For anyone not virtually guaranteed of being a high first-round selection, accepting an invitation to the NFL draft’s green room is a dicey proposition.
Just ask Will Levis.
The NFL announced on Sunday that 17 players will attend the April 24th first round of draft in Green Bay in person. The numbers alone suggest that stragglers will remain as the Thursday night broadcast of the first round wanes.
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As the picks get late and attendees remain undrafted, network cameras will surely zoom in for any signs of discomfort among the players and their guests — especially for those who play quarterback. Three of the invitees are quarterbacks.
One of them is Miami’s Cam Ward, who’s widely expected to be the No. 1 overall selection by the Tennessee Titans. His decision to attend the draft in person is among the safest of bets.
The other two quarterbacks scheduled for attendance are Alabama’s Jalen Milroe and Mississippi’s Jaxson Dart. Notably, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders will not be in attendance. But for Milroe and Dart, the decision to attend comes with great risk for discomfort.
Things could get awkward for Jaxson Dart, left, and Jalen Milroe if they’re not selected in the first round of the NFL Draft. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
(Kevin C. Cox via Getty Images)
After Ward, Sanders is widely rated as the No. 2 quarterback in this year’s class. But the gap between Ward and the rest is wide. Yahoo Sports’ Nate Tice has Ward rated as the No. 7 prospect in the class. Sanders is 41st on his big board.
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Then come Milroe and Dart. Tice has them rated as the No. 69 and No. 70 prospects in the class, respectively. Based on rating alone, that places both players as third-round prospects projected to be selected long after Thursday’s first-round broadcast is over.
Quarterback, of course, is the most valuable position in the sport. So quarterbacks generally get drafted higher than their overall rating as teams are willing to role the dice on the upside of filling the game’s most important decision.
This potential to go higher wasn’t enough to convince Tice and Yahoo Sports’ Charles McDonald to place either Milroe or Dart into the first round of their latest mock draft. It was, apparently, enough to convince Milroe and Dart to show up.
Here’s hoping that neither has his Will Levis moment.
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Levis was projected by some ahead of the 2023 draft to be selected in the first round out of Kentucky. He was not. Instead, the Titans picked him with the second selection of the second round with the No. 33 pick — on Friday.
By then, the damage was done. As names not Levis were called late into the Thursday night broadcast, ESPN’s cameras repeatedly trained in on Levis and his then girlfriend to show the dude falling down the draft board and his partner process his slide in an increasingly otherwise empty green room.
It wasn’t fun TV. But it was awkward TV that generated considerable interest.
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The full list of NFL draft attendees is as follows, in alphabetical order:
Tyler Booker, OG Alabama
Jihaad Campbell, LB, Alabama
Will Campbell, OT, LSU
Abdul Carter, EDGE, Penn State
Jaxson Dart, QB, Mississippi
Matthew Golden, WR, TExas
Mason Graham, DT, Michigan
Travis Hunter, WR/CB, Colorado
Ashton Jeanty, RB, Boise State
Will Johnson, CB, Michigan
Tetairoa McMillan, WR, Arizona
Jalen Milroe, QB, Alabama
Josh Simmons, OT, Ohio State
Malaki Starks, S, Georgia
Shemar Stewart, EDGE, Texas A&M
Cam Ward, QB, Miami
Mykel Williams, EDGE, Georgia
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