2027 NFL Draft: Colin Simmons Is the Top Edge Because the Position Says So, Not the Tape
ESPN's Week 4 draft notes ask whether Colin Simmons is the 2027 class's runaway top edge rusher. That framing is doing more work than it looks. Naming a prospect the clear No. 1 at his position in September, 18 months before the draft, isn't really a compliment to Simmons. It's a statement about how thin the edge group behind him appears.
Fair or not, Simmons benefits from the position he plays. Edge rushers get drafted high and paid higher, so the market rewards the first good one off the board more than it rewards the best player at a cheaper position. That's the structural reason his name sits in the top-five conversation while a more productive player doesn't.
Jadan Baugh is the test case. He has 11 touchdowns this season and has topped 135 rushing yards in all four of Florida's games, per The Athletic's draft takeaways, which credits him with a rare combination of strength, contact balance and agility. That's not a hot streak. That's four games of a workload most backs don't survive.
So the real question for Baugh isn't whether he can play. It's what a team will pay for a running back. Recent drafts have treated the position as a second-contract problem rather than a first-round one, and no amount of September production changes how front offices price it. If Baugh tests well in the spring, he can climb into the first round. If he doesn't, 11 touchdowns buys him a Day 2 slot and nothing more.
Simmons' case is simpler and stronger. If he is the top edge, the top edge usually goes early. Positional scarcity does the arguing for him, and the questions ESPN raises about him are the kind that get answered by default when nobody behind him separates.
My verdict: Simmons is a top-five pick by April, and the clean top-edge label holds unless someone produces a dominant second half. Baugh is the better story and the worse bet. Running back production in September is the cheapest commodity in the draft, and the league has repeatedly shown it won't pay first-round prices for it. He'll need the testing numbers to make the argument for him.
