The first round of the NFL Draft is in the books, and while there were a lot of expected picks with players going where they were projected, there were still plenty of surprises. Despite hearing a lot about trades happening in the draft, we only saw two—and both were pretty surprising, to say the least.
Let’s go over some of the winners and surprises down below for some of the players and teams.
First winner we’ll talk about is the Cleveland Browns. The fact they traded down only a few spots and picked up an extra second-round pick this year, along with another first-round pick next year, seems like highway robbery in my opinion. Sure, the Jaguars got a great talent in Travis Hunter, but the Browns still got a top-five prospect while adding more ammunition to their arsenal to select more players and better their roster.
Second winner: let’s go with Ashton Jeanty and the Raiders. Running back or not, the impact of Ashton Jeanty will be seen right from day one in the NFL. They do have more holes to fill, but I’m really excited to see what Pete Carroll can do with Jeanty after all his years coaching Marshawn Lynch.
Next up will be the New York Giants. They stuck to their plan and didn’t reach for a QB at pick 3, selecting Abdul Carter—who is arguably the best player in the draft. Adding Carter to a loaded Giants defensive line should scare NFC teams. That wasn’t it, though. They ended up trading back into the first for Jaxson Dart, who I think was the second-best QB in the class.
Dart has all the intangibles you want in a quarterback and now is in the right situation with Coach Daboll to develop him. He also has the luxury of time to sit behind Russell Wilson with no rush to come in and play this year if he doesn’t need to.
Another winner—but also a surprise for some—was Omarion Hampton. Despite being viewed as a first-round prospect, the running back position has been devalued a lot over the years. It’s great to see the importance of the position start to come back a little more nowadays, especially after the year Saquon Barkley just had leading the Eagles.
Omarion is a great blend of size and speed at the running back position. Jim Harbaugh and he are a match made in heaven with the style of play he brings. Coach Harbaugh has always had a ground-game mentality, dating back to his days in San Francisco and Michigan. Hampton can finally be the bell cow Harbaugh covets at the position with the great offensive line he’s built up.
Definitely some surprises from the first round.
First one to discuss is Shedeur Sanders falling out of Round 1 completely. No one saw this coming, but some coaches were supposedly turned off by his demeanor and attitude during meetings. Mix that with average NFL quarterback tools and it becomes less surprising—but still, a lot of analysts had him top 5 for the majority of draft season.
Next surprise was Colston Loveland being drafted over Tyler Warren. This is not a knock on Loveland at all, but it seemed like the consensus was that Warren was the better prospect of the two. Warren led a receiving room at Penn State all year long and showed amazing toughness week after week. Loveland had a better season last year with JJ McCarthy throwing him the ball but still showed great flashes with lackluster quarterback play this year.
Another surprise was the Cowboys not drafting a receiver or running back with their first pick. They ended up drafting Tyler Booker, who is a great guard prospect in his own right, but there were more pressing needs for the Cowboys. Matthew Golden and Omarion Hampton being on the board still seemed to make them the favorites to be selected, but the Cowboys bypassed them with the hopes of getting more offensive help on Day 2.
The NFL Draft is always a fun time of the year because it’s the next wave of young stars who will soon be the faces of the league. It’s great to look back and see what was missed by certain players—and who exceeded expectations.
The most underrated part of the draft that everyone forgets is how important Days 2 and 3 are to building out the actual roster. These next two days and six rounds are just as important as Thursday night.
Let’s see how it all unfolds.