The primary and maximum necessary factor you want to grasp about any piece of winners/losers draft content material is that it’s nearly indisputably mistaken. Actually, it could simply be hilariously mistaken. It’s assured to be incomplete.
Ultimate 12 months, for instance, it sort of feels lovely not likely that anybody wrote a rapid-reaction recap appropriately figuring out Puka Nacua, C.J. Stroud, Sam LaPorta, Jayden Reed and Tank Dell as 5 of the finest and maximum impactful picks in all the draft. You would possibly not have straight away learned the Rams, Packers and Lions had been large and impressive winners of the 2023 offseason, however they indisputably had been.
After all, for this reason we like the NFL. It has an unending capability to ship outrageous plot twists.
Additionally, to be truthful, any considerate 2023 post-draft winners/losers column unquestionably were given a couple of giant issues proper. Whilst we will make no promises that we’re hitting on each key level on this 12 months’s version of first-round winners and losers, we do really feel lovely assured that we’re hitting on a couple of necessary topics.
Let’s simply start on the most sensible …
It’s tricky to overstate simply how uncommon it’s for a quarterback decided on first general to step right into a scenario as talent-rich as the only expecting Williams. Underneath standard instances, the staff in ownership of the draft’s No. 1 decide has arrived at this type of spot thru gross mismanagement and/or catastrophically dangerous success. A 12 months in the past, Bryce Younger was once airdropped right into a barren barren region of an offense; he had necessarily no likelihood at a a success season.
However the state of affairs forward for Williams is remarkably other. He’s simply been passed the keys to an offense that’s completely loaded with playmakers, together with a couple of elite veteran receivers (DJ Moore and Keenan Allen), a rookie with Professional Bowl doable (Rome Odunze), two superb tight ends (Cole Kmet and Gerald Everett) and one of the vital league’s premier receiving backs (D’Andre Swift).
Each participant discussed within the earlier sentence would had been probably the most dynamic offensive weapon on Younger’s Panthers final season. Chicago’s offensive line isn’t gonna remind someone of the ’90s Cowboys, however a minimum of it’s now not 5 turnstiles.
Williams shouldn’t have a lot bother obliterating all significant single-season passing data for this century-old franchise — possibly getting it achieved as a rookie, and indisputably earlier than the expiration of his first contract. (Shamefully, the ones single-season data — 3,838 yards, 29 TDs — don’t even achieve the baselines that we believe first rate within the present period.) He’s been dealt one of the vital preferrred arms you’ll ever see a first-overall decide obtain.
Winners don’t get a lot more glaring than this.
Odunze himself most certainly isn’t headed for a huge goal overall in 12 months one, however he’s a surprisingly polished participant and — possibly extra importantly — he was once obviously Caleb’s man. Odunze and Williams are in sync in the case of age and contract, too.
Chicago simply had a impressive and transformative evening, which is a wild factor to jot down.
Any other giant winner in the similar department: J.J. McCarthy
Truthfully, the NFC North palms race is sort of out of management. Those groups are merely throwing player-acquisition haymakers. It’s wild.
The offensive guns to be had to McCarthy are a minimum of as spectacular because the supporting forged expecting Williams in Chicago. When he’s taking the controls of the Vikings offense, McCarthy may have Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison (and sooner or later T.J. Hockenson) along, plus Aaron Jones within the backfield. He’ll even be safe by means of a line that PFF rated because the league’s third-best pass-blocking unit in 2023.
Let’s simply think that when taking McCarthy at 10, Minnesota gained’t be beginning Sam Darnold for extraordinarily lengthy, if in any respect. McCarthy wasn’t a quantity man final season at Michigan, however he was once sensible in giant moments and wonderfully environment friendly. There’s little or no query he could make bread-and-butter NFL throws. The final time McCarthy was once in a mediocre or dropping surroundings was once by no means. He’s a transparent draft evening winner. This was once most certainly the best-case lifelike state of affairs for Jefferson and Addison, as smartly.
Simple winners: Marvin Harrison Jr. and Kyler Murray
It’s nearly as though Kyler knew one thing was once up:
One thing about lately simply feels proper, vibes are immaculate..🥋
— Kyler Murray (@K1) April 25, 2024
Arizona simply crammed its maximum obtrusive want with the consensus preferrred participant to be had, a near-perfect receiving prospect who produced outrageous numbers over more than one collegiate seasons. Harrison completely shredded the finest defenses on his agenda, together with the previous two nationwide champions. We simply wanted him to seek out his approach to a reliable quarterback in a non-radioactive offense and, fortunately, it took place. Harrison is as NFL-ready because it will get. With out query, he can sneak into the highest 10 or 12 at his place as a rookie.
Murray clearly wanted a field-tilting, difference-making receiver within the worst manner, so, yeah, the vibes are, in truth, immaculate. With Harrison, Trey McBride and Michael Wilson as his most sensible guns, his setup is all at once superb. Murray completed as the total QB3 again in 2020, and he has a practical trail to a identical end-of-year rank in 2024.
