Pelissero: Fewer Blue Chips This Year

Tom Pelissero returned to the Rich Eisen Show with the kind of detail only shows up when you talk to scouts, coaches, and GMs across the league in the same week. His big-picture take with the draft two weeks out: this class has fewer true blue-chip players than any he can remember. Most drafts have 20-plus first-round grades across the league. This one has 13 to 15.

That creates leverage. Teams picking just outside the top 10 might get squeezed out of the premium tier, which makes trade activity around pick 10 a near certainty. After the blue-chip group, the sweet spot shifts to rounds two and three.

On the Jets at 2, Pelissero's straw poll points to David Bailey of Texas Tech, though nothing is locked. Caleb Downs is a top-five player but taking a safety at 2 is a different calculation. Arvell Reese and Sunny Styles are in the mix.

The quarterback class gets kicked around for a reason. Mendoza is a legit starter but nobody Pelissero talked to puts him above Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, or Drake Maye. Ty Simpson intrigues people off his first-half tape, though questions linger. The comp Pelissero keeps hearing for Simpson: Brock Purdy. Whether a team takes that bet in round one says something about where quarterback evaluation sits in 2026.

Trade-up candidates with real ammo start with teams holding two first-rounders: Kansas City, Cleveland, and the Cowboys. Dallas at 12 and 20 doesn't have enough points to get to pick 2 or 3, but Sunny Styles at 6 is a realistic target. The 2027 draft grades so well that teams aren't willing to part with next year's first.

On Travis Hunter and Jacksonville scaling back the two-way experiment, Pelissero pushed back on the framing. Hunter got hurt last year in practice partly because of the unprecedented rep load. Nobody's blueprint exists for 140 snaps a game. Even Deion in '95 was the exception. Baby steps make sense.

Texans extension talk: Will Anderson Jr. is next, and it'll start with a 4 handle. CJ Stroud is trickier after a rough second half. Pelissero wouldn't be surprised if the Texans play Stroud out through his fourth year. The Tua cautionary tale in Miami is fresh.