It appears that the Big Ten is planning to ban any of its member universities from bringing in players who were in NFL training camps.
There's talk that the SEC might soon follow suit, which could cause some serious problems for LSU, which is in the process of signing two Class of 2026 players who were cut by NFL teams. A court order created a special one-time-only limited-time transfer portal.
LSU head coach Lane Kiffin is correct in noting that this isn't the fault of the players who were wrongly denied a fifth year of eligibility. But it also makes Kiffin an easy target for people who are legit furious about everything that has changed in college football over the past few years.
We're well past the point of logic, but the acceptance of the irrational is a time-honored tradition for American football fans.
The season begins in four days. As noted earlier: this is madness. This is 2026.
UPDATE: The Big Ten, as expected, passed the ban on players that had previously signed NFL contracts.
It's not like an undrafted player who spent a few weeks/months with an NFL team gains some sort of secret knowledge or superpower.
You can't convince me this one-time oddity is a terrible thing in a world where Oregon has several players who were potential/likely first-round picks that opted to stay in school for 2026.
The Cleveland Browns have announced that Deshaun Watson will be the team's starting quarterback in Week 1, getting the nod over Shedeur Sanders. This is the epitome of now-or-never with Watson in Cleveland.
August 23, 2026
After being waived by the Cleveland Browns, it appears that tight end Dae'Quan Wright is heading back to college football via the transfer portal to play with the LSU Tigers.
It's a reuniting of Wright with Lane Kiffin, his former head coach at Ole Miss.
The move will pair Wright with incumbent LSU tight end Trey'Dez Green, one of the top prospects at the position for 2026.
This should give LSU more latitude to line up Green at wide receiver once Wright gets up to speed on the offense.
This is a one-time-only window that is unlikely to be repeated for many reasons.
Former Florida State QB Tommy Castellanos is entering the NCAA transfer portal.
Castellanos, who went undrafted, received a court injunction for a fifth season. Per multiple reports, it's believed that his destination will be Texas Tech.
With the Seminoles already being set at QB for 2026, it makes sense for Castellanos to find a new school.
Texas Tech has had need at quarterback since losing Brendan Sorsby, a high-profile transfer from Cincinnati who saw his college eligibility terminated due to gambling-related reasons.
August 21, 2026
It looks like NFL Media is indeed getting its act together.
Per the NFL: "Veteran hosts Andrew Siciliano, Colleen Wolfe and Mike Yam, prominent NFL analyst Trevor Sikkema and emerging content creator Brett Kollmann have joined NFL Media as on-air talent" for the 2026 season.
That's a high-quality core group right there.
Good luck to Father Ryan High School's football team, which opens its 2026 regular season tonight vs. Overton High School in Nashville. FRHS' head coach is former Tennessee Titans QB Zach Mettenberger, entering his second year in the role. Go Irish!
The NCAA broke its federal court losing streak today after the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling that would've allowed all student-athletes who played four years without a redshirt starting in 2022-2023 to return for a fifth year of eligibility.
This doesn't overturn the restraining orders various athletes have secured in other courts. The fact this is happening eight days before the start of the college football season is ridiculous and must be horribly frustrating for all involved.
Former Notre Dame defensive end Junior Tuihalamaka is heading to LSU. Tuihalamaka is one of the players who gained eligibility via the Louisiana temporary restraining order on Wednesday.
Keep in mind that it's not just that players are returning, it's also that they've been able to enter a special one-week transfer portal window. Though, for Tuihalamaka, it appears returning to Notre Dame for 2026 wouldn't have been a viable option so late in the cycle.
Congrats to Father Ryan on a 40-0 win tonight against Overton.
It looks like we'll have more ghosts in the machine for the 2026 season as a judge on Wednesday granted a temporary restraining order allowing 16 former college players who signed with NFL teams to return to college for the upcoming year.
As I noted earlier this month, having players who went through the draft return to college football is unprecedented. No one makes it back. Ever.
But the NCAA keeps losing in federal court, which means it's actually going to happen.
In a normal world, the NCAA would face severe sanctions for repeated unlawful activity. Yet, here in 2026, things are so upside-down that they appear primed to benefit from their bad behavior.
