Three questions about the 2026 QB draft class
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2026
⏱️ 65 minutes
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Summary
This is one of the stranger quarterback draft classes we've seen in some time. There's a legitimate top-of-the-draft prospect, a 23-year-old with limited experience who will probably be the second player at the position off the board, and a whole lot of shoulder shrugging after that. So with that in mind, Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen ask and answer three questions about the 2026 QB class: What is Fernando Mendoza’s ceiling? Is Ty Simpson worth a first-round pick? Who among the rest of the class would you bet on being a legitimate starter during his rookie contract?
Host: Robert Mays
Co-Host: Derrik Klassen
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Senior Producer: Katy Duffy
Social Producer: Scott Krinch
Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.social
Follow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.social
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Follow Derrik on X: @QBKlass
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. |
| 0:02.0 | I'm Robert Mays. |
| 0:02.9 | It is Quarterback Day here on the Athletic Football Show digging into the 2026 quarterback |
| 0:08.7 | class with our guy Derek Classen, who I didn't say this to him on the show, but it is very true. |
| 0:14.1 | Very few people have an eye for the position the way that Derek does. |
| 0:17.7 | He does such a great job of articulating what guys, what makes guys unique, |
| 0:22.0 | what makes them able to succeed. And so we did some of that today about the 2026 group of |
| 0:27.4 | quarterbacks. It's a strange group. There aren't a lot of surefire first round picks. There |
| 0:32.9 | aren't a lot of guys that we assume are even going to go in the top 50. And so instead of going |
| 0:37.0 | through the class as a whole, we decided to ask three questions |
| 0:40.8 | about the 2026 quarterback class today. |
| 0:43.8 | Question one, what is Fernando Mendoza as a prospect? |
| 0:47.6 | What type of ceiling are we talking about here? |
| 0:50.3 | Where does he kind of stack up to guys historically? |
| 0:53.1 | Because we've just assumed he was going to go number one overall, |
| 0:56.2 | I think I've been guilty of this. |
| 0:58.5 | I haven't thought about him as much as I might other quarterback prospects. |
| 1:01.8 | And I think that's kind of clouded some of the actual things that make him who he is as a player. |
| 1:08.1 | And so I wanted to really dig into that with Derek today. |
| 1:11.0 | Question two. Is Ty Simpson worth a flyer in the back half of the first round? |
| 1:16.7 | There's a couple layers to that question. |
| 1:18.6 | And I think we dug into all of it, the player that Ty Simpson is, but also who should be |
... |
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