The 2022 National Football League Player Selection Meeting, otherwise known as the NFL draft, is less than three months away.
It feels like just last week that five quarterbacks were selected in the top half of the first round of the 2021 draft, with Trevor Lawrence going first overall to the Jaguars.
My initial projection for the first three rounds of the 2022 draft comes with an optimistic outlook for where this year’s top signal-callers will be picked. I was similarly optimistic last year, projecting the “fab five” to be gone by Pick No. 14 in my first mock draft.
There is an argument to be made that this year’s crop of quarterbacks is not as talented as the 2021 group. One or two of the five passers listed in the first round of this mock might not go in Round 1. We’ll see how evaluations of the prospects take shape in the coming weeks.
Note that this mock draft includes projected compensatory picks in Round 3 based on the forecast outlined by my colleague Lance Zierlein last spring. In addition, all picks acquired via trade in Round 3 of this mock are a projection. The official list of compensatory picks will be made available by the league in the weeks to come. Six additional picks were added to the end of the third round for franchises losing minority employees to head coach or general manager positions throughout the league, but the order for those selections is also a projection.