This is madness and will likely be wielded as propaganda by the private capital people infultrating American college sports who are hoping to use the Protect College Sports Act to cap labor costs.
If the playoff expansion were about protecting college sports, there would be actual talk of automatic bids for small conference champions.
Instead, it's about downside guarantees for the big conferences.
This is a giant hustle.
In the meantime, now college teams are having to deal with the very real possibility of having players return absurdly late in the process, potentially complicating things for the current student-athletes.
There is a better way: NCAA Division III. It's the wonderful place that Division I pretends to be when it's convenient.
I talk with a lot of D3 parents with my work calling Sewanee Tigers men's lacrosse games, and I've repeatedly heard from them how happy they are to be on the D3 level and not having to deal with the constant instability/uncertainty of the current D1 scene.
Livestreaming has made it where D3 schools can broadcast their sports online in a cost-effective way. It's much easier to follow D3 teams now than it was even 15 years ago.
Higgins, 23, was a second-round selection last year out of Iowa State. Coming off a rookie season with 525 yards and six touchdowns, Higgins was expected to be a major red zone threat for Houston this year. Now it's feared that he will miss the season.
There's an update today from John Talty and Chris Hummer after yesterday's very interesting story on the biggest-spending NIL schools.
In particular, they outlined how Alabama, Texas Tech, and Indiana fell outside that top level of spending.
Part of it for Texas Tech was not having to pay $5M+ for Brendan Sorsby after his alleged betting on football games cost him his college eligibility, but it's notable that the Red Raiders are believed to be working with $10 million more in NIL money than any other team in the Big 12.
You can pretend there is a Power Four group, but it's really a Power Two: the Big Ten and the SEC.
August 17, 2026
Veteran star EDGE Von Miller has signed with the Dallas Cowboys.
Miller, 37, was the #2 overall selection in the 2011 NFL Draft by the Denver Broncos after a strong college career with Texas A&M.
The pick paid off immediately for Denver, with Miller collecting 30 total sacks in the course of his first two years as a pro. Miller posted double-digit sack numbers in six of his first seven NFL seasons.
More recently, Miller won a Super Bowl with the 2021 Los Angeles Rams, played for the Buffalo Bills from 2022-2024, and then had a big 2025 season with the Washington Commanders with nine sacks.
Miller has 138.5 career sacks, tied for #9 all-time with DeMarcus Ware. Miller only needs another 3.5 sacks to pass Terrell Suggs (139), Jason Taylor (139.5), and Michael Strahan (141.5) to reach #6 all-time.
Notice that it's the Big Ten, the SEC, Miami, and Notre Dame. And that's it. For all the talk of Texas Tech spending money, they're not even mentioned in the piece.
These numbers are often very elusive as it involves money coming from boosters. There is no Over The Cap equivalent for college football.
My favorite part is the griping from anonymous sources. There's a recruiting process that happens outside the public view; it rarely surfaces. When it does, it can be fascinating.
I wonder what Texas A&M thinks about the spurned poacher Power 4 General Manager who whined about being turned down by multiple Aggies players. Per the article, the anonymous GM said: "We were throwing stupid stuff out there, and they wouldn't leave A&M."
August 16, 2026
New prospect profiles are up! Several EDGE rushers here:
In an unusual move, Cincinnati Bengals rookie CB Ceyair Wright left the team today to pursue what is described as a lead role in a major movie.
Wright, 23, is a Los Angeles native who started his college career at USC before transferring to Nebraska prior to the 2024 season. His most notable acting role to-date was playing LeBron James' son in Space Jam: A New Legacy in 2021.
Despite being seen as a potential late day three selection, Wright went undrafted in April before signing as a free agent with the Bengals.
Wright's spot on the final roster was hardly a given. But he had been described as an ascending player by Bengals head coach Zac Taylor, and Wright played 42 snaps in Cincinnati's preseason opener against Detroit on Thursday night.
It's possible that Wright could rejoin the Bengals after the movie wraps, potentially being added to the practice squad where he likely would've ended up anyway during final cuts.
