As we move on from draft season, let’s take one last look at five key lessons we learned from the way teams operated during and around this draft.

#1 Rookie QB Contracts Are Gold

Six quarterbacks were taken within the first twelve picks of the draft despite the fact that most draft experts had three or four first round grades at the position. Teams are showing a willingness to reach a bit on quarterbacks in order to ensure that they have the possibility of a starter on a rookie contract. Because all players on rookie contracts are paid according to their draft slot, the tenth pick gets paid the same whether he plays quarterback or fullback. The relative value of a rookie contract thus increases substantially for positions which cost more in free agency. That includes wide receivers, offensive tackles, edge rushers, and, most notably, quarterbacks. Smart teams have been able to save money at these positions by employing capable starters on rookie deals ever since the collective bargaining agreement in 2011 created a set rookie wage scale. Now teams are increasingly willing to reach for quarterbacks in particular in the hopes of striking gold. The reality is that a quarterback drafted in the first round has a much lower bar to clear in order to justify his contract than players at any other position.

That explains the willingness of teams like Minnesota and Denver to commit to rookie quarterbacks J.J. McCarthy and Bo Nix, respectively, rather than sticking with expensive veteran starters. Minnesota was willing to move on from a known commodity in Kirk Cousins in the hopes that McCarthy can provide at least comparable play for a fraction of the cost. Denver was willing to move on from Russell Wilson because his play the past two seasons was atrocious and historically, he has not exactly endeared himself to teammates or coaches, but they chose to commit to a rookie rather than another veteran with the same financial savings in mind. Those decisions allow the teams to spend money elsewhere to make the quarterback’s job easier. It’s not a guaranteed path to success, as even some of the best recent quarterbacks on rookie deals, like Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence, have not found team success because their teams misused the savings. But it’s a logical path as long as the quarterback turns out to be a functional starter.

What Atlanta did is altogether more shocking. The Falcons decided to pay a premium to land the best quarterback available in free agency (Cousins) and then drafted a quarterback near the top of the first round anyway. It’s a baffling move that wastes the potential savings a rookie quarterback contract is supposed to provide. If Cousins is the starter for the next few years, Atlanta wasted a potentially valuable way to improve the roster around him and take advantage of a weak division. If Michael Penix supplants him, there’s no financial savings until at least the third year of his rookie contract because the first two years of Cousins’ deal are guaranteed. The idea of using what they hope is their last premium pick for at least a few years on a quarterback makes sense until you actually look at the specifics. They’re trying to live on two separate timelines simultaneously and in reality wasted their best resource in each of them (a premium pick to support Cousins or massive cap space to surround Penix with talent).

#2 Defensive Tackle Is a Premium Position Now

I considered the defensive tackle class the second strongest position group on the defensive side in this class and expected a run on interior pass rushers somewhere in the late second or early third round. Instead, four defensive tackles got taken within the first seven picks of the second round and three others were taken in the middle of the round. They went nearly a full round earlier than I expected and I was high on the group. I don’t know anyone who expected Ruke Orhorhoro, T’Vondre Sweat, or Braden Fiske to be off the board before pick forty, let alone all three. As a Chiefs fan, I was fully expecting to have at least one of Maason Smith, Kris Jenkins, and Michael Hall on the board at the bottom of the second round in case Kansas City wanted to add a potential impact player to the defensive line rotation.

The reason for their surprising rise, I suspect, is connected to what I said about rookie contracts in discussing the quarterbacks above. Teams are aware that the best way to maximize the value of rookie contracts is to draft at premium positions where the relative savings are greater. Defensive tackles (outside of Aaron Donald, whose peak performance and contract were both historical outliers) have finally started being paid more similarly to edge rushers over the past couple offseasons. Teams have realized that while edge rushers have a better chance of racking up large sack numbers, interior pass rushers can disrupt at least as many plays by pushing the pocket back into the quarterback’s face. As the contracts for the best interior pass rushers began to rise, so too did the relative savings teams could acquire by snagging similar production on a rookie deal.

One thing to watch next year is whether the same thing starts to happen more for interior offensive linemen. Guards got paid at frankly shocking rates this offseason compared to previous years and if teams believe this is going to be a trend going forward, they may look to save money at the position with rookie contracts. If interior pass rushers are going to be paid more similarly to the edge rushing brethren, it only makes sense that the guards attempting to block them should be paid more similarly to tackles as well. The guards in this draft class largely didn’t warrant high selections but it will be interesting to see what happens when a stronger group is eligible for the draft. I suspect we could see some surprisingly high picks at the position next year.

#3 It’s All About Offense

Much of the conversation leading up to this draft was about the relative dominance of the best offensive players compared to the best defensive players. The previous record for most consecutive offensive players selected to start any draft was seven, set in 2021. Additionally, the record for most offensive players selected in the top 32 picks was 19, which had happened three times (1968, 2004, 2009). There was a lot of talk about this class potentially tying or even breaking those records. The hype undersold the results. The first defensive player didn’t come off the board until Indianapolis selected Laiatu Latu with the 15th pick of the draft. In total, 23 first rounders were from the offensive side of the ball, as opposed to only nine defensive players.

