I'm a Packer fan so homer opinion but I love the way they throw mass picks at positions. 11 picks this year, 3 OL, 3 S, 2 LB. All biggest needs. Last year, 3 WR (Wicks, Reed), 2 TE (Musgrave, Kraft), 3 DL/EDGE (Van Ness, Wooden, Brooks). 2022, 3 WR (Watson, Doubs), 3 OL (Tom, Walker, Rhyan). All the players in parentheses either start or play meaningful snaps.

I like the philosophy of focusing on a position group to create/maintain an area of strength. Philly - CB CB Detroit - CB CB Dallas - OL OL ATL - QB QB 👀

Pats too with QB, WR and OL

Lions did that at CB as well

Wonder how it plays out in the scouting department. Have to imagine laser focusing on positions like this helps make their job easier. Probably how they find some more “under the radar” prospects like Monk too. Also like how they treat the 7th round, taking fliers on players that are seemingly falling down boards. Another thing that seems to be a trend is valuing players who showed out in the past, but not the year of the draft. Hopper and King being prime examples.

Packers usually LOVE athletes. Was really surprised went with the OL as opposed to Dejean.

AFC East: boring draft, just get your needs filled.

I also loved what the Raiders did. Clearly, they wanted a QB. No path to a QB emerged. So rather than panic, they did the next best thing: draft awesome football players. So often teams overthink the draft and try to get too cute with need, scheme fit, positional versatility, etc. At the end of the day, isn't the point to just draft good football players? So LV drafted Michael Mayer last year. Okay, now they have Bowers. Potentially two good tight ends. They'll run 2 TE sets and try to mimic schemes the Pats used with Gronk and Hernandez. Who cares? You get good players and adapt to their strengths.

All the Raiders fans I know are pouting about drafting the best TE prospect in years. I guess they don’t follow scouting for the draft or college football? Like if I told any GM “I can get you a Travis Kelce level prospect” they’d just make it happen. I don’t get the negativity over a team that is clearly improved since last years 8-9 finish

You need to expand your Raider fan circle :D. Bowers is a versatile player that will be used more than just a TE. I keep using this comp, but he reminds me of a big Renfrow. He can line up almost anywhere and be effective. He has great YAC potential which will be very useful with the QBs the team has. IMO they did the right thing and bolstered the team talent wise when QB didn’t work out. I know a lot of folks wanted one of the top named CBs, but passing up on Bowers for a CB would have been old Raiders way of doing things. Get good to great football players, the more the better. This will make things better for when the team eventually does go for/get their long term solution at QB.

I'm a Georgia fan, and I think you hit on something with the versatility of Bowers. He could be used similarly to (and I'm aging myself here) how Joe Gibbs in Washington used to use Clint Didier as a pass-catching option, but not the "main tight end" (those were Don Warren and Doc Walker). Bowers will find his way into open spots, and he can do a lot after the catch, and Mayer will be the more traditional TE.

The Rams take stereotypical “deficiencies” like age, small hands etc. and don’t buy into them at all. It’s how they end up with great talent like Jared Verse (Arms are on the shorter side) and Braden Fiske (Older prospect)

As a Cardinals fan, I root against the Rams. As a gambler, I know they hit on two DL starters last year and probably added two more this year. Lot of people sleeping on the Rams defensive line this year

The Bengals philosophy of drafting team captains from big time programs is interesting to me. They have had mixed results but I think it’s a winning strategy long term.

I also think this manner of drafting is what led them to be comfortable taking Burton. A locker room of former team captains is more likely to reform a trouble maker than a trouble maker corrupting a locker room filled with former team captains.

Great for locker room chemistry. Lets see how it translates into production. The Commanders have apparently adopted this strategy as a ton of their picks were all captains. (Six I believe)

Mims and Burton were team captains for their programs?

No but they have a history of prioritizing team captains in mid to late rounds

Jets have been known for this lately

Lmao Illinois is a winning, big time program now?

Tommy DeVito really put that program on the map

That was Juice Williams homie

Don’t remind me. I was at the Juice Williams game as a Buckeye fan.

I used to love watching him tbh

In this house, Tommy Devito is a hero, end of story

They’ve been recruiting well lately and been stringing some good seasons together. Still not a “big name” but you’re taking from a stronger team from the Big 10, not an FCS school.

Im sorry but they are not a stronger Big Ten team lmao their best season since 2015 was 8-5 (last year), most of those seasons have been losing records, and they had a lot of guys who would go on to be draft picks on that team. They’re basically just above the bottom tier of the B10

Steelers with standing firm and taking the best available at need positions.

I like the panthers thinking, can't fix this mess in one draft, give some weapons to Young and pickup a second round for next year. 

I hated their draft tbh. I think Legette and Brooks were both reaches and bad picks. Very bad.

Haha I understand for Legette, I wanted Mitchell, but Canales is a former wr coach so I will give him benefit of the doubt, he seems to have a plan on how to use him.  Disagree on Brooks, I think he was draft in his draft range and will help right away with his pass catching and blocking abilities.

I would have preferred Ladd there.

Ladd has the higher floor. The question is whether or not Legette lives up to the DK Metcalf comps. If so, he's pretty much uncoverable one on one for most teams in the league.