August 14, 2026
Pittsburgh Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers is right about NFL preseason football not beingreal regular-season style football.
The primary objective is entirely different in the preseason. The goal isn't to win; it's to evaluate players and team units while minimizing the risk of injury to key starters.
If you win, great. But it doesn't really matter.
It did amuse me to see how the Baltimore Ravens leaned into their years-long preseason winning streak as that played out. They won 24 preseason games in a row from 2016 to 2023.
It feels disrespectful to Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks that NFL Media has kept their names on the podcast listing for Move the Sticks, which is now hosted by an intentionally neutral-sounding person whose broadcasting name is Game Preview Guy.
Jeremiah is one of the top evaluators in the business. He'll have a new podcast soon enough, and people will follow him there. Content is king.
But part of Jeremiah's personal brand is Move the Sticks; it's his X handle, after all. NFL Media had two months to rebrand the podcast and they didn't.
Now what they're doing with it feels like false advertising.
GPG is a very smooth reader, so much so that many listeners presumed he was Artificial Intelligence. That part really upset some people.
When I play up the anti-AI stuff so hard in my DKDB Update videos, it's with good reason. The outrage that some are feeling about it is exceptionally strong.
To that end, websites that utilize machine-scaled content are in serious danger from the next Google Core Update.
That's what David G. Quaid predicted last month on The Edward Sturm Show. If his projection comes true, the impact will be massive.
Quaid understands Google better than anyone else I've found. It surprises me that more people aren't making a big deal about it.
While this would have a major disruptive effect on the NFL mock draft world, the most immediate impact might be felt with fantasy football sites, right at the start of their peak busy season in late August.
The first game of the preseason slate for the Minnesota Vikings doesn't arrive until Saturday, but there's already a winner in the starting quarterback competition. It's newcomer Kyler Murray, the former 2019 top overall pick released by the Arizona Cardinals earlier this year, who beat out J.J. McCarthy for the spot.
August 11, 2026
Earlier today, my dentist lamented to me about the long wait for the start of football season. It's that time of the year: the anticipation phase.
It's not unlike the anticipation I had for Smoothie King during an entire morning of dental procedures. Though, if I had to spend four hours on a random Tuesday enduring that, Legacy Hill Dentistry is where I'd want to be. Great people there.
I try to book as many appointments as possible between June and August because of broadcasting commitments and opportunities. That's not always a perfect approach, though; when I got the gig calling Nashville SC matches in 2017, it was for May-July dates.
But we're not too far from the games that really count. Here in Tennessee, the high school season starts one week from Friday. College football begins on August 29 and the NFL regular-season starts on September 9.
Here's hoping the best for New York Jets CB Qwan'tez Stiggers after he passed out today during a joint practice with the Tampa Bay Bucs. He was said to be awake and talking before leaving in an ambulance.
Stiggers, 24, is one of the few current players in the NFL to have never played a snap of college football. He attended Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee on scholarship, but COVID-19 caused the cancellation of his freshman season in 2020 and he later dropped out.
In 2022, Stiggers played for the Bored Ape Football Club in the short-lived Fan Controlled Football league (7v7), then was the 2023 Canadian Football League Most Outstanding Rookie with the Toronto Argonauts before being selected in round 5 of the 2024 NFL Draft by the Jets.
One of the looming storylines of the pre-season is resolved with the Dallas Cowboys signing DT Quinnen Williams to a new three-year contract extension with $101 million guaranteed.
Williams, 28, is one of the top defensive tackles in the game today. Dallas gave up quite a bit of capital in acquiring Williams from the Jets last year, and while Williams was still under contract through 2027, the Cowboys risked losing face if they had failed to hammer out a new deal.
August 10, 2026
There's an update in the DKDB NFL 2027 Mock Draft Database this morning with a link to the latest mock draft from Charlie Campbell of WalterFootball.
South Carolina CB Vicari Swain showed up in Campbell's new mock and now Swain has a profile page here in the DKDB.
Bruce Feldman's 2026 Freaks List is now available in The Athletic (subscription required) and, as usual, Feldman did a great job with it.
