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Draft season lasts quite a long time. That gives prognosticators plenty of chances to guess at how things will turn out. Quite often, the experts get things right. Everybody knew Caleb Williams would go No. 1. Everybody knew the first round would be extremely offense-heavy. Everybody knew that the offensive tackle and wide receiver classes were excellent.
But of course, there was also stuff that the draft experts got wrong. In the space below, we’re going to detail a few of those misses.
No trade-downs inside the top five
All throughout the pre-draft process, there were rumors that one or more of the teams in the top five would trade down, with any number of other teams looking to move up and nab one of the top quarterbacks. The rumors about the Commanders trading out of No. 2 died out fairly quickly, but it was thought right up until draft day that the Patriots could move down from No. 3 and that the Cardinals and Chargers could each be interested in trading out of Nos. 4 of 5, respectively. But none of that happened. Everyone in the top five stuck and picked, with Williams going No. 1 to Chicago, Jayden Daniels No. 2 to Washington, Drake Maye No. 3 to New England, Marvin Harrison Jr. No. 4 to Arizona, and Joe Alt No. 5 to Los Angeles.
It was widely accepted that Williams would go No. 1, and that Daniels and Maye, in some order, would be the second and third quarterbacks off the board — if not necessarily the Nos. 2 and 3 picks. But it was also a near universally held belief that McCarthy would be the next QB selected, whether by a team like the Giants at No. 6 overall or by someone jumping into the top five or so via trade. Instead, McCarthy lasted until the No. 10 pick, and Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. was actually the fourth quarterback picked, landing in Atlanta. Speaking of which …
Falcons taking the first defensive player
Pretty much everybody had the Falcons going with a defensive player. Maybe it was Alabama’s Dallas Turner or Terrion Arnold or Toledo’s Quinyon Mitchell or Texas’ Byron Murphy II. Not many had them taking an offensive player, and even fewer had them going with a quarterback. But that’s exactly what happened when the Falcons shocked the world — and their recently acquired starting quarterback, Kirk Cousins — by picking Penix at No. 8 overall.
The window for Bowers to come off the board seemingly started at No. 9 with the Bears, even if they seemed more likely to take a receiver than a tight end. But the Broncos at No. 12 were considered a possible landing spot, along with teams like the Colts, Bengals and Rams a little bit farther down in the teens. But almost nobody had connected him to the Raiders, who picked Michael Mayer in the second round of last year’s draft. Las Vegas investing two premium picks in the tight end position in back-to-back seasons came as a major surprise.
There was widespread agreement that Mitchell would be a first-round pick. For most of the draft process, he was considered ahead of his former Texas teammate, Xavier Worthy. And there were rumors that Franklin could go late first or early second. Instead, Mitchell fell to the Colts in the back half of the first round, while Franklin dropped all the way to the fourth, where he was snatched up by former Oregon teammate Bo Nix’s new team, the Broncos.
Cowboys drafting a running back
There was perhaps no more obvious need entering draft season than the one the Cowboys had in the backfield. Texas’ Jonathon Brooks was a popular name connected to them quite often in the second round, along with Florida State’s Trey Benson, Wisconsin’s Braelon Allen, and Tennessee’s Jaylen Wright. But not only did the Cowboys not draft any of those players — and they passed on Allen, Wright, and several others at the tail end of the third round — they did not draft a running back at all. Their lone addition to the backfield was undrafted free agent Nathaniel Peat from Missouri. And of course, they’re re-signing Ezekiel Elliott, who has been in steep decline for years and is no longer considered a quality back by anyone not named Jerry Jones.
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