The 2026 NFL Draft has come and gone, and while Pittsburgh put on a show—shattering attendance records with over 800,000 fans flooding the Steel City—the real story isn't about who got picked. It's about who didn't come out at all.
College football is being accused of ruining the draft, and the NFL isn't laughing. Scouts and front offices are pointing fingers squarely at the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) model, which they say is keeping elite underclassmen in school longer than ever before. The result? A draft that felt hollow in the later rounds.
Fernando Mendoza went No. 1 overall to the Las Vegas Raiders on Thursday night, kicking off a three-day event at Acrisure Stadium. But by Saturday afternoon, when Rounds 4 through 7 played out, the talent pool looked thin. According to longtime NFL insider Andrew Brandt, the league's frustration is boiling over.
"I talked to an NFL scout last week," Brandt said. "Last year rounds 6 and 7 wiped out from NFL, this year rounds four through seven wiped out from NIL."
That's a dramatic escalation. In 2025, only the final two rounds felt the squeeze. Now, nearly half the draft has been impacted. Teams are finding it harder to mine late-round gems, as top college players—especially those with strong NIL deals—choose to stay in school rather than enter the draft early.
The NFL's complaint is simple: they want a steady pipeline of ready-made talent, and NIL is disrupting that flow. But college football fans aren't exactly shedding tears for billion-dollar franchises. Social media lit up with sarcastic responses, with one fan joking, "Truly breaks my heart seeing the NFL suffer like this." Another added, "No multi-hundred-billion dollar company should ever be forced to build and develop their own product, what kind of sick world is that?!"
Still, the trend isn't permanent. As one fan pointed out, "This is a temporary gap caused by players being able to get NIL all the sudden. All this will do is shift the average age of NFL draftees to a little older but eventually they all run out of years in college and move up and the gap closes."
In the meantime, the 2026 draft class still had its stars. Ohio State dominated with 11 selections, tying a two-year record. But the late rounds were a different story. Heisman finalist Diego Pavia went unpicked, and Garrett Nussmeier's freefall to No. 249 raised eyebrows. Even Vanderbilt's historic 2025 season rang hollow after a disastrous draft showing.
The NFL's complaint may be valid, but the solution isn't clear. Until the NIL landscape stabilizes, expect more late-round drafts—and more grumbling from the pros.
