NFL draft review
Grading all 32 teams 2C; 40 things learned
Trades, slides and milestones — no one could have predicted this. The NFL draft was eye-opening in several respects, and here’s a rundown of the 40 takeaways you need to know.
1. We shouldn’t have been surprised, but even the NFL draft is bigger in Texas. And it was classic Jerry Jones: flashy and made for television. This was the first draft held in an NFL stadium, and the atmosphere — especially during the first round — was fantastic.
2. The league will decide in May where the next two drafts will be staged. What we’ve learned from the past two in Philly (on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art) and North Texas is the host city has the opportunity to show off its local flavor. We’d love to see the event held at the Pro Football Hall of Fame or on a snowy April day in Denver.
3. The trolling of Cowboys fans was one of the most entertaining aspects of this draft — karma that was due after Drew Pearson’s epic rant a year ago in Philadelphia. Among those who took shots at Cowboys Nation over the weekend were former NFL players including David Akers, Jerry Kramer, Justin Tuck, Merton Hanks, Michael Vick and even Chris Canty — a former Dallas draft pick who showed off the Super Bowl ring he won with the Giants.
4. As if the Cowboys-Eagles rivalry needed more juice, Philadelphia traded ahead of Dallas in the second round to take TE Dallas Goedert — yes, his name is Dallas — just hours after news leaked that Jason Witten would retire.
5. The one thing that would have made the appearance of Akers, a longtime Eagles kicker, even better as he announced the Goedert pick is if he’d done it while wearing a full Mummers costume.
6. Sometimes, deleting your old tweets isn’t enough, as QB Josh Allen learned.
7. The biggest lesson from Allen’s Twitter fiasco — when racially offensive posts he wrote in high school surfaced
24 hours before the draft — isn’t just about being careful on social media. It’s that tweeting racial slurs, even in reference to song lyrics or in what you think is a joke between friends, is never OK.
8. It’s notable that the only team to speak to Allen directly about the tweets Thursday (rather than just calling his agent) was Buffalo, which traded up to take him at No. 7.
9. Allen handled questions about the tweets well. Now he has to answer to his new teammates. But here’s the silver lining: No one was asking about his
56% completion percentage at Wyoming.
10. Perhaps the luckiest team in the first round was the Jets, who made a bold move to trade up from No. 6 to No.
3 weeks ago without any certainty which quarterbacks would be available. Maybe the Jets did love Baker Mayfield, but they wound up with Sam Darnold, the closest thing to a consensus top quarterback in this class.
11. Still, the most intriguing quarterback move of the first round might have been the last one, with the Ravens trading to take Lamar Jackson at No. 32.
12. Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome, a Hall of Fame tight end, took 12 players in his final draft.
13. Adding Jackson means the Rav- ens now have two Heisman Trophywinning quarterbacks on the roster. And Joe Flacco. (They signed Robert Griffin III this year.)
14. Jackson’s arrival surely seems likely to hasten the end of Flacco’s tenure in Baltimore. Flacco, whose contract runs through 2021, has no guaranteed money left after 2018, and the team has a potential out after 2019.
15. More Jackson intrigue: Consider the Ravens coaching staff, with offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg (he coached Michael Vick in Philadelphia) and Greg Roman (he designed plays for Colin Kaepernick in 2012).
16. Will there be another changing of the guard in the AFC North aside from Baltimore? The Steelers look as if they’ve finally drafted a player capable of eventually replacing Ben Roethlisberger in third-round pick Mason Rudolph.
17. Leighton Vander Esch had the swankiest ride to visit his new team. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones sent his helicopter to pick up the first-round linebacker Friday and fly him to his introductory news conference.
18. But Vander Esch’s ride wasn’t even the best helicopter story of the draft. That belongs to Bradley Chubb’s older brother Brandon, a linebacker with the Detroit Lions, who worked out in Michigan on Thursday morning, then took a flight to Dallas, where he hired a chopper to fly him to AT&T Stadium, landing 25 minutes before the draft.
19. The underrated move of Round 1 came when the Steelers traded troubled WR Martavis Bryant to Oakland. That gives the Raiders a new receiving corps of Amari Cooper, Jordy Nelson and Bryant just in time to compete in a division that no longer includes CBs Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters.
20. When Raiders coach Jon Gruden said at the combine he wanted to take the game back to 1998, we thought he was talking about the pre-analytics era. But with the addition of Bryant, who has served multiple marijuana-related suspensions, and former LSU pass rusher Arden Key, who was reported to have gone to rehab for marijuana last year, Gruden is taking the Silver & Black back to its bad-boy roots.
