📽️ Solak: 2026 NFL draft prospects All-Film team

02.04.2026, 03:00 espn.com

Trust the tape.

It's easier said than done. The NFL draft process, long and arduous, is a winnowing process. A dense list of hundreds of prospects must be thinned into a list of realistic targets through a variety of filters. A team's coaching staff is looking for scheme fits and culture fits. The medical staff will flag dozens of players as untenable injury risks, and the analytics arm will flag the (lack of) production, athletic testing or quality competition of dozens more. Tick, tick, tick. Names get scratched off the list.

In this process, the tape sometimes gets easily lost. But I am not an NFL scouting department, and I don't have access to medical records and projection models and locker room rumors. I have the tape -- and the tape tells me which prospects I like.

Last year, I put together my All-Film team for the 2025 NFL draft, and despite the fact I purposely didn't include a bunch of first-rounders, early returns were good. It had undersized players like Andrew Mukuba, older players like Tyler Shough, positional converts like Carson Schwesinger, tweeners like Ashton Gillotte and less-than-perfect athletic testers like Azareye'h Thomas. Some had exciting rookie seasons to build on, and one even won Rookie of the Year.

This year's list will have the same: imperfect players who will go later than the tape suggests given the warts on their profiles. But I'm in on each of them because the film details players who, nevertheless, succeed -- and will do so again in the league.

This is my All-Film team for 2026.

Jump to a position:QB | RB | WR | TE | OT | IOLDT | Edge | LB | CB | S

Scouts Inc. ranking: No. 82

It's tough to trust the tape on any quarterback in this class after Indiana's Fernando Mendoza. While I agree Alabama's Ty Simpson is this year's QB2 , I have serious film-born questions about his decision-making under pressure, accuracy and arm talent. He's a good but incomplete player.

I've got serious film-born questions about Nussmeier, too. He isn't the biggest (6-foot-2, 203 pounds) and is coming off an injury-shortened season in which a lingering core issue dramatically affected his ability to push the ball (6.4 air yards per attempt in 2025 relative to 8.4 the season previous). He took twice as many sacks, too (4.8% relative to 2.9%). The film shows a jumpy player who didn't trust himself or his O-line.

But the 2024 film on Nussmeier? That'll get your blood pumping a little bit.

Nussmeier is an uber-aggressive pocket passer who thinks he can solve any problem or beat any coverage with the perfect throw. It's not that he's constantly launching go balls. He attacks intermediate windows against all coverages, making earnest post-snap reads and buzzing through his options quickly. His immunity to pressure is at times impressive -- he'll climb the pocket and rip a deep backside route with bodies flying around him; other times, it's concerning -- he will take some brutal shots.

pic.twitter.com/uTEc5MjvIo— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel)

Nussmeier's 2024 film is quite reminiscent of Simpson's 2025 film. Both are sons of coaches and have the polished play you'd expect from that lineage. Both are adequate movers who know how to avoid sacks. But Nussmeier might be available two, even three rounds later than Simpson, depending on how early the QB-needy teams draft Simpson. Of course, the Day 3 developmental quarterback is right next to Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster on the big board of things that don't actually exist, despite all of our searching. If Nussmeier goes in Round 4, it'll be to fight for a backup job ... and then maybe luck into a few starts as his rookie season goes on.

Scouts Inc. ranking: No. 71

For the first time in NFL draft history, an RB2 is the RB2. Price is projected as a Round 2 pick, and if he is indeed the second running back selected after Fighting Irish teammate Jeremiyah Love, it will mark the first time teammates have been the first two running backs taken off the board.

Though Price was unquestionably the second fiddle behind Love, he still had 233 carries over the past two seasons to Love's 362, thanks in large part to the high volume at which Notre Dame ran the football. That 233-carry sample is more than enough on which to base an evaluation. Bills running back James Cook III had only 230 career carries over four seasons before he was drafted in the second round out of Georgia, and new Commanders back Rachaad White had 224 carries at the Power 5 level before he went to the Bucs in the third round out of Arizona State.

And Price's 233 carries are good. A loose athlete at 5-11 and 203 pounds, he's a more creative runner with quicker eyes and decision-making than Love. Price reliably puts the first would-be tackler in bad positions by manipulating tempo and activating his off hand, creating a ton of yardage after first contact. Love is the superior prospect for his receiving ability and explosive open-field speed, while Price is more of a tricky projection to the NFL. He's not a high-impact pass protector or pass catcher, so he needs to find a home as an early-down, high-volume, ground-and-pound ball carrier. Those roles don't open up often.

