There is a moment at the NFL Draft when a player’s name gets called and the camera cuts to his family in the crowd. His mother covers her mouth. His father straightens up and nods slowly, like he knew all along. Someone in the back row is already crying.
For the DMV, that moment came early on the first night. Very early.
Mansoor Delane was selected sixth overall by the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2026 NFL Draft. A kid who grew up in the Silver Spring and Severn corridor, who transferred from Landon School in Bethesda to Archbishop Spalding to find real competition, who walked onto the Virginia Tech campus as a three-star recruit and walked out four years later as the best cornerback in the country.
Number six overall. To the most successful franchise in modern NFL history.
The 2026 NFL Draft was held in Pittsburgh from April 23 to 25, and the DMV had one of its strongest draft classes in recent memory. From a first-round shutdown corner to multiple Day 2 selections drawn from Maryland’s state university and the region’s high schools and prep programs, the DMV sent a meaningful contingent of players to the league. This is the full story of each one.
Mansoor Delane, CB — #6 Overall, Kansas City Chiefs
From: Silver Spring and Severn, Maryland High school: Archbishop Spalding, Severn, Maryland College: Virginia Tech, then LSU
The headline, the lead, and the legacy of the DMV’s 2026 draft class all start here.
Delane started high school at Landon School in Bethesda, better known for lacrosse than football, where Thursday afternoon games made for a lonely freshman year. He transferred to Archbishop Spalding as a sophomore seeking real competition. An early benching that first year shaped his approach to preparation. Three years at Virginia Tech established him as one of the ACC’s most reliable corners.
The decision to transfer to LSU for his senior season was the one that put him in front of the national spotlight. He became just the 14th unanimous All-American in LSU history and the first at cornerback since Greedy Williams in 2018. He was a first-team All-SEC selection and one of three finalists for the Jim Thorpe Award as the nation’s top defensive back. In his one season at LSU, he started 11 games and recorded 45 tackles, 13 passes defended, 11 pass breakups and two interceptions.
The numbers are remarkable, but the way scouts described his tape is what moved him into the top ten. Zero touchdowns allowed across the entire year, only two receptions of 20-plus yards surrendered, and a completion percentage under 27 percent on more than 200 coverage snaps. That is not a corner who survives by technique alone. That is a corner who dictates terms.
A lock-down corner in every sense, he didn’t allow a passing touchdown and opponents had a 37.1 percent completion percentage on passes thrown in his direction. He was known for his versatility, with 138 man coverage snaps and 176 zone coverage snaps this past season. His little brother Faheem played safety at Ohio State and is transferring to LSU in 2026.
The Chiefs moved to get him. Kansas City traded up three spots, sending pick numbers 9, 74, and 148 to the Browns in exchange for number 6, which Cleveland used to select Utah offensive tackle Spencer Fano. Head coach Andy Reid said, “We thought that was important. I know a lot of the mock drafts and all that had us taking him at the ninth spot, and then people above us we knew were also interested at corner, so we felt like we needed to go up and snag him. Very similar to what we did with Trent McDuffie when you really look at it. He’s a heck of a player, heck of a kid.”
The Chiefs needed Delane because they had just traded away both Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson to the Rams. In one draft pick, they replaced both starting corners with a player who may be better than either of them.
For Archbishop Spalding, for Maryland, and for the DMV, Delane’s selection as the sixth overall pick is the kind of draft night moment that the region has been building toward for years. He was described by DC News Now as the unanimous top DMV prospect in this year’s NFL draft, a lockdown cornerback from Silver Spring who was likely to be the only local prospect selected on the first night of the NFL Draft, which is exactly what happened.
He was. And it was worth the wait.
Jalen Huskey, S — 3rd Round, #100 Overall, Jacksonville Jaguars
From: Frederick, Maryland High school: Quince Orchard, Gaithersburg, Maryland College: Bowling Green, then Maryland Terrapins
It is hard to forget Huskey’s huge impact on the state championship-winning defense at Quince Orchard in his high school days. Huskey, a native of Frederick, Maryland, transferred to Maryland after starting his college career at Bowling Green.
His path was not a straight line. After two seasons at Bowling Green he transferred to the University of Maryland, which gave him the visibility he needed. With the Terrapins he had the breakout season that put him on NFL radars. With four interceptions as a senior, he earned second-team All-Big Ten honors.
The Jaguars took him at pick 100, finding a ball-hawking safety who had been playing at the highest level of competition for two years by the time they called his name. For Frederick and for Maryland football, Huskey’s selection is a validation of what the Terrapins program has become under its current staff as a legitimate pipeline to the next level.
Jalen Fitzgerald, S — 3rd Round, Jacksonville Jaguars
From: Woodbridge, Virginia High school: Gar-Field High School, Woodbridge, Virginia College: Temple, then Tennessee
Fitzgerald attended Gar-Field in Woodbridge, Virginia. The ball-hawking safety has had an interesting path to this year’s NFL draft. He played two seasons at junior college for Coffeyville Community College in Kansas. He played two strong seasons at NC State, before breaking out in his final year at the college level at USC. Fitzgerald was a first-team AP All-American, first-team All-Big Ten and posted five interceptions, returning one for a touchdown.
The road from Gar-Field High School in Prince William County to a first-team All-American season to the NFL Draft is one of the more winding journeys in this entire class. Fitzgerald’s story is a testament to persistence and to the kind of long game that coaches and parents try to sell to young athletes who do not see a straight shot to the top. He took the scenic route and arrived at the same destination.
