All 32 NFL Teams Face Wake-Up Call Over 21-Year-Old Ohio State Sensation
This article was originally published on Total Pro Sports.
Positional value drives NFL Draft decisions. Quarterbacks and edge rushers go high. Safeties wait. That’s the script every April, and teams stick to it even when exceptions present themselves. Caleb Downs might force everyone to tear up that playbook. The Ohio State safety has analysts openly admitting they can’t figure out where to slot him.
Anand Nanduri posted his confusion on X on Thursday. “Caleb Downs is breaking my brain,” Nanduri wrote. “He’s so good a football player that I can’t figure out how to value him on a draft board. I know he’s a safety. I know that contract values for draft position, etc matter. He’s the exception.” Albert Breer retweeted and went further, calling Downs the best football player in the 2026 draft class outright.
I feel comfortable saying Caleb Downs is the best football player in the 2026 draft class. He won’t be the first pick—you have to consider upside, positional value, all that, and there are guys with more of all that stuff. But no one in the class is a better football player. https://t.co/cLmAWzpNy3
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) February 12, 2026
“Caleb Downs, in my estimation, is the safest pick in the draft,” Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt said in his first mock draft. “He is an NFL All-Pro waiting in the wings. He is the smartest defender that I have ever covered in college football. This guy can do just about everything.” Klatt projects Downs to Dallas at No. 12 overall. The Cowboys traded Micah Parsons last year and watched their defense crater.
Downs posted 257 total tackles, 16 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, and six interceptions over three years. He earned unanimous All-American status in both seasons at Ohio State.
Mock Drafts Can’t Agree on Landing Spot For The Ohio State Star
The projection chaos tells the story. Both PFF and CBS Sports have Cincinnati taking Downs at No. 10 in their latest mocks. Klatt has him going to Dallas at 12. Nobody knows where he actually lands.
“The Bengals haven’t had a true star at safety since they let Jessie Bates III walk in the 2023 offseason,” PFF’s mock explained. Cincinnati’s safeties combined for the lowest PFF grade as a unit over the past three years at 53.7. Downs earned a 93.6 PFF overall grade for his college career.
CBS Sports’ Mike Renner described Cincinnati’s secondary as “porous” and said Downs would be “exactly what the doctor ordered.”
The NFL Combine takes place at the end of February. Pro Days follow. Downs will test, interview, and check every box teams need checked. Then someone has to decide if the best player available trumps positional value charts written years ago.
