In last year's quarterback projection ahead of the 2024 draft, I quoted ESPN Radio's "Unsportsmanlike" host Evan Cohen, who said NFL teams should draft a quarterback when they want one so they will never need one. A corollary to this idea is that teams should avoid drafting a quarterback they do not want -- even if they need one.

Multiple teams have taken that advice this offseason by filling quarterback vacancies before the draft. The Giants signed Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston, while the Jets signed Justin Fields. The Raiders traded for Geno Smith and the Seahawks replaced Smith with Sam Darnold. The Pittsburgh Steelers are the favorites to sign Aaron Rodgers. However, the Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns, picking No. 1 and No. 2 overall, will likely head into draft day still needing a quarterback. The Giants and Raiders may also take a quarterback in the top 10 since neither Wilson nor Smith is a long-term solution. And the Saints now need a quarterback because of a shoulder injury for incumbent Derek Carr.

All that would be fine if this year's quarterback class were like last year's, led by Heisman winners Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels, along with top 12 picks Drake Maye, Michael Penix Jr., J.J. McCarthy and Bo Nix. Top 2025 prospects Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders are not as highly regarded as Williams or Daniels. The rest of the class is even less highly regarded and comes with question marks we address in our projections. Therefore, quarterback-needy teams might have to settle for a non-first-round prospect or wait until 2026 to draft their quarterback of the future.

With that background, I present this year's QBASE 2.0 projections for the 2025 quarterback class. QBASE 2.0 is a combination of Andrew Healy's (2015) original QBASE model and Alexandre Olbrecht and Jeremy Rosen's (2018) functional mobility model. It factors in a quarterback's college passing statistics adjusted for the quality of his teammates and opponents, plus how many years he started in college. It also incorporates his rushing ability, and while it rewards improvements over time, it penalizes one-year wonders.

The quarterbacks below are listed in order of our Scouts Inc. rankings. Interpreting each quarterback's projection is straightforward, a value of zero Total defense-adjusted yards above replacement per attempt (TDYAR/A) is replacement-level, whereas any value over 1.5 is indicative of a Hall of Fame career. We run 50,000 simulations to provide a distribution of the number of times that each quarterback falls within a particular range.

Here are our projections for the top seven QBs in the 2025 class:

Projections for the 2025 class

Cam Ward, Miami

Scouts Inc. ranking: 7