The life of a potential NFL first round draft pick is some kind of roller coaster. One day you’re on top of the world, the next you’re screaming all the way down an impossibly long drop, trying to keep the smile on your face and the tears out of your eyes while you pass the cleverly placed cameras on the way down.
And so begins the ride for Georgia Bulldogs’ star quarterback Carson Beck.
Throughout the spring and into the early summer, many prognosticators have had Beck as one of the top quarterbacks in the draft, with Sporting News’ 2025 Big Board showing the Georgia signal caller as the third quarterback taken, behind Colorado Buffalo Shedeur Sanders, and fellow SEC QB, Texas Longhorn Quinn Ewers, but still projected as the No. 6 overall pick.
So it came as a surprise when Pro Football Focus’ Way Too Early 2025 Big Board dropped Beck all the way out of the top 10 to No. 11 overall, with no other quarterbacks to be found among the first ten projected picks. This is especially unexpected given the fact that only twice in the last twenty years, in the 2022 and 2013 NFL drafts, have no quarterbacks been taken in the top 10.
Of course, PFF may just be adjusting expectations after 2024’s epic run on quarterbacks, when six were taken in the top twelve, the fastest that many QBs have ever been taken, and tied for the most in the first round since 1983, a class that included future hall of famers John Elway, Dan Marino, and Jim Kelly.
Fortunately for Carson Beck, there’s a reason this particular draft board is called "way too early". The 2024 season hasn’t even begun yet. With plenty of high-profile matchups to come, including tilts against the Clemson Tigers, the Texas Longhorns, led by fellow NFL quarterback prospect Quinn Ewers, and hated rivals the Alabama Crimson Tide, not to mention an expanded playoff in which the Bulldogs are currently favored to win it all and take home the national championship, Beck will have plenty of opportunities to impress.
And in the process, not only move himself back up PFF's projected draft board, but better yet, climb into the top 10 in April 2025 for the real thing.