While the talent was undoubtedly skewed toward one side of the ball this year, I also believe teams are showing their understanding that offensive success is more sustainable from one season to the next. Top defenses one year simply aren’t that much more likely to repeat their performance as top offenses are. As such, it makes more sense to invest the most valuable resources a team has (huge contracts and first round picks) on offense. The premium positions on offense just kept getting called in the first round. Six quarterbacks, seven wide receivers, and somewhere between six and nine tackles (depending on whether they stay on the outside or slide to the interior at the next level) were chosen on day one. I wouldn’t expect these records to be challenged every year, but I would expect to see teams continuing to invest more on offense than on defense.

#4 Teams Are Learning to Double Dip

While we’ve developed a cottage industry around draft prognostication, the reality is that no player is guaranteed to be successful at the next level. Injuries, off-field concerns, flaws that weren’t exposed against lower competition, and poor stylistic fits have each ruined the careers of countless prospects described as sure things. Even the smartest teams with the best talent evaluators in the business whiff on a decent number of their picks. As such, the best way of fixing a problem on the roster often isn’t with quality but quantity. When a major problem exists, assuming that a single pick, even a first rounder, will take care of everything is simply naive. Smart teams are willing to throw multiple potential solutions at a problem, under the assumption that at least one of them should be able to plug the hole.

There are several informative examples of this idea from the most recent draft class. The Patriots added receivers Ja’Lynn Polk and Javon Baker in the second and fourth rounds, respectively (plus a late pick on a tight end) to give rookie quarterback Drake Maye multiple pass catchers he can grow with. The Cowboys added tackle Tyler Guyton in the first round and interior lineman Cooper Beebe in the third to stabilize a shaky offensive line. The Ravens added cornerbacks Nate Wiggins and T.J. Tampa in the first and fourth rounds, respectively, and could potentially turn a weakness into a clear strength overnight. The Eagles spent their first two picks to add youth and athleticism to a creaky cornerback room by grabbing Quinyon Mitchell in the first round and Cooper DeJean in the second. The Lions did the same with Terrion Arnold and Ennis Rakestraw. The Rams took multiple shots at improving their pass rush with edge rusher Jered Verse in the first round and defensive tackle Braden Fiske in the second. Even the Falcons attempted to do this by drafting defensive tackle Ruke Orhorhoro in the second round, edge rusher Bralen Trice in the third, and versatile defensive lineman Brandon Dorlus in the fourth, though I wasn’t terribly impressed with the value of those picks collectively.

My two favorite examples, though, are what Pittsburgh and Seattle did. The Steelers have had issues all along the offensive line in recent years and even after drafting Broderick Jones in the first round last year, needed additional help. They added Troy Fautanu in the first round, Zach Frazier in the second, and Mason McCormick in the fourth, even getting all of them at slight discounts compared to my rankings. They saw a problem and realized that one new body in the room wouldn’t solve it. Seattle entered the draft with clear problems on the interior offensive line and depth issues in the secondary. They double dipped at both positions, grabbing guards Christian Haynes and Sataoa Laumea in the third and sixth round, and cornerbacks Nehemiah Pritchett and DJ James in the fifth and sixth round, all respectively. All four players were at least reasonably priced and even if Seattle just ends up with one solid starter at guard and one reliable backup at cornerback, that’s a huge success given where the players were selected.

#5 Some Teams Are Still Unaware of the Consensus Board’s Existence

There are multiple versions of the Consensus Big Board in various places on the internet, but they all strive to do essentially the same thing. They combine a bunch of publicly available rankings and mock drafts in order to create, well, a consensus. These boards are far from perfect in terms of ranking the players but they do serve multiple valuable roles. The first is that they give a better idea of what draft experts think as a whole than any one person’s ranking can. If your goal is simply to look at one ranking before the draft so that you have a general idea of how the draft community feels about the class, a consensus board is the best possible choice. As much as I believe in my own rankings, I have biases. Personally, I’ve historically had preferences toward tweener defensive linemen, dual threat quarterbacks, pass-catching running backs, and jaw-dropping athletes at tight end and receiver. Sometimes that works out in by favor (I loved Aaron Donald and Geno Atkins despite size concerns, for example), sometimes it backfires (I made legitimate efforts to justify the Clyde Edwards-Helaire pick and loved Chase Claypool as a prospect, for example), and sometimes it does both (Robert Griffin simultaneously proved me right when I talked about how much value a running quarterback adds and proved me wrong when I argued against the injury concerns). The thing is, every individual analyst has similar biases. A larger sample size can at least help to mitigate the impact of these biases.