Elijah Sarratt, WR — 5th Round, #151 Overall, Carolina Panthers
From: Stafford, Virginia High school: Saint Frances Academy, Baltimore, Maryland College: Saint Francis University, then James Madison, then Indiana
Sarratt is one of two players from the DMV who won a national championship with Indiana this year. From Stafford, Virginia, Sarratt went to high school at Saint Frances Academy in Baltimore. He spent one season each at Saint Francis University in Pennsylvania and James Madison University before moving to Indiana for the 2025 season. Sarratt led the FBS with 15 receiving touchdowns in 2025.
Fifteen receiving touchdowns. Led the entire FBS. On the national championship team.
Sarratt’s story is the kind that gets told when people argue that the transfer portal, for all its complications, has been good for players who know what they are capable of but need the right system to show it. He followed head coach Curt Cignetti from James Madison to Indiana and became the most prolific touchdown receiver in the country in his final college season.
The Panthers took him in the fifth round at 151, which for a player with his touchdown production probably reflected concerns about his separation speed against NFL corners. But a receiver who knows how to score and who just played in the national championship game for the first time in Indiana’s history is not a player who lacks competitive experience.
Andrew Wheatley, OL — 4th Round, #102 Overall, Buffalo Bills
From: Crofton, Maryland High school: Archbishop Spalding, Severn, Maryland College: Penn State
Archbishop Spalding gave the NFL two players in this draft class, and Mansoor Delane is not even the one from Crofton.
From Crofton, Maryland, Wheatley also earned honorable mention All-Big Ten honors. He was a critical player at Penn State where he spent five seasons.
Five years at Penn State. Honorable mention All-Big Ten. Selected in the fourth round by the Bills, a team that has been building one of the most aggressive offensive lines in the AFC. Wheatley joins a Buffalo offensive line room that will immediately test whether his college development translates to an NFL workload.
For Crofton and for Archbishop Spalding, watching two of their former students get drafted on back-to-back nights of the same draft is a recruiting story the school will be telling for the next decade.
Bowry, WR — Germantown, Maryland
From: Germantown, Maryland High school: DMV-area prep
A native of Germantown, Maryland, Bowry enters the NFL with a massive ceiling. The DC News Now preview described him as a player whose physical tools project well at the next level, a wide receiver from the heart of Montgomery County who took the longer road to the draft.
McMurray, DB — UDFA, Minnesota Vikings
From: Upper Marlboro, Maryland High school: DMV-area prep College: Temple, then Tennessee
McMurray played with some top draft talent in the secondary at Tennessee and played with former NFL first-round picks Caleb Williams and Olu Fashanu at Gonzaga College High School. In his final season in Knoxville, McMurray started nine games, posting an impressive five pass breakups. McMurray grew up in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.
He signed as an undrafted free agent with the Minnesota Vikings, giving him a legitimate opportunity to compete for a roster spot. Undrafted free agent signings at the skill positions from high-quality programs routinely make 53-man rosters, and McMurray’s background at Gonzaga College High School in DC and his final season at Tennessee give him a competitive foundation.
For Upper Marlboro and for PG County, McMurray’s signing is another data point in the ongoing argument that the county’s football talent pool is deeper than national recruiting services consistently credit.
The DMV Class in Context
What this draft class represents, taken together, is the maturation of a football pipeline that the DMV has been quietly developing for more than a decade.
Archbishop Spalding in Severn, Maryland produced both the sixth overall pick in the entire draft and a fourth-round offensive lineman in the same year. Quince Orchard in Gaithersburg produced a third-round safety. Gar-Field in Woodbridge produced another defensive back who went in the third round. Indiana’s national championship team, whose quarterback Fernando Mendoza went first overall in the same draft, carried a wide receiver from Stafford, Virginia who led the entire country in touchdown receptions.
This is not an accident. The DMV has become one of the most talent-rich recruiting corridors on the East Coast, a reality that is reflected in the depth of rosters at Maryland, Virginia Tech, Penn State, and increasingly at programs like Indiana and LSU that are willing to reach into the region’s transfer portal pipeline for proven producers.
The Washington Commanders held the seventh overall pick in this year’s draft, two spots behind Delane’s selection by the Chiefs. The irony of the region’s best prospect going to Kansas City rather than to the hometown team was not lost on DMV football fans, who took to social media in equal measures of pride and mild frustration.
But the pride won out. Because watching a kid from Silver Spring who started his high school career on a lacrosse-dominated campus in Bethesda and transferred to Archbishop Spalding to find real competition, who walked onto Virginia Tech as a three-star recruit and became a unanimous All-American, who played one year at LSU and shut down every receiver the SEC sent at him, who sat in the green room in Pittsburgh on a Thursday night and heard his name called sixth overall — that is a DMV story that deserves to be told loudly.
The DMV sent players to the NFL in every round of the 2026 draft. It sent a player into the top ten. It sent a national champion. It sent a first-team All-American from a state championship school in Gaithersburg. It sent players who took the junior college route, the transfer portal route, and the straight path through Power Four football.
The region is producing NFL talent. The numbers prove it. And in the summer of 2026, while Mansoor Delane puts on his first Kansas City Chiefs jersey and prepares to be the shutdown corner in the NFL’s most successful modern dynasty, the DMV gets to claim him.