing the most dangerous trade-up threats from the equation. The Titans can now simply sit and let him fall into their lap.
Rueben Bain Jr.
Five teams issued Rueben Bain mid-round grades based on arm length. Thirty-one inches. Those teams should be embarrassed.
Watch the film. His 83 pressures in 2025 led all college pass-rushers. His first step is violent. His inside counter is already refined beyond what most edge prospects develop by their third NFL season. He won the Ted Hendricks Award as the nation’s premier edge defender—as a senior, after spending his freshman year recording FBS-leading 12.5 tackles for loss out of sheer willpower.
Taco Charlton had 31.5-inch arms and went 28th in 2017. He’s out of football. But Taco Charlton did not have Bain’s motor, Bain’s pressure rate, or Bain’s relentless first-step quickness. Conflating the two tells us that a scout is pattern-matching, rather than watching tape.
Tennessee met with Bain at the combine, just as they did with the aforementioned Love, and, per sources close to the process, walked out of that session buzzing. They have a real decision to make about which direction to head. Should they choose the running back route, the door opens for Washington, New Orleans, Kansas City, and maybe even Cincinnati, choosing at sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth, respectively.
Sonny Styles
Lorenzo Styles Sr. won an NFL championship. His son, Sonny, arrived at Ohio State as a five-star safety recruit and left as the most versatile linebacker prospect in a decade. The transition to full-time linebacker under Matt Patricia—who was literally feeding him NFL defensive concepts in Columbus—accelerated his development beyond what the recruiting databases projected. PFF’s highest-graded tackler in the 2026 class. Six-foot-four, 243 pounds. He ran 4.46 at the combine and posted a 43.5-inch vertical—numbers that belong on a wideout’s card.
The Big Apple battle is genuine and delicious—Jets at No. 2, Giants at No. 5. The Green Machine are rumored to be in favor of Arvell Reese, and it would come as quite the shock should they pivot to Styles. The latter would be all too happy if they didn’t. John Harbaugh’s fascination with converted athletes at linebacker is well-documented. He built Kyle Hamilton into a first-round cornerstone in Baltimore. Styles is that archetype personified, and it looks very much like he may well get the chance to build another at No. 5 on the board.
Caleb Downs
The last safety taken in the top 10 was Jamal Adams in 2017. That fact haunts every conversation about Caleb Downs—but it shouldn’t, because Downs is more complete than Adams was entering the draft. He led Alabama in tackles as a true freshman under Nick Saban, transferred to Ohio State, and finished his career as the only defensive back in three years with 250-plus tackles, 16 TFLs, and six interceptions. Jim Thorpe Award. Top-10 Heisman—first defensive back since Tyrann Mathieu to crack that territory. He returned a punt 79 yards for a touchdown in the 2024 national championship game just to rubber-stamp his credentials.
The Bengals’ film room loves him, and let’s face it, they need all the help they can get on defense. Al Golden’s bid to resurrect the worst D in the league demands this exact profile—elite instincts, elite tackling, elite coverage range. Cincy has just added another safety in the form of Bryan Cook from the Kansas City Chiefs. Could that bite them in the backside in the race for Downs should KC take a liking one position higher on the board?
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