What 18 new 2027 mock drafts agree on: Jeremiah Smith goes No. 1 in 14, Drew Mestemaker is the first QB in 13 and Arch Manning misses Round 1 in five

A week ago, the 2027 mock-draft consensus still had Arch Manning as the No. 2 prospect and Drew Mestemaker outside the top 15. The newest wave of mocks has flipped that. WhyNFL tallied 17 full first-round mock drafts published by named analysts between October 13 and October 22, plus Field Yates’ top-10 projection, and Mestemaker is now the first quarterback off the board in 13 of those 18 mocks. Manning is missing from the first round entirely in five of the 17 full mocks.

Jeremiah Smith is still the easy answer at the top. The Ohio State receiver goes No. 1 in 14 of the 18 mocks and never lasts past the third pick. The other four No. 1 picks were split four ways: Mestemaker (Josh Edwards), Texas edge rusher Colin Simmons (Alec Elijah), Manning (Vinnie Iyer, October 14) and Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr (Tarringo Basile-Vaughan).

The consensus first round

The board below ranks every prospect by an average draft slot across the 17 full mocks, with a pick of 40 counted when a player is left out of the first round, so that range and first-round frequency both matter. Mocks included: Gilberto Manzano, Kody Malstrom, Josh Edwards, Cody Williams, Sam Teets, the Best Pod Available crew, Sayre Bedinger, Tarringo Basile-Vaughan, Alec Elijah, Luke Easterling, Brent Sobleski, Brian Bosarge, Vinnie Iyer, Michael Middlehurst-Schwartz, Gordon McGuinness, Daniel Rios and Steve Bradshaw. Simulator-generated and auto-updating mocks were left out.

Rank	Player	Pos.	School	Avg. slot	Pick range	In Round 1
1	Jeremiah Smith	WR	Ohio State	1.4	1–3	17 of 17
2	Leonard Moore	CB	Notre Dame	4.3	2–8	17 of 17
3	Colin Simmons	EDGE	Texas	4.4	1–10	17 of 17
4	Drew Mestemaker	QB	Oklahoma State	6.4	1–17	16 of 17
5	Dylan Stewart	EDGE	South Carolina	8.4	3–17	17 of 17
6	Will Echoles	DL	Ole Miss	10.5	6–17	17 of 17
7	Charlie Becker	WR	Indiana	10.9	4–20	17 of 17
8	Jordan Seaton	OT	LSU	11.1	3–31	17 of 17
9	Trevor Goosby	OT	Texas	11.2	4–28	17 of 17
10	Cam Coleman	WR	Texas	13.9	3–30	17 of 17
11	Ellis Robinson IV	CB	Georgia	14.4	7–29	17 of 17
12	Ashton Hampton	CB	Clemson	16.9	8–25	16 of 17
13	Dante Moore	QB	Oregon	19.0	3–30	14 of 17
14	Arch Manning	QB	Texas	19.1	1–30	12 of 17
15	Darian Mensah	QB	Miami	19.9	3–30	12 of 17
16	CJ Carr	QB	Notre Dame	20.3	1–23	11 of 17
17	Yhonzae Pierre	EDGE	Alabama	21.0	12–32	15 of 17
18	Chris Cole	LB	Georgia	21.8	9–24	13 of 17
19	Trinidad Chambliss	QB	Ole Miss	22.7	5–30	12 of 17
20	Nick Marsh	WR	Indiana	24.0	5–32	15 of 17
21	Jamari Johnson	TE	Oregon	24.2	18–31	15 of 17
22	Greg Johnson	IOL	Minnesota	24.9	7–32	13 of 17
23	Kelley Jones	CB	Mississippi State	25.4	12–29	14 of 17
24	Trey’Dez Green	TE	LSU	26.2	12–31	14 of 17
25	KJ Bolden	S	Georgia	26.5	15–32	14 of 17
26	Jadan Baugh	RB	Florida	27.1	15–30	15 of 17
27	David Stone	DL	Oklahoma	27.9	11–29	11 of 17
28	Brauntae Johnson	S	Notre Dame	29.9	8–31	11 of 17
29	A’Mauri Washington	DL	Oregon	30.6	19–27	10 of 17
30	Xavier Gilliam	DL	Tennessee	30.8	7–25	8 of 17
31	Trevor Lauck	OT	Iowa	30.9	14–32	9 of 17
32	Austin Simmons	QB	Missouri	30.9	2–30	7 of 17

Mestemaker is the new QB1 of the mock drafts

Mestemaker appears in 16 of the 17 full mocks, with an average slot of 4.3 when he is picked, and he is a top-six pick in every one of the eight mocks published since college football’s Week 7 games on October 17. Miami is his most common landing spot (seven mocks), followed by Tennessee. The only full mock without him is Brian Bosarge’s from October 14. Dane Brugler had already made the Oklahoma State quarterback his QB1 in mid-October, and Mel Kiper’s first big board of the cycle also had him as the top passer.