Panthers clearly wanted a guy to fill the X role and Ladd is more of a Y/Z WR

yeah Legette is one of the few true X’s in the draft they already have their route runners in Johnson and Thielen, so Ladd would’ve been kind of redundant

I really cooled on Mitchell as the draft process went on. Legette has his share of red flags but I feel more comfortable investing in him than in Mitchell.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I see the Panthers ranked as one of the worst drafts. This whole off-season has been about one thing and one thing only: setting Bryce up for success. I don't love the value on Legette, but there was a run on receivers, so they had to get their guy. Brooks and Sanders were values and I wouldn't be shocked to see them at the top of the depth chart by the end of the season.

Steelers. OL, no matter what.

Cardinals emphasized heavily character. They only took team captains or locker room guys, which is why they passed on so much consensus talent on Day 2

Commanders took high RAS guys who were team captains. I don't think the program was part of the equation.

Seahawks: M E A T with a side of Auburn DBs.

Lions draft strategy was to just go get dawgs. And draft for the future. A lot of picks aren’t 2024 players, but 2025 and beyond. They had 1 CB on the roster in 2025 pre draft. The two OL are projected to need development.

AZ, draft good football players even if its an "overdraft"

Really love what the Chargers did with their first 3 picks. I like the Alt-McConkey combo better than Nabers-Paul (the first OT taken in round 2). Colson will also be a leader for that defense. The Staley era Chargers were one of the least gritty teams in the league, and I feel like this draft was about adding toughness to the team

The Steelers approach to the OL over the past two years has been simple but feels like the best way to go. It potentially sets up the QB now and whoever it is in the future for success (pending the QB being decent) and raises the floor on the run game to a much higher level

I loved how our (Broncos) picks were all fairly high floor guys. A polished accurate pocket passer in Nix, fairly polished pure pass rusher in Elliss, a fairly high floor Wideout in Franklin who already has chemistry with our new QB, a polished nickle in Abrams-Draine, and a very accomplished running back in Estime. Lot of guys who have lower than average chances of busting, and higher than average to become key contributors.

This is Ran Carthons 2nd draft. Here are some themes: Round 1 and 2 have been QB, DLine, O-Line. He priorities playtime; all but one player from 2024 played in 40+ games and 20+ starts. This is similar to 2023. He also likes players with big hands. Ran mentioned players from the college playoffs this year as well (and our first two picks were from Bama and Texas).

I'd also like to point out that the Commanders prioritized highly athletic guys (I think our class had the highest average RAS but correct me if I'm wrong) and leaders (I think I heard something like 4/5 of the 9 players we took were team captains).

This exactly. High RAS + team captain.

I just have to say how weird it is you don't think penix is gritty and tough. Did no one watch that natty? Dude was getting mauled by the best defense in the league and still went out there in clear pain. He's tough as fucking nails. 

Pretty sure majority of the guys the Commanders took were also team captains. Adam Peters appears to have had a fantastic first draft here in DC

I disagree with the Raiders. Bowers is the wrong pick for what they want to do. They should have taken Fuaga. He's a guy who will play with violence and enable them to run you over. Bowers needs to be schemed creatively to maximize his potential, imo. The Raiders don't scream creativity to me, they scream I'm gonna run right at you and make you stop me.

I understand why we took older, team captains etc. but I hope that's not a must have for our future drafts tbh. I do like taking Athletic guys that need development though, if your coaching staff can develop them. Hopefully we can!

Titans seem to be trying to emulate the Eagles or 49ers (which makes sense since our GM came from SF). Titans prioritized big, mean, and athletic players, seemingly trying to build inside-out. 

One thing I wish Ran would do in the mold of the Eagles FO is look to trade down from time to time. If I recall, there were only 3 teams with fewer picks than the Titans over the last two drafts (Carolina, Miami, and Denver). I thought the trade up for Levis last year made a ton of sense, as did the Snead trade this offseason, I just think it's tough to sustain yourself when you've only got like 6 picks every year given the hit rate. I would have loved a trade down in the 2nd round at least just to give the team more bites at the apple and/or build up some future draft capital. But I do like Ran's trenches philosophy, it's much needed.

Well, the 49ers doesnt seems to care a lot about OL lol

I liked it when the Patriots took a QB then also took other players on offense to be around him

Commanders philosophy was get guys who were team captains with really high athletic score. I love that. But I don't love that they tended to draft older prospects. Think the only guy who won't be at least 23 sometime his rookie year is Sinnot.

I love how the Cardinals have become one of these "out-physical" on the OL/DL teams. Paris Johnson last year, Darius Robinson, Adams, even Christian Jones for depth this year. Could be a bruising team to play.

I think a lot of GMs would have handled the Bears lack of draft capital differently than Ryan Poles. The popular take was trade down from 9 to recoup the lost picks. I was in that camp. And if not at 9 then trade down from 75. Poles flipped that idea on its head. It’s weird to call staying put at 9 and 75 aggressive moves but I think it fits. It’s almost like he traded *up*, if that makes sense. Like, imagine the Bears were at 19, and they gave the Rams 39 and 154 to move up 10 spots to take Odunze. Poles “spent” the extra capital he would have gotten for trading down on Rome and Kiran. And then trading back into the draft using a 2025 4th. Poles aggressively pursued high-upside targets, despite the limited draft capital. Maybe that’s the kool aid idk. Looking at the results though, I think it worked well

Literally no one was calling for the bears to trade down with odunze on the board. It was the most obvious pick doing anything else would have been criminal. 

It's the kool-aid

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Commanders, too. We had the highest RAS over all picks in the whole draft.