2025 NFL Draft – Page 60 – Syndication Server

Steelers land elite WR in new mock draft

If the Steelers don’t add a wide receiver in free agency, this is the best case scenario in the draft.

It is starting to feel like the Pittsburgh Steelers are not going to be able to work a trade to land San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk. This means when the 2025 NFL draft rolls around, there’s a real possibility that wide is the Steelers top need will remain wide receiver.

The Draft Network put out a new mock draft and this is the approach they took for the Steelers. They have the Steelers picking No. 14 in the first round and have Missouri wide receiver Luther Burden III falling into their laps.

Here’s what they had to say about the Burden pick:

An explosive wideout with top-10 grades from teams this spring, Luther Burden III is an electric blend of size and playmaking ability worthy of high draft capital. With a George Pickens extension coming, why not add a similarly gifted talent to form a heck of a 1-2 tandem for whoever is under center in the long term for Pittsburgh?

Burden making it to No. 14 would be huge for the Steelers. He’s our top wide receiver prospect in the upcoming draft, even ahead of Colorado’s Travis Hunter and on par with guys like Rome Odunze and Malik Nabers from the 2024 NFL draft.

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Where do things stand with Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah?

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has had a very good offseason and preseason for the Vikings on a variety of fronts. What does that mean for his future?

Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has quietly had a very good offseason and preseason for the Vikings on a variety of fronts. What does that mean for his future, though?

Despite his success, Kevin Seifert of ESPN chose him as a potential hot seat candidate.

To be fair, the article’s point made each NFL beat reporter choose someone within the franchise to be on the hot seat, but it doesn’t mean he necessarily is. Despite that, Seifert does make some strong points in regard to him being on a hot seat heading into a contract year in 2025.

“After he used 7 draft picks in April to maneuver for edge rusher Dallas Turner, Adofo-Mensah has only 3 picks in the 2025 draft to further improve the team,” Seifert wrote. “A bad season wouldn’t necessarily cost Adofo-Mensah his job, but it could inform owners Zygi and Mark Wilf’s decision on whether to extend his contract or let him enter its final season in 2025.”

It is safe to say Adofo-Mensah will get a contract extension; it is just a matter of when. He has turned around his draft woes into successes in recent years, getting Jordan Addison, J.J. McCarthy and Dallas Turner. He also has done a good job of identifying talent in the UDFA pool post-draft.

In 2023, Adofo-Mensah was able to secure Ivan Pace Jr., who is now the team’s Mike linebacker. In 2024, we saw plays made by Dwight McGlothern, Bo Richter and Taki Taimani during the preseason.

Adofo-Mensah has built a strong roster. While injuries have caused some issues, it is important to look at the big picture, and the Wilfs have shown they can do that.

2025 NFL Draft Summer scouting report: Kenneth Grant, Defensive Line, Michigan

The 2025 NFL Draft isn’t for months, but many teams and fans have already focused on the next draft cycle, which means we are, too.

Summer is the most pivotal part of scouting for both teams and fans. The idea is to educate yourself on the players who could be selected in next April’s draft and who could play for or against the Vikings.

The latter part is critical to our Summer scouting here on Vikings Wire.

The Minnesota Vikings and General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah only have three picks in the 2025 NFL Draft heading into the Summer. More could be acquired through trade or the compensatory variety, but for now, that is all the ammo they have.

The lack of draft picks means this series will focus on the players we are likely to play against or who could cause problems for the team in the future. Every position will be covered so that you, the reader, can be a complete NFL fan as much as you are a Vikings fan. Educating yourself on these prospects is critical to better understanding the offseason as a whole, and we feel we can fill in the gaps.

Kenneth Grant

Position: Defensive Line
School: Michigan
Height: 6-3
Weight: 339 pounds
Year: Third-year Junior

3-star recruit according to 247 Sports
Played track and field in high school
A two-way player in high school (played guard)
Second-team All-Big Ten in 2023

29 games
37 total tackles
Five tackles for loss
Three and a half sacks
Five pass deflections

80.4 overall grade
73 run-defense grade
78.4 pass-rush grade
17 hurries
19 defensive stops

Strength

Regardless of position, Kenneth Grant is one of the strongest players in college football. He uses it to gain leverage on a player at a moments notice and win reps or disrupt plays. A prime example is that he can push a player back while keeping his head on a swivel to ensure he doesn’t misread any play. This department has very impressive stuff from Kenneth Grant.