It's notable that South Carolina WR Nyck Harbor has reclaimed the top spot on the list, a position Harbor also held in 2023 and 2024.
Last year, Harbor was #3 on the list behind Ohio State WR Jeremiah Smith at #1 and former Alabama OL Kadyn Proctor (drafted by Miami in round one this past April) at #2.
It's not like Smith has regressed; he's the top overall prospect on the bulk of the notable early 2027 big boards and is one of the most promising wide receiver prospects in recent memory.
But, at least for 2026, Harbor is back to being the top freak.
August 9, 2026
Bad news out of Washington Commanders training camp, where starting left offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil suffered a torn triceps in practice on Saturday per Mike Garafolo and Steve Wyche.
It's expected that Tunsil, who turned 32 earlier this month, will require surgery and likely miss a substantial amount of the season.
Lions QB Teddy Bridgewater is going to step away from the team, with a forthcoming retirement likely per Detroit head coach Dan Campbell.
Bridgewater, 33, was a first-round pick in 2014 by Minnesota. Ten years ago this month, Bridgewater suffered a catastrophic left knee injury in practice that at the time was feared would be career-ending.
Instead, Bridgewater went through a grueling rehab to not only make it back onto the field, but to go on to play for another decade.
August 8, 2026
The U.S. Senate went on recess without bringing up the Protect College Sports Act for a vote. It still has a chance to pass when they return in September.
I don't know anyone who's happy with everything in college football right now, but this regressive cash grab of a bill isn't the answer.
If this were actually about protecting the players, they'd be talking about the two-game suspension issued to Tennessee Vols EDGE Arion Carter because his agent paid for a flight at a point when Carter thought he was going to declare for the 2026 NFL Draft.
Carter reimbursed his agent, but nonetheless this was against NCAA rules and thus deemed a violation. If you read between the lines with the whispers out of Knoxville, it appears the system punished Carter for being honest with the NCAA.
Expectations were high coming out of the 2023 NFL Draft for Atlanta Falcons RB Bijan Robinson (pick #8) and Detroit Lions RB Jahmyr Gibbs (pick #12). No running back had gone in the top twelve of the draft since Saquon Barkley at #2 to the New York Giants in 2018.
Ultimately, both proved to be exceptional players. And now they're going to be paid like it.
Both of them turned 24 earlier this year, and both were on the final year of their respective rookie contracts with the team-option fifth year lingering for 2027. Now they're both on brand-new three-year extensions with big-money guarantees signed this week.
In 2025, Robinson's 1,478 rushing yards and 820 receiving yards made him the only player in NFL history to record at least 1,400 rushing yards and 810 receiving yards in a single season.
Jahmyr Gibbs (3-year, $51.5M guar.) DOB: 3/20/2002
2023-2025: 3,580 rushing yards, 1,449 receiving yards, 49 touchdowns, 5.3 yards per carry, no more than one lost fumble in any season.
Gibbs' 49 touchdowns are the most by any player in NFL history in the first three seasons of their career. I like how Gibbs got the extra half-million guaranteed by waiting for Robinson to sign first.
Some of you might remember the Larry Johnson holdout with the Kansas City Chiefs, immortalized on Hard Knocks (same season as the sign's gotta say HOT!) in 2007.
Ultimately, Johnson signed a new contract, which became a cautionary tale about paying holdout running backs as his production declined at that point. But the difference is that Johnson was 27 at the time and had already taken a serious pounding after years in a primary role.
By the time Robinson and Gibbs hit 27, they will already be three years into these new contracts.
As of Friday afternoon EDT, it appears increasingly probable that the Protect College Sports Act won't reach a full vote in the U.S. Senate before it takes a scheduled recess. Once people actually read the bill, there was opposition from both the political left and right.
I thought the Congressional Black Caucus summarized it best with this part of its statement against the legislation: "[T]he so-called Protect College Sports Act grants sweeping new legal protections to powerful institutions while failing to adequately protect the athletes whose talent fuels this multibillion-dollar industry."
Let's face it: the bill is more about protecting the grifters than the players. After all, who do you think is writing this legislation?
