Windy City Gridiron
WCG’s lead draft analyst shares his top 5 players at each positions in the 2024 NFL Draft.
The 2024 NFL Draft is just one week away, and after a long pre-draft process, rankings for most analysts have finalized.
I love looking at the draft as a year-round process, with my scouting on this year’s underclassmen starting in April of last year. Though most of my tape watching this month has gone towards the 2025 class, I’ve still been making a few minor tweaks to my board. Now, I’ve decided to publish my finalized rankings over a series of articles.
I’ll get around to publishing my final top 100 prospects in the 2024 draft, but I’m going to start with my top 5 players at each position — including special teamers! You can find the entirety of my draft board on my Patreon, but this provides an understanding of which positional groups feature more of the top prospects in the class.
Here are the top 5 prospects from each position on my big board for the 2024 NFL Draft.
The only major surprise in my rankings compared to the consensus is McCarthy coming in as my QB3. Though Daniels is a likely top-3 pick, I don’t view him in the same light as many expects the league to. He has a skinny frame, an average arm, and his decision-making under pressure scares me a lot. McCarthy isn’t a perfect prospect, either, but to me, he has a better arm and offers better poise under duress. Penix would likely be my QB3 were it not for his laundry list of past major injuries.
I don’t have any running backs in my top 60 this year, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t players who could contribute in the league. Brooks is narrowly my RB1 with his combination of ball-carrier vision, speed and elusiveness, while Corum has a much smaller frame but a much larger sample size of impactful play in college. I didn’t get to Wright until after the season, but he’s someone whose elite speed I have been wowed by.
My receiver rankings are fairly close to the consensus, save for Odunze being slightly above Nabers. I have that ranking in place due to Odunze’s size and route-running IQ, but both would be the top receiver in most draft classes without a near-generational talent like Harrison. The gap between WR3 and WR10 in this class is very thin to me, and while some players like Ladd McConkey and Ricky Pearsall are better route runners at this stage, the...