Motor

What is all that horsepower worth if you don’t have great miles per gallon behind it? The motor that powers his strength and energy in each and every play shines through most on film. Even when he is seemingly taken out of plays, his motor allows him to recover on plays when he is taken out momentarily.

Play Recognition

Another trait that shines through is his ability to recognize plays repeatedly, whether it be finding the running lanes and clogging them or dismissing blockers from a play to get in the backfield and disrupt. This speaks to his ability to work on his game and study film, which tells us that his work ethic is strong enough to support further growth of his game.

Kenneth Grant is a breath of fresh air in a defensive line group that is full of high-end prospects. He is one of the few players who still has plenty of room to grow into a variety of different player types. In 2024 he has a chance to continue to thrive off of being alongside Mason Graham, just as he benefits from playing alongside Grant. Together, they can be a dominant duo, but for Grant specifically, seeing him be more than a disrupter would be nice. Seeing some simple box score production would be nice, especially in the backfield, with a disrupting factor with tackles for loss or sacks. Either way, it won’t make or break his stock but instead just determine how mainstream he goes, he is a great player either way it just is whether he makes it into the first round or not.

Broncos projected to pick No. 1 overall in 2025 NFL draft with 3-14 record

PFN has the Broncos projected to finish with a 3-14 record and claim the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL draft.

Denver Broncos fans might be feeling optimistic about the team going into Sean Payton’s second season in charge, but national media members aren’t convinced.

The latest example comes from Ian Cummings, who used Pro Football Network’s playoff predictor to project which teams are the most likely to end up with the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL draft. His projection has the Broncos picking first overall next year after going 3-14 this season.

Here are PFN’s projections for the NFL’s worst teams this fall:

1. Denver Broncos: 3-14
2. New York Giants: 3-14
3. Las Vegas Raiders: 4-13
4. Tennessee Titans: 5-12
5. Arizona Cardinals: 5-12
6. Carolina Panthers: 5-12
7. New Orleans Saints: 5-12
8. Washington Commanders: 6-11

Ouch.

In his latest 2025 NFL mock draft for Touchdown Wire, Curt Popejoy has quarterback Shedeur Sanders going No. 1 overall (to the Dallas Cowboys, who acquire pick No. 1 from the Panthers). That mock has Denver landing Arizona wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan with the No. 3 pick.

Let’s hope these projections look silly in a few months.

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2025 NFL Draft first impression: Deion Burks, WR, Oklahoma

2025 NFL Draft first impression of Oklahoma WR Deion Burks, a transfer from Purdue who should be getting more draft buzz

Deion Burks is one of the top transfers in the country at wide receiver. Moving from Purdue to Oklahoma for the 2024 season could really raise BUrks’ draft profile, provided he can continue to produce and demonstrate the skills that make him appealing already.

Burks led Purdue in receptions (47), receiving yards (629) and TDs (7) as a sophomore in 2023. He primarily played on the outside and worked the deeper/intermediate routes despite being built more like a slot receiver.

Burks made the annual Bruce Feldman “Freaks” list thanks to his prodigious weight room stats. He can squat 540 pounds and bench 400 as a 5-foot-9, 191-pound wideout. He’s been GPS times at over 22 MPH. All those traits make Burks appear to be custom-made for playing the slot, but he fared pretty well working outside in the Big Ten.

Now he’s moving to Oklahoma and the SEC. The Sooners have a different style of passing attack from Purdue, and that could be great for Burks’ development and draft potential. His top speed and lower-body strength are a very impressive combination. Burks showed that off at Oklahoma’s spring game.

As any Purdue fan will tell you, Burks doesn’t have reliable hands yet. He doesn’t always look the ball into his hands and gets antsy with defenders right on him, creating too many contested catch drops (either 8 or 9 on 95 targets, depending on your source). It would be helpful for Burks to develop a little more creativity after the catch; most of his YAC comes from out-athleting the defense instead of being a crafty or great runner. His vision and sense of defensive angles isn’t great, but at his top-end speed it doesn’t always matter.

Burks has first-round upside for the 2025 NFL Draft if his transition to Oklahoma comes anything close to how well the reports out of Norman indicate it’s going. Getting that drop rate down and showing more consistent footwork and separation would go a long way toward cementing Burks as a first-rounder…if he chooses to declare.

Steelers land elite dual threat in new 2025 NFL mock draft

We take a look at the Steelers pick in this new mock draft.

A case could be made the Pittsburgh Steelers biggest offseason needs after 2024 will be at cornerback and wide receiver. But which one to pick? According to the new mock draft from The Draft Network, the Steelers won’t have to.

In their latest 2025 NFL mock draft, they have the Steelers selecting colorado cornerback/wide receiver Travis Hunter. Here’s what they have to say about Hunter:

Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers have needs at both WR and CB. Why not select a prospect who is one of the best at both positions in the draft? If they can fix one of the positions through free agency, Travis Hunter can walk into camp with a solidified role/plan. He is a top-five player in the country and the draft class. Landing him here would be a steal for Pittsburgh.

We expect to see Hunter settle in to a more pronounced single role with Colorado this season. Hunter is a scary good athlete and an excellent football player but every team would love to see him focus his skills in one area in 2024.

In terms of this draft, there are better pure cornerbacks and better pure wide receivers left on the board and we would expect the Steelers to go for one of them over Hunter.

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Notre Dame defensive backs coach named second best in college football

How effective will the secondary be this year?

A lot of things can determine whether or not a college football unit is strong. Players can lift up coaches as well as the other way around. We don’t know if that’s the case at Notre Dame, but one definitely could make that case.

[autotag]Mike Mickens[/autotag] is the Irish’s defensive backs coach, and he’s blessed to have future NFL first-round pick [autotag]Benjamin Morrison[/autotag] as part of his unit, not to mention another future NFL player in [autotag]Xavier Watts[/autotag].

Whether Morrison and Watts have anything to do with it or not, Big Game Boomer, the college football list aficionado on social media, has listed Mickens as the second-best defensive backs coach in the sport:

Top 50 Defensive Backs Coaches In College Football pic.twitter.com/3B8pojsMv4

— Big Game Boomer (@BigGameBoomer) August 13, 2024

The Irish widely are expected to have a strong defensive unit again this season, and the defensive backs should be a major reason why. Mickens has plenty of talent there, and he now must figure out how to get his players to be in sync with one another.

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Bleacher Report: Notre Dame tight end Evans target in 2025 NFL draft?

Could he be a successor to Travis Kelce?

We have an entire season to go before we start talking about Notre Dame players being taken in the 2025 NFL draft. However, that won’t stop some folks from projecting who could be going where anyway.

Bleacher Report has started a weekly series of articles in which it will go over each NFL team’s weaknesses and how they could address those weaknesses after the upcoming season. Already, we have a Notre Dame player on the list.

Irish tight end [autotag]Mitchell Evans[/autotag] is projected by most outlets to be picked somewhere at or near the middle of the 2025 draft. Bleacher Report has identified him as shoring up the Kansas Chiefs at his position with Travis Kelce not getting any younger and no sure thing waiting in the wings.

Here’s why the Chiefs could tab Evans to be Patrick Mahomes’ next big tight end target according to the article:

“Mitchell Evans has to prove he can come back from a torn ACL he suffered last season. But he has made some ridiculous grabs in his college career and has the ability to make defenders miss.”

We’ll see what happens with Evans this year, but he surely would take coming into as good a position as anyone in the NFL after he turns professional.

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Vikings get defensive help in latest Draft Network mock draft

The Vikings sold a lot of the groceries in the 2025 NFL Draft for assets in 2024, but they still have their first-round pick.

The Minnesota Vikings sold a lot of the groceries in the 2025 NFL Draft for assets in the 2024 NFL Draft, but they still have their first-round pick, which means mock drafts matter. The Vikings and their first-round pick are going to be very valuable. Could they trade back? Could they sit where they are and get a value?

It’s the NFL draft, anything is possible.

The Draft Network published the latest mock draft within the industry, with some interesting picks. One common theme, though, is that defense rules the draft. A year after the offense was the king of the draft, the other side of the ball gets a turn, and that is where they have the Vikings going.

They gave the Vikings help along the defensive line in the form of Deone Walker from Kentucky. He is arguably the most impressive player in the entire draft due to how he moves as a defensive lineman with the size he possesses.

We wrote a scouting report on him from our summer scouting and thought he would be a great fit for the team in the future. Damian Parson sells us on the idea of Walker alongside the Vikings’ established edge rushers.

“Dallas Turner looks the part from his first NFL action in Week 1 of the preseason. Pairing him with Deone Walker with Brian Flores calling the defensive plays will make opposing QBs lose sleep at night.”

A defensive front of Jonathan Greenard, Dallas Turner, and Deone Walker is a modern-day version of the Purple People Eaters. What more could you ask for?