ESPN asked 25 NFL scouts and executives a simple question: which quarterback goes first in the 2027 draft? The answer was not close.
Oregon’s Dante Moore got 14 votes. Texas’ Arch Manning got seven. South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers picked up two, and LSU’s Sam Leavitt and Notre Dame’s CJ Carr each got one.
For anyone who has spent the last three years assuming Manning was the inevitable No. 1 pick because of the last name, that is a reality check. The people who evaluate quarterbacks for a living took Moore by a two-to-one margin.
Moore Already Passed on First-Round Money
The most important line on Moore’s résumé is the decision he made last winter. He could have entered the draft as a potential top-five pick and returned to Oregon for his junior year instead.
Quarterbacks do not usually do that. Top-five draft slots come with guaranteed money and a five-year runway, and turning that down to play another season of college football is a bet on yourself that most players will not make. Scouts noticed. Nothing tells an evaluator more about a player’s confidence in his own ceiling than walking away from that check.
It also means Moore spent this offseason working on an NFL draft profile with a year of extra reps instead of learning a new playbook in a rookie minicamp. Those are not the same developmental paths.
Manning’s Case Is Still Alive
Seven votes is not nothing. Manning started slowly last season and improved as the year went on, which is exactly the trajectory scouts want to see from a young quarterback who had been sitting and learning.
The pattern matters here. A quarterback who starts hot and fades is a problem. A quarterback who struggles early and figures it out is a quarterback whose arrow is pointing up, and Manning still has a full season of Texas football to keep that line climbing.
There is also the simple fact that this poll was taken before the season played out. Moore holds the lead on reputation and the pass he took on the draft. Manning holds the lead on remaining upside, because he has a shorter track record and more room to blow up.
This Class Is Deeper Than the Headline Suggests
The consensus among the scouts polled was that 2027 is an unusually deep quarterback year, with more passers than usual who could play their way into round one. Sellers, Leavitt and Carr all pulling votes at this stage of the process supports that.
That depth cuts both ways for the top two. It means teams picking outside the top five will still find a quarterback they like, which reduces the desperation trades that inflate draft boards. It also means Moore and Manning need to separate on tape rather than on projection.
ESPN has run this poll for three straight years, so it has a track record. It is a snapshot of where the evaluation community sits in September, not a mock draft. Plenty changes between now and April.
But the snapshot is clear enough. Right now, the NFL likes Dante Moore more, and it is not particularly close.
Manning has a season to change that. Moore has a season to prove the extra year was worth it.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
