A week before the 2025 NFL Draft kicks off in Green Bay, Wisconsin, every club still owns its first-round selection.
The 2025 selection process marked the first year in the common era that all 32 teams possessed their first-round picks at the start of the new league year, per NFL Research. That truth still holds.
Not only is it rare for every club to make it to Draft Day with its first-round selection, but if none of those top picks are traded before April 24, it will be the first time since 2014 that no first-round selections in the upcoming draft were moved between the start of the league year and the first night of the draft, according to NFL Research.
The lack of trades has been a talking point this year. With what is considered a solid but fairly even draft class, lacking in bona fide game-changers at the top, clubs aren't clamoring to move up. For instance, if you can stay at, say, pick No. 28 and get a similarly graded player as No. 18, why pay the trade capital?
As Panthers general manager Dan Morgan noted this week, however, it only takes one team to fall in love with a player and decide it must move to get him.
One difference in 2025 is the questionable top-end quarterback class. With the QB-needy Tennessee Titans appearing set to draft Cam Ward No. 1 overall, it comes down to the evaluations of the rest of the class. Will Shedeur Sanders warrant a barrage of interest in the next week? Will upside-players like Jalen Milroe, Jaxson Dart or Tyler Shough garner enough desire to coax teams to move up -- possibly into the later first round -- to snag one?
With the New Orleans Saints needing a quarterback following the news of Derek Carr's shoulder injury, the No. 9 pick could be a pivot point.
Over the last 15 years, the first team to trade up and make a pick on the day of the first round has drafted an offensive player 12 times (including Minnesota QB J.J. McCarthy at No. 10 in 2024). Exceptions: Houston edge Will Anderson Jr. third overall in 2023; Pittsburgh linebacker Devin Bush 10th overall in 2019; Miami edge Dion Jordan third overall in 2013.
NFL Research provided several other draft trade trends as we get closer to the first round:
- At least one team has traded up into/within the top 15 picks in 24 straight drafts.
- There has been an average of 1.5 trades up into/within the top 10 since 2011 (rookie wage scale era).
The lack of multiple universally regarded franchise quarterbacks has slowed the trade train thus far. The sense is that some clubs are waiting for the dominoes to fall on draft day before considering a move. So, while it's rare not to see first-round trades this close to the draft, that doesn't mean next Thursday in Green Bay won't get wild.