Jadarian Price scores a 1-yard rushing touchdown for Notre Dame vs. Stanford.

But teams that already have a receiving back that they want to protect from 300-plus carries over the course of a season should prioritize Price. He'd be a great running mate for, say, Bucky Irving in Tampa Bay or Tony Pollard in Tennessee, but the dream landing spot is alongside Jahmyr Gibbs in Detroit. Price, who ran for 674 yards and 11 touchdowns last season, is a reliable singles and doubles hitter, and pairing him with a home run threat like Gibbs would bring out the best in him.

Scouts Inc. ranking: No. 33

Consider the list of ridiculous athletes at wide receiver to graduate from Alabama. Pass over the classics (Julio Jones, Amari Cooper, etc.) and just look at recent history: Jaylen Waddle, DeVonta Smith, Jerry Jeudy and Jameson Williams. Bernard is ... not in that group.

That isn't to say Bernard is a bad athlete. He's solid all across the board, with a 4.48-second 40-yard dash, 10-foot-5 broad jump, 32½-inch vertical jump and 6.71-second three-cone drill, all at 6-1 and 206 pounds. But Bernard's athleticism does not jump off the film. He isn't leaving corners in the dust or dropping highlight-reel jukes.

But he does everything well -- and I mean everything. Bernard will dig out a linebacker to spring a handoff on one play, stretch a safety to open another route on the next play, grind out some tough YAC on an RPO on another play, and then cut up a mean route to separate downfield on the next play. Look at the stopping power and upfield displacement he gets on this block against Oklahoma in the College Football Playoff. This matters for light personnel teams that need their wide receivers to contribute in the running game.

pic.twitter.com/FDyS8dFYhN— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel)

Bernard is unlikely to become a volume-dominant WR1 at the NFL level, nor will he fill the ever important WR2/WR3 role of big-play merchant. But for those teams that want to field three receivers, Bernard's dirty work will maximize the wideouts who are in those roles. Because he has good hands and runs good routes, he still can punish defenses who forget about him. Bernard led the Tide in receptions in each of the past two seasons -- his only two with the team after transferring in from Washington -- which speaks to his reliability and QB friendliness.

Think about what Jauan Jennings has been for the 49ers over the past few seasons. That's the sort of role Bernard can fill right away, with the potential to become a Jakobi Meyers-esque stick mover over time. Bernard to the Bears or Vikings on Day 2? Perfect fits.

Scouts Inc. ranking: No. 66

In last year's edition of the All-Film team, I implored you to take a staggering leap of faith and trust a tight end prospect out of Notre Dame. Mitchell Evans, who went in the fifth round, ended up breaking into the Panthers' rotation at the position nicely, playing 424 snaps by season's end.

I'm back to the Fighting Irish well with Raridon, though through a different lens. Evans was a productive receiver in a small sample; with Raridon, it feels like the light bulb went on as a blocker last season. Raridon tore his right ACL twice (once in 2021 before he got on campus, then again in the fall of 2022 as a freshman). His development was impeded and playing time limited, especially on a dense depth chart of Notre Dame tight ends, including Evans. But over his one year as the unquestioned TE1 in South Bend, Raridon improved dramatically.

Prone to falling off blocks with an upright posture earlier in the season, Raridon learned how to use his length, flexibility and core strength to uproot defensive linemen and steer them out of gaps. He became an impactful player on pulls that Notre Dame featured in short-yardage and goal-line situations. The team wanted to run behind the guy.

At 6-6 and 245 pounds, Raridon has enough long speed and length to be a seam runner at the NFL level, but his primary value will come as a movable blocker with the ceiling of a true hand-in-the-dirt Y tight end should he add another 10 pounds. That makes him a developmental prospect -- more of an early Day 3 pick than a Day 2 selection in a thick tight end class. But it's not hard to see a Josh Oliver-esque arc for him at the position.

The specific tape to trust on Casey is the Notre Dame game from 2025 and the Oregon game from 2024. Those were two of Casey's biggest tests, and he rose to the level of both opponents. An adaptive and patient player, he is happy to let rushers test his speed, handwork and strength before calmly taking them where they want to go. He's rarely caught leaning and is difficult to uproot. Some NFL coaches might ask him to become more proactive stylistically, but for Boise State's quick passing game, Casey's consistency and well-roundedness were highl