“We couldn’t believe our guy was still on the board …” So proclaimed the 30 or so NFL GMs whose teams made picks in last night’s opening round of the 2025 draft. Some of them, though, may actually have a case. The Raiders, for example, probably expected someone to leapfrog them for RB Ashton Jeanty, but he was in fact still there at #6; the Colts were always going to take a TE at #14, but probably never expected that it would be Tyler Warren; and it was the same story at #15 where the Falcons were pretty much committed to taking someone who could get after the QB, but likely figured the only way for a shot at Jalon Walker would be to trade up into the top ten. Meanwhile, the huge gathering of Green Bay fans at the draft last night got rewarded when the Packers were able to snap up speedy WR Matthew Golden, the fastest man in the draft, with the 23rd pick. And then right at the end of the draft, the Super Bowl champion Eagles may have pulled yet another draft coup by moving up one spot with the Chiefs to get LB Jihaad Campbell, a top 10-15 prospect who dropped because of injury concerns.
All that said, there was a bit of a juxtaposition in last night’s first round as the first 7 picks came off the board pretty much by the numbers only to be followed by a half dozen or so picks that could only be described as ‘somewhat’ surprising. Carolina, for example, were thought to be focused on ERs with the 8th pick, but instead took WR Tetairoa McMillan, one-time top 10 talent who had purportedly slipped deeper in the draft because of questionable long-end speed; then New Orleans passed on a QB and an ER themselves at #9 to take G/T Kelvin Banks, another one-time top 10 guy who many thought had slipped much closer to the bottom of the round; Chicago went into the draft looking to add a real impact player on offence, but ended up with a TE (Colston Loveland) who wasn’t the top-rated guy at the position; San Francisco then went with potential over productivity taking DE Mykel Williams; while Dallas, another team that went into the draft looking for an explosive play-maker, but came away with yet another offensive lineman, the 3rd time in the last 4 years. In the case of the Cowboys, we are wondering if it might be a bit of a reactive move getting someone they hope can deal with Philadelphia’s very disruptive DT Jordan Davis.
Meanwhile, anyone wondering about the direction college football is going in probably got more than a few clues last night. Indeed, 26 of the 32 players selected in this year’s opening round were from either the SEC or the Big Ten. The SEC, in fact, had 15 players – almost half of the total – selected last evening, while the Big Ten had 11. In contrast, there were only two players selected from either the ACC or Big XII, while there was one (Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty) from the non-Power 4 conferences and 1 (North Dakota State OT Grey Zabel) from the FCS ranks.And that distribution isn’t likely to get a whole lot fairer any time soon. For the record, national champion Ohio State led all teams with 4 players selected, although all 4 were taken at the bottom of the round. At the same time, Michigan, Georgia and Texas had three players selected each, while Alabama, Penn State, and Mississippi had a couple each.
