NFL Draft
4/18/25
7 min read
2025 NFL Draft: Day 2 Position Runs To Watch Out For
The formula for a successful NFL Draft class can be drawn up in various ways depending on the team. For some teams, success may simply be found in adding as much talent as possible.
This is mostly true for rebuilding rosters seeking a fresh start and new players to tie their identity to for the long-haul. Teams that pick near the top of the draft are, more often than not, void of talent in critical spots on the roster and all-around depth.
For others, the prospect of “success” in the draft comes from the ideal of collecting players that fill out needs on the roster. This style of operation can be considered risky business. If you end up misplaying the positional runs, you may end up overdrafting a talent simply to check the box or miss your opportunity to fill a need altogether.
While such an outcome isn’t the end of the world in isolation, the way a team will typically overpay in the summer via trade or a risky free agent can end up costly. If you do it enough times, a GM can find himself out of a job while the team is looking to simply draft talent regardless of position because the roster has soured.
This delicate tightrope can and should be walked, especially after the first few rounds, when drafting targets to fill out the roster becomes a more universally accepted practice.
However, drafting efficiently for talent and need simultaneously is an inexact science made much more complicated by 32 different grading criteria for the talent involved in an annual draft. That’s before you begin to forecast positional runs in stretches of the draft, which, if done successfully, can offer attractive value and need fits at each stop in the draft order.
Each and every year, position groups will go on runs of selections that can turn a team’s plan on its head if you’re left on the outside looking in. What are some of the position groups with a logjam of talent in 2025 that could end up getting hot in the draft queue and leave a team with a need at the altar?
Here are two intriguing groups that could help define Day 2 of the 2025 NFL Draft.
The Wide Receiver Run
The general consensus accepts any combination of the following four wide receivers as the top of the class:
- Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State
- Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona
- Matthew Golden, Texas,
- Luther Burden III, Missouri
This year’s wide receiver class is not as deep as many other classes of recent years, either. Nearly two-thirds of the 45 wide receivers we graded for this year’s class at The 33rd Team ranked as fifth-round valuations or lower, setting the stage for a potentially combustible run on wide receivers on Day 2.
None of the consensus top four wide receivers are being consistently mocked in the top-10 overall, and most mocks end with at least one of these names still on the board.
The Day 2 talent has some talent nipping at their heels — names like Jayden Higgins and Jaylen Noel from Iowa State, Jack Bech from TCU, and Elic Ayomanor from Stanford should be considered in the conversation as well — and Washington State’s Kyle Williams is a hot name after a strong showing at the 2025 Senior Bowl.
Things get slightly dicey once you get south of the top-10 wide receivers. You’re not looking at too many more swings of the bat before you’re left with late fourth-round and early fifth-round valued players.
Will teams react accordingly?
Take the New England Patriots. They’re a popular offensive line destination in mocks at No. 4 overall. The team will have the decision to choose or pass on what will probably be a consensus top-six wide receiver with its pick at 38 and then picks again at 69 and 77 overall before a break until 104.
In the team’s bid to surround Drake Maye with a talented wide receiver room, they should tread lightly if they bypass a receiver at 38. The board sets up for them to have a handful of options left with their early third-round selections, but they may be left out in the cold if they get greedy.
Wide receiver hungry teams that pick between 38 and 69 would include:
New Orleans (40), New York Jets (42), San Francisco (43), Dallas (44), Atlanta (46), Arizona (47), Seattle (50 & 52), Denver (51), Carolina (57), Houston (58), Kansas City (63 & 66), New York Giants (65), and Las Vegas (68)
And that doesn’t include teams like Washington (Deebo Samuel acquisition, but are they done?), Green Bay, and Miami (Tyreek Hill’s long-term outlook is shaky).
New England, and about half of the league, will need to be dialed in on the fifth, sixth, and seventh wide receivers off the board if they don't draft one in the top 40. It could serve as the tipping point for a rapid positional run that could leave teams sitting outside of pro-ready players to catch the football.
The Third-Round Safety Run
This group is a fascinating one. There’s a consensus on the top two safeties in this year’s class between Nick Emmanwori of South Carolina and Malaki Starks of Georgia.
They’re expected to go in the first round — rightfully so. But there’s a precipitous drop after those two. The 33rd Team has just two additional safeties ranked in the top-85 prospects for this year’s draft. Those players are Notre Dame’s Xavier Watts and Texas’ Andrew Mukuba.
Early Day 2 should be light on safeties as a result. Still, there are then a whopping five safeties graded as Late third-round or early fourth-round prospects — a collection of role-specific starters that should be capable snap takers early on in their careers.
That tier of Late Day 2/Early Day 3 safeties includes:
- Lathan Ransom, Ohio State
- Billy Bowman, Oklahoma
- Kevin Winston Jr., Penn State
- Jaylen Reed, Penn State
- Jonas Sanker, Virginia
Teams seeking out a starting safety could bypass the first-round options in favor of landing a safety in this Day 2 bucket of options. However, what happens if the drafting of Watts and Mukuba kickstarts an earlier-than-expected run on safeties, and this collection is wiped out a half-round sooner?
There is no shortage of teams in the early third round who could use a safety, either long-term or in the immediate sense.
Kansas City (66th overall) lost Justin Reid in free agency, Cleveland (67th) cut Juan Thornhill this offseason, the Jaguars (70th) lost Andre Cisco to the New York Jets (73rd), who only inked Cisco to a one-year deal. Carolina (74th) looms behind them with one big signing at safety via Trevon Moehrig, but another vacancy lingering in their remade secondary.
That’s before you account for teams like Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Seattle, Tampa Bay, and others in the 80s that could certainly use a safety, too.
A team like the Buccaneers or Seahawks would be wise to stay leery of that early third-round collection if the fifth safety off the board goes in that range. It could spur a sudden run and leave a playoff contender shifting its focus on the back end to a street free agent in May.
Make sure to check out our new home for all of our NFL Draft content.
