Where does Davis Mills fit in the 2021 NFL Draft?

The 2021 NFL Draft will be here before we know it, and ahead of draft time, it’s always fun to look at where, who, how and when all of the available players could be slotted to be drafted. The Stanford Cardinal lost starting QB Davis Mills to the draft earlier this week and with his declaration, we can now look at where he ranks among the rest of the class’ quarterbacks.

Mills penned a note, announcing his decision to enter the draft:

“To everyone who has impacted my time at Stanford – Coach (David) Shaw, Coach (Tavita) Pritchard, the rest of the coaching staff, strength staff, trainers, and everyone involved within the program – thank you for your belief and investment in me, and for helping to prepare me for the ultimate goal.”

In a short and subtle note, sort of like his career, Mills is headed to the NFL after winning four straight to close out the 2020 season. He finished his Stanford career with 11 starts over 13 games and completed 65.8% of his passes for 3,468 yards and 18 touchdowns. He earned honorable mention in 2019 after just a handful of games worth of action in relief of K.J. Costello, missed the start of the 2020 season due to a false-positive coronavirus test and finished the year showing off some incredible athleticism.

He broke school records for passing yards in a game and had a dramatic come-from-behind victory over UCLA in double-overtime to cap his career. He’ll finish his degree in science, technology and society before ultimately being drafted this April.

And as of the turn of the New Year, Mills is still finding his place on draft boards across the country.

In fact, it’s still relatively hard to find him on any mock draft or any ‘big board’ of prospect rankings. The only ‘major’ ranking service is Walter Football, though I wouldn’t call Walter Football a major service, it just happens to have good SEO and populates to the top of most searches.

Still, Walter Football has him ranked as the 15th- or 14th-best QB for this class. The decision to enter the draft is understandable for Mills, and he will assuredly join an NFL team soon, it’s just another interesting discussion to be had over the course of the next few months as to where he’ll land and how high he can shoot up draft boards through a variety of testing measures.

It’s looking like he’ll have to hope to test relatively well in order to get on some of the nation’s big boards before too long, but we’ll definitely stay on top of them.

Here’s hoping for the best for you, Davis! We’ll be cheering you on!