Unfortunately, even if this push fails, the big-spending lobbyists will just try again next year, potentially with an even more restrictive and onerous plan in place.
Tonight the 2026 NFL preseason opens with the Hall of Fame game in Canton, Ohio between the Arizona Cardinals and the Carolina Panthers. Carson Beck will get the start at QB for the Cards in his NFL debut.
Beck's position is somewhat akin to what Saints QB Tyler Shough faced as a rookie last year in New Orleans, an unspoken mandate to play well enough out of the gate to earn another shot at it the next season. That's the reality of the modern NFL.
It's looking increasingly likely that we'll see the unretirement of former St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams DT Aaron Donald, 35, a three-time former NFL Defensive Player of the Year who retired after the 2023 season as a first-team All-Pro.
Donald had an official workout with the Rams on Wednesday. He walked away from $30 million in 2024 but appears ready to return in large part for the opportunity to line up alongside elite EDGE Myles Garrett, acquired by the Rams from the Cleveland Browns this off-season.
There's no modern precedent for what Donald is doing, and that's in part what makes it so compelling. It's hard to know what to expect next.
August 5, 2026
The NCAA made a rule change earlier this year allowing five years of eligibility in five years of time for Division I student-athletes. It retired the antiquated notion of redshirting (either modern soft-cap or old-style no mercy) and should be a positive. It's a rule change that actually makes sense.
But, like many things today, it's complicated.
To point, with the NCAA seemingly working a losing-streak gimmick in federal court, it was fitting that a judge last week issued a class-wide injunction allowing newly-graduated seniors who never took a redshirt to have a fifth season for 2026-27.
This will primarily impact basketball, but the very limited window creates some challenging dynamics for the football players and teams involved. The season begins on August 29.
Indiana announced on Tuesday that defensive end Stephen Daley (pictured above), one of the affected players, is coming back for the upcoming season. Daley suffered a fluke knee injury during the post-game celebration following Indiana's Big Ten championship game win over Ohio State last year and ultimately went undrafted.
I can't create DKDB 2027 draft profiles for these players as they've already been through the full NFL Draft process. No double jeopardy. They're ghosts in the machine.
No one has ever made it back after going through the draft. Not until now, anyway.
Perhaps the most intriguing player of the relatively small group who might return is Florida State QB Tommy Castellanos. As of this writing, Castellanos is said to be mulling his options.
But such things don't happen in a vacuum. Fifth-year senior Ashton Daniels (a transfer from Auburn) is the starting quarterback for the Seminoles for 2026. If Castellanos ends up returning to Tallahassee, it will be very interesting to see how he might be utilized.
August 4, 2026
The full text of the Protect College Sports Act is now available. It's a repulsive piece of legislation that will artificially limit the money college football players will be able to earn from third-party outlets.
Nobody dislikes young adults quite like American lawmakers do.
I'd be loudly protesting about this if I thought it would make any difference. That's not the way it works, not at this level.
Read the bill and decide for yourself. To me, it's terribly off-putting that the NCAA is getting rewarded for spectacularly losing in federal court over and over again.
It's a giant cash grab. It's not being done with the players' best interest in mind. But these realities don't matter.
The only chance it has of not passing is if the slow-motion process of federal legislation passage in the United States keeps it from going up for a full vote before attention turns to the mid-term elections.
August 3, 2026
It appears that Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers has entered the "CM Punk at AEW All Out 2022" phase of his career, only instead of griping about Hangman Page, he's complaining about Anthony Fauci and ESPN.
Trying out something new here with this DKDB news/update page.
I revamped the 2027 NFL Mock Draft Database to provide a bio for the various people included. It now looks more like the classic site design and functions much better on mobile now.
If you haven't seen them yet, be sure to watch my DKDB Update preview videos for top 2027 draft-eligible prospects at quarterback (6/30), running back (7/25), and wide receiver (7/29) with more coming soon. Please like/subscribe if you enjoy them.
The site's rebrand from Draft King to DKDB has been an overwhelming success. Thanks to everyone who has supported me through the years. The best is yet to come.
