2019 NFL Mock Draft: Dwayne Haskins atop one team’s Christmas list
Bowl season and the holidays are in full swing, and the NFL Draft is fast approaching. How does the first round shake out in the latest 2019 NFL Mock Draft?
More: Picks and predictions for every college football bowl game with confidence points
The holiday season is the most magical time of the year for many, with dreams of better days filling stockings and imaginations.
The Christmas season this year also brings fans the hope that the magic can translate onto the football field, with many teams in the midst of disappointing seasons while others are still distracted by the thought of hoisting the Lombardi in February.
The NFL Draft is much like Christmas, the gift of new talent promising to bring brighter and better days to NFL franchises thirsty for relevance. Some teams need a lot of gifts, not merely a single player away from instant contention.
Other teams are already flush with young talent, and the gifts they are given in the first round of the draft effectively helps the rich get richer.
Some teams won’t get the gift of a first round pick, having greedily opened their present early by trading for high-profile players to help them take the next step. The Bears and Cowboys made a preseason and in-season trade with the Raiders respectively, that neither team would exchange for the chance of that coveted draft pick back.
The Bears got Khalil Mack, one of the NFL’s most feared edge rushers, who paid immediate dividends in Chicago and helped the Bears clinch their first NFC North title since 2010.
The Cowboys got Amari Cooper, providing them a sorely needed No. 1 receiver. Cooper immediately felt rejuvenated in Dallas, putting up some monster performances with the star on his helmet to help the Cowboys approach a NFC East title.
More from NFL Draft
- 5 steals from Day 3 of the 2023 NFL draft
- 5 picks that stood out on day two of 2023 NFL draft
- 2023 NFL Draft: 3 biggest winners from the first round
- Nolan Smith: Grading Eagles No. 30 NFL draft pick
- Myles Murphy: Grading the Bengals’ No. 28 overall NFL draft pick
The trades leave the Raiders with three first round picks, and what they choose to do with those picks will be one of the most interesting subplots of the draft in April. Jon Gruden has chosen to tear it all down and rebuild, hoping this draft cycle is the first piece of the puzzle as he looks to bring a winner back to the black hole.
The other interesting storyline will be what happens with the quarterbacks. The Cardinals are in the driver’s seat for the top pick, and after using a top pick last year on Josh Rosen, they won’t be in the market for the position this time around.
Their doesn’t seem to be a QB worthy of the top pick, and it remains to be seen whether the top draft-eligible signal callers, Oregon’s Justin Herbert and Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins, will declare for the draft or come back to school for one final season.
Will any other quarterbacks emerge and push for first round consideration? Who has seen their stock rise, and who has fallen since our last iteration?
Let’s take a look at our latest 2019 NFL Mock Draft and find out: