‘We can’t believe our guy was still there’ … Its the morning after in the NFL and as usual just about every GM in the league is gushing about not really expecting the guy they selected in last night’s opening round to have still been on the board when they got on the clock. Most years its just hyperbole, but this year it may very well have been true. It may have been because of the early run on QBs pushing other talented prospects down the board, but pretty much right through the draft, but especially after the first dozen or so picks came off the board, we kept saying to ourselves ‘nice pick, good pick, and even in some cases great pick!’ Teams that really may not have expected their guy to be there included Las Vegas, which got TE Brock Bowers at #13, Minnesota which got DE Dallas Turner at #17, the LA Rams who got DE Jared Verse at #19, Philadelphia which got CB Q Mitchell at #22, Jacksonville which got WR Brian Thomas at #23, and Detroit which got CB Terrion Arnold at #24.
The other thing that kind of jumped out was just how much last night’s opening round went by the numbers. Other than perhaps QBs Michael Penix and Bo Nix who did go earlier than most analysts expected, just about every player selected in the opening round tended to be within picks or so of where they were projected to go. Of the 32 players selected in the opening, 28 for example, were ranked in the top 32 on our big board, while a 29th was ranked 33rd. And we’re not necessarily bragging on ourselves because that was pretty much the same for just about every other prominent analyst out there. In fact, the only two players selected outside our top 40 were the final two picks of the night in WRs Ricky Pearsall and Xavier Legette who were selected 31st and 32nd respectively by San Francisco and Carolina, and even those two players were 41st and 44th on our board and weren’t that big a surprise to go late in the first. In contrast, in past year, one tended to see surprise picks come off the board as early as the late teens, while once we got into the latter part of the opening round it wasn’t unusual to see teams going off the reservation to find a player that fit their specific needs. We’ll see if that trend continues through the second and third rounds which get underway at 7 PM ET later this evening.
One other thing that that jumps out about last night’s draft was just how few trades there ultimately were. Indeed, there were only 5 trades overall, with just two taking place before the 20th pick. As well, two of those picks, Minnesota flipping the 10th and 11th picks with the Jets to get QB JJ McCarthy and Carolina and Buffalo flipping the final pick of the opening round and the first selection tonight, involved teams moving up one spot. In addition, the Panthers-Bills trade for the 32nd and 33rd picks was the only trade involving a 2024 2nd round selection. All that’s against a background in which a whole bunch of trades were being projected prior to the draft.
