NFL Draft 2025 Primer: Best Available or Drafting Based on Need?

• The NFL Draft 2025 is scheduled for Thursday, April 24, 8 p.m. ET at Lambeau Field in Green Bay
• This is the marquee event of the NFL offseason
• Mock drafts are everywhere, and seemingly everyone is writing and updating them by the day
• If history is a guide, there are ways to come to your own conclusions and make educated assessments

There are seemingly endless ways to assess the NFL Draft. However, there are fundamentals to consider regardless of your perspective. Here is some tried and true advice when looking at which teams might pick what players and the two overriding philosophies of best available vs need.

Best Available Player?

There is a philosophy that the draft is so random that teams should simplify it as much as possible and take the best available player. Teams have their draft board with an ability-based list from top to bottom. As players go off the board, they take the next name available.

It’s obviously based on the team’s analysis.

Famously, the Cowboys of Tex Schramm, Tom Landry, and Gil Brandt adhered to the “best available” philosophy…usually.

In some instances, teams would manipulate their draft position to get the player at the top of their board, as Dallas had done to get Randy White and Tony Dorsett. However, the Cowboys missed out on one name that likely would have helped them throughout the 1980s and perhaps prevented their collapse at the end of the decade.

Brandt was jumping up and down to take Joe Montana out of Notre Dame. Landry’s position was that the Cowboys already had Danny White to step in for the aging Roger Staubach. Plus, they’d selected Glenn Carano in the second round in the 1977 Draft. Landry argued that he didn’t want to waste a third-round pick on a guy he’d end up cutting in training camp.

Needless to say, the Cowboys paid for that relatively quickly.

The consensus for the best available player in the NFL Draft 2025 is Abdul Carter, edge rusher from Penn State. Oddsmakers have him favored to go third overall to the Giants.

Drafting Based On Need?

Drafting by need is contingent on circumstances. A team that has the goods for a Super Bowl run should fill a need.

Contending teams with glaring needs can generally fill them through free agency. Players want to go where they have a good chance to win for a team with a good reputation throughout the league. That’s how the Chiefs, Ravens, Eagles, Rams, and Steelers maintain their excellence. It’s also why teams like the Jets, Browns, and Raiders have been an embarrassment for much of the past decade-plus.

How long did it take the Lions to change their perception from a perennial loser to a preferred destination?

One instance where a stunning pick was made and helped a team win a Super Bowl was the then-Oakland Raiders picking All-American punter Ray Guy from Southern Miss in the first round of the 1973 Draft.

Nobody then and nobody now takes a punter or kicker that high. But the Raiders under Al Davis and John Madden believed their team was relatively set, but they needed a great punter. Guy was there, and they took him, getting a 7X All-Pro, 3X Super Bowl winner, and Hall of Famer in the process.

Cam Ward is all but guaranteed to go first overall to the Titans, but he’s not a slam dunk in the vein of Troy Aikman. He’s the best available QB in a questionable QB class, and the Titans are desperate for a signal-caller. It seems as though they’re taking him. Is that partially due to a new GM in Mike Borgonzi and a second-year head coach, Brian Callahan, coming off a 3-14 season, who will be compelled to take him through ownership mandate or caving to the pressure?

The argument could be made that the smart move, if they do want Ward, is to trade down as far as the #5 pick. He’ll probably still be there.

For NFL Draft 2025, Think About More Than Mock Drafts

Subsequent posts will discuss other factors in including luck, value vs star power, and falling stars who became surprisingly available to later-round teams.

When deciding how to select which players will be picked where, instincts should supersede what everyone is saying. If you feel that the Titans might not be entirely sold on Ward, then that should be factored in. The same is true for Hunter, Shedeur Sanders, Ashton Jeanty, Mason Graham, Tyler Warren, and the other players earmarked for a first-round selection.

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