21. These are high-risk, high-reward moves for the Raiders, who need to surround franchise players Derek Carr and Khalil Mack with better talent.
22. Maybe this sends a wake-up call to Baton Rouge, given LSU’s two best players in this draft, Key and RB Derrius Guice, both plummeted because of offfield concerns.
23. The Browns took RB Nick Chubb early in the second round. They essentially spent $17 million on the pick when they acquired it along with QB Brock Osweiler last year. Osweiler didn’t make Cleveland’s roster, and the Browns paid more than $15 million of his salary last season while he played for the Broncos.
24. Browns GM John Dorsey isn’t afraid to take players with character flags. In his first draft with Cleveland, Dorsey picked Florida WR Antonio Callaway, who reportedly failed a drug test at the combine, was suspended in 2017 for alleged involvement in credit card fraud and investigated in 2016 for sexual battery. (Dorsey, while the general manager of the Chiefs, in 2016 drafted Tyreek Hill, who pleaded guilty to a domestic violence charge.)
25. Indianapolis QB Andrew Luck has to love that two of GM Chris Ballard’s first three picks were guards, including first-rounder Quenton Nelson.
26. One-handed LB Shaquem Griffin was already going to be the feel-good story of the draft, but somehow it got even better when the Seahawks picked him. Griffin reunites with twin Shaquill, a cornerback drafted by the Seahawks last year.
27. Look for Griffin to contribute immediately as a special teamer with the potential to become a special player at outside linebacker lined up next to Bobby Wagner.
28. It’s easy to love the Patriots’ pick of Georgia RB Sony Michel at No. 31, especially after they lost Dion Lewis in free agency. But it didn’t fit Bill Belichick’s style. The last time the Pats used a first-rounder on a running back? Laurence Maroney in 2006.
29. Clear message from John Elway that the Broncos are building around Case Keenum. Elway passed on Allen and fellow QB Josh Rosen, taking offensive players (WR Courtland Sutton and RB Royce Freeman) with his first two picks Friday.
30. The Texans had to wait until the third round to make their first pick, and it was an interesting one: Stanford S Justin Reid — you know, the younger brother of fellow S Eric Reid, who is currently unemployed after protesting during the national anthem for the past two seasons. Houston owner Bob McNair has been one of the most ardent supporters of President Trump.
31. Don’t look now, but the Chargers are quietly assembling a seriously dangerous defensive lineup.
32. How much did Orlando Brown Jr.’s disastrous combine cost him? The Oklahoma tackle, once seen as a potential first-round pick, fell to the third round, where he was drafted by the Ravens.
33. It was always a long shot that Raiders GM Reggie McKenzie would draft his son, fellow Tennessee Volunteer Kahlil McKenzie. But having him land with AFC West rival Kansas City (with pick No. 198) should make for some awkward family dinners.
34. Through a series of trades, the Patriots flipped the second-round pick (No. 43) they received from the 49ers in the Jimmy Garoppolo deal into four more selections. New England made four total trades during the second day of the draft.
35. The NFL should keep making the gimmicks for the third-day selections even more ridiculous — if only to further infuriate NFL Network draft guru Mike Mayock. After picks were delivered this year via parrot (in Tampa), mascot in a Speedo at a Mexican restaurant (in Denver) and fans on a flatbed Ford in Winslow, Ariz. (for the Cardinals), might we suggest that at least one 2019 pick be delivered by Challenger the bald eagle while dive bombing the NFL Network set.
36. What a time to be a specialist. Four punters were drafted in the span of 24 picks in the fifth round. This draft also saw two kickers and a long snapper taken.
37. Interesting move late in the draft, with the Rams sending former firstround pick Tavon Austin to the receiver-needy Cowboys for a sixth-rounder. Don’t expect Austin to replace Dez Bryant. Instead, Jason Garrett and his staff need to find a way to highlight Austin’s speed and versatility.
38. Dorsey could qualify for a job in the CIA after the way he kept his love of Mayfield under wraps until the final hours before the draft, with most analysts and teams assuming Cleveland would choose Darnold or Allen.
39. Mayfield fueled his stellar college career by being the underdog after walking on at both Texas Tech and Oklahoma. Now he’ll have to find a new motivation, knowing that the Browns wanted him more than any other player.
40. The Patriots must not be worried about 40-year-old QB Tom Brady’s plans. At least that’s the takeaway after Belichick passed on rookie quarterbacks until finally taking Danny Etling in the seventh round.