Behind him, the order is wide open. Carr is the first quarterback in two mocks and goes as high as No. 1, but he is left out of the first round in six. Miami’s Darian Mensah is also the first passer twice and has a median slot of 7.5, yet Sayre Bedinger drops him to No. 30. Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss is in 12 of the 17 first rounds but lands in the top 10 in only five of 18, and Oregon’s Dante Moore, out recently with a concussion, has gone anywhere from No. 3 to No. 30.

Quarterback	School	In Round 1	Avg. pick when taken	Highest pick	First QB taken
Drew Mestemaker	Oklahoma State	16 of 17	4.3	1	13 of 18
Dante Moore	Oregon	14 of 17	14.5	3	0
Arch Manning	Texas	12 of 17	10.3	1	1 of 18
Darian Mensah	Miami	12 of 17	11.5	3	2 of 18
Trinidad Chambliss	Ole Miss	12 of 17	15.5	5	0
CJ Carr	Notre Dame	11 of 17	9.5	1	2 of 18
Austin Simmons	Missouri	7 of 17	18.0	2	0

Great 8 QB for Week 7🎯 @TrinidadChambl1 pic.twitter.com/Q506BUibPx

— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) October 20, 2026

The full mocks average five quarterbacks in the first round, with six in six of them. Missouri’s Austin Simmons is the outlier: Edwards has him second overall to Arizona, while 10 of the 17 analysts leave him out of the first round.

Arch Manning’s slide

Manning is the prospect whose stock has moved the most. He is in the first round of 12 of the 17 full mocks, and in five of the eight mocks published after Week 7. In those five, he went sixth, ninth, 10th, 11th and 30th. Edwards, Teets, the Best Pod Available crew, Sobleski and McGuinness left him out of Round 1. His only No. 1 projection in this sample is Iyer’s from October 14, before a Week 7 game against Florida that produced the lowest grade of his career in one weekly stock report.

For comparison, our consensus board from October 14, which drew on 25 mock drafts going back to April, had Manning second with an average slot of 2.7 and Mestemaker 20th. Most of the mocks in that sample were published before Mestemaker’s breakout.

Moore and Simmons are the next two picks

Notre Dame cornerback Leonard Moore and Simmons are almost tied for the No. 2 spot among non-quarterbacks. Moore averages pick 4.3, has never gone later than eighth and is most often projected to the Chargers. Simmons averages 4.4, with Tampa Bay his most common landing spot in eight of the 17 mocks, and his range runs from first overall to 10th. Both are in the top 10 of every mock, including Yates’ top 10.

South Carolina’s Dylan Stewart is fifth on the board despite a one-game suspension, and he is a top-10 pick in 16 of 18 mocks. Ole Miss defensive tackle Will Echoles has settled as the Jets’ most common pick, going to New York in 10 of the 17 mocks. Most of those projections use one of the three first-round picks the Jets own through the Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner trades.

Risers and fallers in the sample

Indiana receiver Nick Marsh is the most surprising first-round regular, appearing in 15 of 17 mocks, and Sam Teets has him fifth overall. Georgia linebacker Chris Cole, 43rd in the October 14 consensus, is now in 13 of 17 first rounds with an average pick of 16.2. Tennessee defensive tackle Xavier Gilliam, one of the season’s breakout players, is in eight of 17, from No. 7 to No. 25.

Florida running back Jadan Baugh is a first-round pick in 15 of 17 mocks, but he never goes higher than 15th. The position count shows why: across the 17 mocks, analysts take an average of five wide receivers, five quarterbacks and four cornerbacks in the first round, compared with fewer than one running back per mock.

For individual mocks in this sample, see Gilberto Manzano’s two-round mock, Josh Edwards’ Mestemaker-first mock and Field Yates’ top 10. Week 8 power rankings and an updated draft order follow early next week.