The 2026 NFL Draft is over and it came with a few heartbreaks. While Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia was left undrafted despite being a Heisman finalist in the 2025 college football season, Garrett Nussmeier had to wait for a long time before getting his name called.
The former LSU star quarterback was projected to be a first-round pick before the 2025 college football season began. However, during the 2026 NF Draft, Nussmeier was picked as the 249th pick in the seventh round, a fall similar to what happened with Shedeur Sanders last year.
Sanders was projected to go in the first round of 2025 and was later picked as the 144th overall pick in the fifth round.
Before Nussmeier got the call from the Chiefs, ESPN analysts discussed his draft slide and Mel Kiper Jr. shared his thoughts:
“Yeah for different reasons you know about injury, so he’s picking the team out there. It’s the injury issue, it’s not what he is as a quarterback you know. Had he been healthy through the process, he would have had a different kind of year now it’s the injury.
“With Shedeur, it wasn’t about ability, it went beyond that. We had talked about that tonight. Look what happened turned out pretty well for Shedeur going to Cleveland, where he didn’t look good, Dillon Gabriel went in the third round.
He added:
“Shedeur didn’t have a chance sure. Went in there and he won the job and he’s the man. So now all of a sudden, you look at Garrett Nussmeier do the same thing. You get an opportunity, whether you’re a fourth-round pick, a seventh-round pick, a team that’s going to draft you, you’re signing a free agent, you’ve got a shot.”
Garrett Nussmeier Shares Thoughts on Getting Drafted by the Chiefs
Garrett Nussmeier didn’t have the best year with LSU in 2025 as he was heavily impacted by injuries for most of the season, which limited his playing time to just nine games.
Talking about his feelings when he got to know he’s going to the Kansas State Chiefs, Nussmeier described it as “unbelievable” and said he felt like he had been waiting for that call for forever.
“I couldn’t have been more excited to see that [816] area code pop up,” Nussmeier said.
Nussmeier further said it was difficult for him to just sit there and not understand why he wasn’t drafted for so long. He added that he believed in himself and his value throughout the process.
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