The second, and, I would argue, more valuable role is in giving league executives an idea of how highly players can be expected to be valued by other teams. There has been a somewhat valid criticism of draft grades which essentially argues that we just give good grades to whichever teams draft players we’ve heard of. There is a legitimate point to be made that we evaluate teams based on how closely their picks mirror what we would have done even though they are working with far more information (particularly medical and character information) and different constraints (drafting for a specific team rather than ranking players in a vacuum). Even more importantly, there is a legitimate point to be made that since our rankings never turn out to be perfect, they’re a bad standard to use for determining how teams should operate. That’s all valid and specific examples can be used to illustrate these limitations (like the Chiefs getting generally negative reviews for reaching to draft gunslinger quarterback Patrick Mahomes in 2017 or the Giants getting applauded by most analysts including me for drafting well-regarded offensive tackle Evan Neal in 2022).

HOWEVER, smart teams should use the consensus boards as a way of determining how highly they need to draft their guys. If the top guy on your board is only the 20th best remaining player on the consensus board, the smart move is to try trading down a few slots so you can add some extra darts and still get your guy. If you need an offensive tackle, there’s only one left that you consider a potential starter, and he’s at the top of the consensus board, you might want to trade up before someone else gets him. It’s freely available information that can help inform decision makers of how to use their limited resources most effectively.

This is the one thing that I think Philadelphia does best. There has been some pushback about how much praise Howie Roseman gets for all of his decisions and I think that’s warranted. His actual record of drafting players is good but not exceptional. What I think he does best is navigate his way up and down the board so he can get the guys he wants while adding as many extra picks as possible (or losing as few as possible when he moves up). I’ve never heard him publicly comment on using a consensus board to inform his decisions but there’s anecdotal evidence to suggest that he does. Whenever he does trade up, it tends to be for a player who is at or near the top of the consensus board at the time (and is often someone draft twitter is clamoring over because he fell further than expected). An obvious example from this year is his trade up to get Cooper DeJean in the second round. Last year, he traded up a spot in the first round to end Jalen Carter’s slide and then traded a future third round pick to grab Kelee Ringo in the fourth round. All three of those players would have likely been unavailable soon and Roseman was able to navigate the board

Contrast this with a team like Jacksonville. Let’s just go pick by pick and compare where the Jaguars drafted and where each player was viewed by the consensus (for this, I’m using the NFL Mock Draft Database, though other consensus boards will yield similar results).

Brian Thomas: drafted 23rd, ranked 20th, +3

Maason Smith: drafted 43rd, ranked 92nd, -49

Jarrion Jones: drafted 96th, ranked 146th, -50

Javon Foster: drafted 114th, ranked 142nd, -28

Jordan Jefferson: drafted 116th, ranked 201st, -85

Deantre Prince: drafted 153rd, ranked 261st, -92

Keilan Robinson: drafted 167th, ranked 355th, -192

Cam Little: drafted 212th, ranked 222nd, -10

Myles Cole: drafted 244th, ranked 216th, +28

That’s a total of nine picks. Thomas was drafted three picks after the consensus board would suggest and after a trade down. Cole was drafted a bit later in the seventh round than anticipated (and is an unusually tricky projection anyway given that he has 99th percentile athleticism for a defensive end but only five sacks in six college seasons). Every other pick was a negative value proposition. Even discounting Little, who was basically a push, doesn’t help. Foster went about a round too early. Smith and Jones about a round and a half early. Jefferson and Prince nearly three rounds early. Robinson somehow went exactly six rounds early in a seven round draft. Even if Trent Baalke is right and everyone else is wrong (his record so far suggests suspicion of this supposition but let’s be generous), he could have added a ton of extra draft capital by trading down. Let’s just say he would have been able to trade down for each of those six highlighted picks by moving to a spot halfway between where he picked each player and where he was projected. What could that have added? Using the Rich Hill Trade Value Chart (generally one of the most accurate in terms of predicting how teams value picks), here’s how much surplus value each pick could have generated.

Smith, move down from 43rd to 67th, expected value equals the 75th pick

Jones, move down from 96th to 121st, expected value equals the 136th pick

Foster, move down from 114th to 128th, expected value equals the 184th pick

Jefferson, move down from 116th to 158th, expected value equals the 139th pick

Prince, move down from 153rd to 207th, expected value equals the 184th pick

Robinson, move down from 167th to 257th (the lowest I can go), expected value equals the 176th pick

That means that had Jacksonville just been slightly self-aware, they could have added something along the lines of a mid third rounder, two picks at the turn between the fourth and fifth round, and three picks near the turn between the fifth and sixth round. The total value of those picks is roughly equal to the 44th pick of the draft. And remember, that’s just recovering half the excess value by trading down. They essentially just took a second round pick and lit it on fire by not being aware of other people’s opinions. They stumbled ass-backwards into a generational quarterback prospect in Trevor Lawrence and they’ve done everything they can since then to ruin his career. Even if the players from this draft end up being successful (a big if), they wasted so many resources in drafting them earlier than necessary that the result will still be a disappointment. These are the types of mistakes teams are liable to make when they don’t even consider consensus boards as part of their decision making process.

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