A little over two months ago, I spent Senior Bowl week in Mobile. Watching practices, talking to prospects, meeting with agents, having fun discussions with fellow draft media members, hobnobbing with some NFL-employed scouts and coaches along the way. It’s always a great unofficial kickoff to “draft season”.

This week, I’m back in Mobile as we explore college options for my daughter. Driving past Hancock Whitney Stadium at the University of South Alabama, where practices are held, it got me to thinking about some of those discussions back in late January. What draft notions that were floating around back then have persisted through the final stretch of draft season? Which ones have changed?

One of the bigger emerging trends that came out of Senior Bowl week was the rise of Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart as the consensus No. 3 QB in the class. Between his strong week and a relatively rough go of things for Alabama’s Jalen Milroe, Dart gained momentum.

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He’s largely kept that up, at least in the eyes of draft media. Dart has been a frequent first-round projection in many a mock draft of late. He hasn’t threatened Cam Ward as the consensus QB1 and still typically lags well behind Shedeur Sanders for QB2, but Dart being a first-round pick isn’t an atypical thought anymore. It most certainly was back in Senior Bowl week.

Here’s what I wrote about Stewart after the Texas A&M defensive lineman’s week in January,

Stewart is my answer to the annual question, “which Senior Bowler will be the first to get drafted?” Simply put, he dominated enough that it was perfectly understandable that Stewart left after Wednesday’s practice. His size, strength, quickness and flexible lower body make him a high-end prospect who should be a top-20 pick, perhaps top-10. Stewart was indeed that special in Mobile.

With a little over two weeks until the draft kicks off in Green Bay, I still don’t have a great feel for where Shemar Stewart will be drafted. I don’t think anyone does; he’s been projected in recent mock drafts anywhere between No. 5 and No. 33, and either end of the range seems eminently plausible. That’s what happens when a world-class athletic specimen doesn’t have the football production, but also wasn’t exactly helped by his collegiate defensive scheme and usage, either. Call this one a push?

Consider this the flip side of the Jaxson Dart coin from Senior Bowl week. Milroe was not good in Mobile and everyone there knew it, too,

It was a rough week for Alabama’s signal-caller. His continued propensity to make receivers work too hard on what should be simple passes frustrated onlookers. That his timing and accuracy got worse, not better, as the week went on and he got more reps with the heretofore unfamiliar receivers is problematic. Outside of deep throws down the sidelines (where he thrived), Milroe looked a lot more like a Day 3 project than a potential top-40 pick.

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The tide has turned once again for Milroe. He threw better at the NFL Scouting Combine in early March, though “better” is a relative term. Milroe bounced up with a fantastic athletic workout and pro day at Alabama. We’ve seen Milroe crack the top 40 in a predominance of recent mock drafts, including some first-round projections. The linkage to the AFC North rivals, Pittsburgh and Cleveland, remains quite strong for Milroe. It seems now like the question for Milroe is if he’s closer to No. 25 or No. 50 off the board instead of 100 overall or beyond. Again, it’s just a perception of the draft stock market fluctuating without any actual football being played. Welcome to draft season, y’all….

This near-consensus conclusion from Senior Bowl week has aged very well. It’s difficult to find any prominent draftnik or beat writer mock draft without Zabel going in the top 25 or so; the North Dakota State offensive lineman went No. 17 to the Bengals in our latest Wire Editor mock. Zabel is a very popular projection to Seattle at 18, Tampa Bay at 19 and Baltimore at 27 in the current mock draft-o-sphere.

It’s hard to remember, but it wasn’t like that before the Senior Bowl. Zabel definitely had some buzz, but he was a left tackle from an FCS school transitioning into a guard/center while also making a pretty big jump in overall level of competition. In mock drafts back in late January, it wasn’t terribly uncommon for Zabel to be on the board into the top of the third round. That seems laughable now.

This article originally appeared on Draft Wire: 2025 draft: Senior Bowl conclusions revisited two months later