In an instant after his staff decided on Xavier Worthy, a receiver with weapons-grade velocity, Mahomes made his emotions transparent:
If 15 is excited, the decide is most certainly a winner.
Worthy brings cartoonish 4.21 velocity to a receiving corps that in the past added Marquise Brown in unfastened company, so this staff is considerably extra bad than final 12 months’s staff. Mahomes already has two 5,000-yard passing seasons on his resume and would possibly rather well be headed for a 3rd.
Flagrant and outrageous losers: The Atlanta Falcons
Did the Falcons assume this was once Superflex?
It’s so tough to consider the common sense at the back of Atlanta’s first-round resolution. Michael Penix Jr. is an engaging sufficient QB prospect who made one of the most maximum spectacular throws of any participant on this draft magnificence, however, um … YOU JUST SIGNED KIRK [EXPLETIVE] COUSINS.
Ultimate month, this staff gave Cousins 4 years and $180 million, of which $100 million is assured. Penix can be a 24-year-old rookie and he’s it sounds as if gonna sit down for 2 or perhaps 3 seasons. A completely breathtaking decide. Atlanta simply used the 8th general variety on a participant who A) doesn’t fill a necessity and B) gained’t give a contribution in 2024 or 2025 if issues pass consistent with plan.
Unreal.
Additionally, Cousins by no means noticed it coming:
As all of us sit down in surprise over the Atlanta decide, a supply tells me Kirk Cousins simply as “surprised” and “upset” By no means mentioned anything else to him or his reps a couple of QB in 1st around regardless of suggesting they’d. Nonetheless “it’s a industry”
— Jane Slater (@SlaterNFL) April 26, 2024
It kind of feels dangerous to make a choice a participant with the 8th decide who in an instant sends all the group into damage-control mode.
Let’s no longer name it a complete L, but it surely’s additionally no longer a W: Malik Nabers
Simply to be transparent, this was once the correct decide for the Giants, a staff that entered the draft with a dreadful receiving corps. Nabers is an electrical participant coming off a monster collegiate season. New York was once reportedly rebuffed of their try to business as much as the 1/3 decide, so QB was once it sounds as if off the board. Nabers suits a screaming want, without a doubt.
The most obvious drawback here’s that the individual answerable for getting the soccer to Nabers within the 12 months forward can be both Daniel Jones or — if issues take a nasty/bizarre flip — Drew Lock. The Giants haven’t averaged 200 passing yards according to recreation in any season since 2019 they usually would possibly not get there in 2024.
So the staff context is ostensibly no longer tremendous, which most likely caps the ceiling for Nabers within the WR2/WR3 vary.
No approach to spin it as anything else as opposed to a loss: Brock Bowers
One week in the past, we speculated at the in all probability touchdown spots for Bowers, and it sounds as if, we centered too intently at the wealthy offensive environments.
Bowers didn’t, in truth, land with Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers or every other good-to-great quarterback. As a substitute, he is headed to Vegas, the place he is caught within the Gardner Minshew/Aidan O’Connell theater of ache, preventing for scraps at the back of Davante Adams and Jakobi Meyers.
In case you’d been dreaming of a state of affairs through which Bowers may be able to ship a LaPorta-ish first season, sorry. Ain’t going down. It is extraordinarily uncommon traditionally for a rookie tight finish to make an enormous myth splash and Bowers indisputably does not have a transparent trail.
Let’s additionally recall that the Raiders drafted tight finish Michael Mayer with the thirty fifth general decide final 12 months, and Bowers is now buried in a nasty offense’s receiving hierarchy. Only a tricky scene for all concerned.
Recently dropping, would possibly keep dropping: Justin Herbert
Glance, there’s a lotta draft left, so we may well be feeling very other about Herbert’s outlook in some other 24 or 48 hours. And good day, it’s no longer as though the Chargers didn’t recuperate on Thursday once they decided on take on Joe Alt. This staff would possibly rather well double-up on receivers within the rounds forward — a state of affairs just lately instructed by means of Matt Harmon — and go away us all feeling quite higher in regards to the intensity and skill on their roster on the place.
However, smartly … [big exhale] … Rome Odunze and Malik Nabers had been each at the board when the 5th decide rolled round and L.A. mentioned, “Nope.” One or either one of the ones guys may just sooner or later make this staff really feel as though it made an era-defining mistake.
Herbert after all already misplaced his 3 most-targeted receiving choices from 2023 — Keenan Allen, Austin Ekeler and Gerald Everett — plus the staff minimize unfastened Mike Williams, a man with a couple of one,000-yard seasons to his credit score.
As of lately, Herbert is a quarterback directing a Jim Harbaugh-Greg Roman offense and his most sensible receiving threats are Quentin Johnston, Josh Palmer and, um … Hayden Hurst? Yikes.
Herbert is these days running with a bottom-three receiving room. However possibly the Chargers can nonetheless draft their manner right into a bottom-10 receiving room. Once more: Yikes.
One minor sure is that the Chargers’ post-pick press convention yielded an all-time Harbaugh quote, for which we will all be grateful.