- The Jack Settleman Newsletter
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- 2026 NFL Draft Social Report
Today is a special edition of the newsletter and one that I get fired up to write every year.
Until this year…this year has left me quite sad.
In today’s newsletter, I’ll be breaking down the social growth for 20 players now on NFL teams as well as takeaways + a comparison to last year and 2024.
The players for my study:
Fernando Mendoza |
Caleb Downs |
Makai Lemon |
Arvell Reese |
Jeremiyah Love |
Jordyn Tyson |
Sonny Styles |
Carnell Tate |
K.C. Concepcion |
Ty Simpson |
Francis Mauigoa |
David Bailey |
Rueben Bain Jr. |
Drew Allar |
Kenyon Sadiq |
Diego Pavia |
Kadyn Proctor |
Carson Beck |
Taylen Green |
Skyler Gill-Howard |
I tallied up their social media following by platform pre-draft and have the metrics now a week later.
Of the 20 prospects:
20 had Instagram
18 had an X account
10 had a Tik Tok account
1 had a YouTube Channel
And it sucks to write this for a 2nd straight year but I don’t track Snapchat anymore. It’s so culturally irrelevant that any player with a Snapchat is doing it for fun.
Now there’s one platform that deserves to be highlighted because they’ve really done a fantastic job as it pertains to the draft.
LinkedIn.
Fernando Mendoza famously is a LinkedIn user.
Whether it was making his profile picture #OpenToWork in between the National Championship and NFL Draft or dming me on the platform
LinkedIn followed up by running a commercial featuring Mendoza during the draft.
The only reason there’s a YouTube channel on the list is because I hand picked Skyler Gill-Howard, a new member of the Detroit Lions.
We met him during our Snapback Saturdays at Texas Tech last fall.
He posted 2 episodes about his road to the draft and will have a 3rd one coming out capturing what being drafted was like.
I mentioned above that I was sad about this year’s class.
That’s because I love social media, content, branding, business and the intersection of it all.
So while all these retired legends are screaming from the mountaintop about how important building that content and brand are while you can, these young players don’t seem to be taking advantage.
In 2024
14/14 IG, 14/14 on X, 4/14 on TikTok, 0 on YT
In 2025,
13/13 IG, 12/13 on X, 5/13 on TikTok, 3 on YT
As you can see, we’ve regressed in the YT channel department and, as you will see in the numbers, in the overall activity
Let’s get into it