Unveiling the 2025 NFL Draft’s Hidden All-Star Gems That Could Rewrite the Future of Football

Every NFL Draft stirs up a swirl of opinions—because let’s face it, predicting who’ll turn the spotlight into superstardom is part art, part science, and all guesswork. But what if you could peek behind the curtain, blending cold, hard data with that gut feeling you get from watching a player light up the field? This isn’t just about the usual suspects; it’s about six standout prospects from the 2025 class who don’t just check the boxes—they redefine them. Ready to meet the Opta Analyst All-Stars? These are the players where stats meet spectacle, and promise isn’t just spoken—it’s proven.

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While any player selected in the 2025 NFL Draft is bound to be impressive, favorites emerge when coupling deep data with the eye test. Here are six prospects who check the right boxes while comprising our all-star team of favorites. 

Every self-respecting NFL Draft analyst has his guys.

Watch enough football, read enough stats, and you’ll convince yourself heading into Thursday night’s first round that while, sure, the draft is an inexact exercise and nobody can predict the future with great accuracy, you’ve identified a handful of players who really do have the inside track to professional football stardom.

I’m the same. After writing detailed class previews for a handful of positions – but, more importantly, after covering college football for all of these players’ careers – I present my guys for the 2025 NFL Draft.

Of course, they’re not really my guys. They’re the guys who Opta Analyst’s suite of football analytics finds especially compelling – some early first-round picks here (our NFL mock draft suggest that), some mid-first-rounders there, and a potential Day 3 pick down the line.

Consider these prospects the Opta Analyst All-Stars for the class of 2025.

Shedeur Sanders, QB, Colorado

Sanders is this year’s most polarizing quarterback, a status that owes to his famous father and the boom-or-bust nature of his two seasons at Colorado. Is Sanders the guy who had the second-highest sack per pressure rate among the top QBs in the NFL Draft class or is he the guy who had the best accuracy figures in the class despite playing behind an offensive line that barely existed?

The data likes Sanders quite a bit, as I wrote in early March:

“On the strict matter of throwing the ball accurately, Sanders stacks up as the best in the class. His 77.3 well-thrown percentage on throws 5 yards or more downfield and 3.31% pickable pass rate on those throws are among the best of the consensus top-eight QBs. (Here’s where the top QBs land on the NFL Mock Draft Database consensus big board.)

Sanders made 77 throws of 20 or more yards, and we graded zero as pickable. When throwing from a planted posture rather than on the run, Sanders’ 81.0% well-thrown rate was No. 2 in the draft class.” 

If there’s a case for any of this year’s non-Cam Ward quarterbacks to hack it as an NFL starter, Sanders (the likely next QB off the board) is the one who can make it.

Ashton Jeanty, RB, Boise State

In a world that often pits “analytics” against “the eye test,” it’s refreshing when the two ways of evaluating players converge for an identical evaluation.

Everyone who watched Jeanty at Boise saw how it seemed impossible to tackle him, and the numbers also concur.

The Heisman Trophy runner-up averaged an obscene 6.30 yards last season when his blockers were outnumbered in the box. He forced 97 missed or broken tackles, leading the draft class by miles. His 3.60 yards after contact were the best in the class, and his 4.75 yards per run disruption – carries on which a defender blows up a gap, essentially – were close to double the running back who was second place on that list, North Carolina’s Omarion Hampton.

Kaleb Johnson, RB, Iowa

Johnson was Diet Jeanty. In fact, in one department, he was even better than the real thing:

On carries with eight defenders or more in the box, Johnson averaged 5.03 yards – not just better than Jeanty’s 4.73, but a total outlier among anybody who carried the ball nearly as often as Johnson’s 95 rushes in those situations.

Iowa had a severely lacking passing game, and defenses knew they could key on Johnson, who had an absurd 59% usage rate when he was on the field (in contrast, Jeanty saw the ball on 53% of his snaps).

Johnson is projected to be the fourth or fifth running back selected in the draft, with the consensus big board placing him around the end of the second round or start of the third.

He’s the tailback whose skills I’m most fascinated to see translate to the NFL. At Iowa, Johnson played in a generally lousy offense (though it got better in his final season) with a series of non-entities at quarterback. We have no idea what he’ll look like as part of a professional offense with other skill position players worthy of a defense’s attention.

My guess: He’ll look very good.

Matthew Golden, WR, Texas

Golden was the star of the NFL Scouting Combine. He shot up a lot of mock drafts after he ran his 40-yard dash in a combine-best 4.29 seconds, a run that was both awesome to watch and pretty funny given that UT teammate Isaiah Bond had pledged to break the record 4.21 clocking that was set a year earlier by another Texas receiver, Xavier Worthy.

Golden now looks like a first-round pick as likely the second receiver to come off the board, following Arizona star Tetairoa McMilan.

There’s a lot more to Golden than the 40. He was an explosive play machine for the Longhorns, posting a 47.1% big play rate that ranked sixth in the FBS among players to get 50+ targets (big play rate is a metric for capturing burns of 20+ yards and touchdowns on a burn). His 72.9% burn rate was better than any of the other top wide receiver prospects, and he did his work while averaging a 13.0-yard depth of target.

What’s maybe most impressive in Golden’s data Our game-charters tracked him at 8 for 9 on contested catch efforts in 2024.

Derrick Harmon, DT, Oregon

Harmon, a likely first-round pick on the interior defensive line, finished second among FBS interior defensive linemen with a 22.0% pressure rate (minimum 100 pass-rush snaps). But he did that on a massive 250 pass-rush snaps, over 100 more than the player ahead of him. In fact, no other interior player with 230+ pass-rush snaps had better than a 15.7% pressure rate on them. The Ducks’ big man in the middle was just in a different class of getting after the QB than anyone else who played in the middle of a D-line.

It’s not just rushing the passer, either. Harmon’s 43 run disruptions put him in the top 20 of interior defensive linemen and his 20.8% run disruption rate was just one spot outside it. He did all of that against a tough Big Ten schedule that included Penn State in the conference title game and Ohio State twice, and a nonconference slate that included Boise State.

It would be hard for a DT to seem more pro-ready.

Jahdae Barron, CB, Texas

When I ran through various data for this year’s cornerback class, Barron flashed the best, including over Colorado’s Heisman Trophy recipient Travis Hunter.

Barron combines a safety’s love of thumping with a cornerback’s agility and ball tracking, and his 36.1% burn rate allowed was the best among the eight cornerbacks who have topped mock drafts most frequently. He played 401 coverage snaps last season, 30 clear of anyone else in his cohort, and allowed an 11.3% big play rate, better than any of them.

Texas’ elite defensive line got most of the publicity on the past two playoff defenses, but Barron was as critical as anyone in making the unit work. He’s quite worthy of being one of just three corners who feels like a lock to be selected in the first round, the others being the dual-position star Hunter and MIchigan stalwart Will Johnson.

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The post The Numbers Don’t Lie With This All-Star Team of 2025 NFL Draft Prospects appeared first on Opta Analyst.