Unlikely stars in the NFL: Brock Purdy, Maxx Crosby headline players who have risen above draft selection
First-rounders aren't the only players who can become stars in the NFL
By
Jared Dubin
•
6 min read
In the NFL, everyone knows who the star players are. They get an outsized share of the attention, and rightfully so.
Most of the time, those star players are the type of guys we expect to become star players as soon as they enter the league. First-round picks are significantly more likely to become Pro Bowlers and All-Pros than are players drafted in any other round. It makes sense, given that they are the most talented players and will get more opportunity to prove themselves than those selected at any other point in the draft.
But just because that's where it's most common to find star players, doesn't mean you can't find them elsewhere. Stars are available to NFL teams throughout the draft and even, occasionally, after the draft ends. So before the 2025 season kicks off, we want to take some space to salute some of the more unlikely stars in the sport at the moment.
We'll highlight one player at each position: Quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, tackle, interior offensive line, edge, interior defensive line, linebacker, cornerback and safety.
Quarterback
Brock Purdy is one of the most unlikely star players in NFL history. Famously the single last pick of the 2022 NFL Draft, Purdy has become a borderline top 10 quarterback. He's a former Pro Bowler who finished fourth in MVP voting in 2023. He actually checks in first in EPA per dropback since he entered the league, according to TruMedia, as well as in both yards per attempt and passing success rate. Some of that is obviously due to the Death Star-style offense the 49ers constructed, but even with many of those players out last year, Purdy piloted an offense that ranked 10th in EPA per play.
Running back
Kyren Williams got talked up before the start of his rookie season, but unfortunately got injured on the opening special-teams snap of the year. He carried the ball only 35 times for 139 yards. Since then, he's been the Rams' bell cow back, averaging nearly 22 total touches per game in 2023 and 2024 while rushing for 2,443 yards and 26 touchdowns. The Rams just made him a very rich man with a $33 million extension, too.
Wide receiver
Puka Nacua was remarkably efficient in college, but injury issues knocked him down to deep into Day 3 of the draft. He made that look silly right away, setting a rookie record for receptions and making both the Pro Bowl and the All-Pro Second Team. He was just as productive on a per-game basis last year. The only reason he didn't repeat in postseason awards is because of those aforementioned injury issues: he missed six games with injuries. Still, he's cemented himself as one of the NFL's very best receivers.
Tight end
George Kittle has been a star for so long that it's easy to forget that it was never guaranteed -- or even likely -- that he'd become one. Kittle caught a grand total of 48 passes for 737 yards and 10 touchdowns in his four seasons at Iowa. People knew he could block, and they knew he could make the occasional splash play when given actual opportunities in the passing game, but it's clear that nobody foresaw him becoming what he eventually has. If they did, he'd obviously have gone much earlier in the draft.
Offensive tackle
Jordan Mailata might be the most unlikely star in the league right now. He's a former rugby league player who joined the NFL via the International Player Pathway Program after never having played football before. The Eagles and offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland identified and selected him, and he sat on the bench for two-plus seasons before entering the starting lineup early in the 2020 campaign. He's since become one of the best left tackles in the sport and was named a second-team All-Pro last year. It's an incredible story.
Guard
Trey Smith was the less-heralded of Kansas City's two interior offensive line draft picks in 2021, with the Chiefs selecting Creed Humphrey in the second round. But he has become a star in the same was as has his teammate. He finally made the Pro Bowl for the first time in 2024, and heading into the prime of his career, it wouldn't be all that surprising if there were many more of those berths in his future.
Edge
As a fourth-round pick, Maxx Crosby was already pretty unlikely to become the type of player he's become. Especially when you consider that he was productive but not overwhelmingly so at Eastern Michigan. But his journey upon entering the league, where he struggled with alcohol issues and had to enter rehab in 2020, makes his ascension to these heights even more unlikely. Since then, all he's done is make four Pro Bowls and two All-Pro teams (second team in both instances), racking up 42.5 sacks and 75 tackles for loss (leading the league in that stat twice) while tying Micah Parsons for the most pressures in the league over the last four years.
Defensive tackle
Zach Sieler is one of the most out-of-nowhere stars in football. As we wrote when naming him to our 2025 Survivor Squad, "Sieler is a player who has totally exploded over the last two years. After totaling 10 sacks through his first five NFL seasons, he notched 10 of them in both 2023 and 2024. He finished ninth among interior defenders in pressures last season and he did it while lining up near exclusively in B gaps. That's a dominant interior rushman." He hasn't earned any postseason honors just yet, but those will come if he keeps this up.
Linebacker
Zack Baun was a third-round pick and therefore doesn't seem like that unlikely a star player, but that elides the reason it's so surprising: he broke out while playing an entirely different position than the one we thought he'd play in the NFL. During his time with the Saints, Baun was an edge rusher who didn't rush very well off the edge, so he was relegated largely to special-teams duty. The Eagles made him an off-ball linebacker last year, and he quickly became one of the best in the NFL, making the All-Pro first team and earning himself a monster contract this past offseason.
Cornerback
Charvarius Ward went undrafted and was traded before the start of his first NFL season. The player for whom he was traded (offensive lineman Parker Ehinger) never even played for the team that swapped Ward for him (the Cowboys). That's how unlikely it was that Ward would even become an NFL player in the first place. And yet, over the course of his time in Kansas City, he gradually became a No. 1 cornerback. The 49ers paid him that way a few years ago and he had three really strong years in San Francisco. He moved on to Indianapolis after a personal tragedy made staying in the Bay less desirable, but he's still a damn good corner.
Safety
Ward's former 49ers teammate, Talanoa Hufanga only even emerged as a starter, let alone a star, because of injuries in the San Francisco secondary. When he got an opportunity, though, Hufanga ran with it and become an All-Pro in 2022. Injuries have limited him over the last two seasons, but moving to Denver to join the loaded Broncos defense should bring the best out of him again, so long as he can manage to stay on the field.
