• Cam Ward needs more down-to-down urgency: The Miami product can get too calm in the pocket and unnecessarily drift into pressure or remove one side of the field from the equation.

• How well can Shedeur Sanders deal with pressure? Colorado’s offensive line didn’t do many favors for Sanders, who will now have to learn to better navigate pressure in the NFL.

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While Cam Ward is the 2025 NFL Draft‘s lone quarterback all but assured of going in the first round, some of his counterparts — Shedeur Sanders and Jaxson Dart — have Round 1 buzz, too. Each signal-caller has question marks, and we’ll dive into them here.

Cam Ward, Miami (FL): Can he display a sense of urgency on every play?

When Ward is at his best, he plays with great anticipation and efficiently delivers the ball over the middle of the field. His 94.0 PFF passing grade on throws in between the hashes in 2024 was the highest in the FBS.

When Ward falters, it tends to be because he gets almost too calm in the pocket. That can be a good trait for a quarterback, but it sometimes causes Ward to get out of rhythm. He holds the ball too low in his stance, throwing off his timing, and slowly drifts in the pocket. The unnecessary drifting put pressure in his face. At times, he drifts so far that he completely takes one side of the field out of play.

Ward will have to treat every play with a sense of urgency and not get too complacent. Finding a nice balance between that calmness and complacency can help him flourish in the NFL.

Shedeur Sanders, Colorado: How does he deal with pressure?

Sanders dealt with poor offensive lines at Colorado. He faced pressure on the fourth-most dropbacks in 2023 and the most in 2024. When a quarterback is constantly under pressure, they typically form bad habits; when they finally do get a clean pocket, they panic. That’s what has happened with Sanders.

He tends to leave clean pockets early and run himself into pressure. Sanders had the most quarterback-faulted pressures and sacks in 2024. For him to have success at the NFL level, he needs to have a much better pocket presence and prove that his ways of dealing with pressure in college were more a byproduct of his offensive line and not a trait he’ll carry into his NFL career.

Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss: How does he translate to the NFL from Ole Miss’ offense?

Dart produced some eye-popping numbers in his final season at Ole Miss. He earned the highest PFF passing grade in the FBS (91.9) and recorded the best big-time throw rate (7.1%). The Rebels’ offense was a well-oiled machine, and Dart was at the head of it.

However, Ole Miss’ offense doesn’t show a ton when it comes to quarterbacks translating to the NFL. It is very RPO- and play-action-heavy and rarely attacks the middle of the field. Dart attempted only 80 passes to the middle of the field in 2024 and had the fewest dropbacks among his draft class with RPOs, play action and screens removed. His PFF passing grade drops to 81.5 when removing those plays.

That type of offense made Dart’s decisions easier, as he wasn’t forced to read the full field and could fully focus on finding the numbers advantage to one side. Dart’s ability to learn to operate in an NFL offense that doesn’t rely so heavily on the plays previously mentioned will be a key to his development.