Team-by-team grades | Round 1 winners | Rounds 2-3 winners | 2026 QB prospect preview
If a general manager wanted true immunity from being fired, his or her strategy on the second and third days of the NFL draft would simply be to take the remaining players the lot of us have heard of. That’s kind of how most of us formulate our opinions on winners and losers, grades or whatever means of immediately reacting to the draft we subscribe to.
But I have become more and more interested in teams utilizing the draft to curate strengths. It’s nice to fill holes, but sometimes drafting for need simply brings one unit on your team to league average. It’s better to create the potential for dominance and deal with the holes—isn’t that what coaches are for, anyway? Dominant units skew game plans, sap opponent resources and create the sense of overwhelm for the other team that can cause a mental folding far before the game is actually over. I hate to keep overutilizing the Philadelphia Eagles as an example, but clearly off-ball linebacker was a hole last offseason. Zack Baun was identified through six plays on tape in which Vic Fangio saw him behaving like an off-ball linebacker when he wasn’t pass rushing or playing special teams. The Minnesota Vikings created a maddening defense with the additions of Blake Cashman and Andrew Van Ginkel. Holes can be remedied, at least in terms of bringing a position up to replacement level, in other ways, even after the post-draft roster cutdowns.
That shift has changed the way that I’ve thought about the latter rounds of the draft and how I have come to like and dislike classes. We all have our personal prospect fascinations that color our opinions, but these were a few teams that stood out in this way specifically:
• Baltimore Ravens: Malaki Starks (S, Georgia) and Mike Green (edge, Marshall).
• Denver Broncos: Jahdae Barron (CB, Texas).
• Cleveland Browns: Mason Graham (DT, Michigan), Carson Schwesinger (LB, UCLA), Shedeur Sanders (QB, Colorado), Dillon Gabriel (QB, Oregon).
• Arizona Cardinals: Walter Nolen (DT, Ole Miss), Will Johnson (CB, Michigan).
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Benjamin Morrison (DB, Notre Dame), Jacob Parrish (DB, Kansas State), David Walker (edge, Central Arkansas), Elijah Roberts (edge, SMU).
• Pittsburgh Steelers: Derrick Harmon (DT, Oregon), Jack Sawyer (edge, Ohio State).
• New York Jets: Armand Membou (OT, Missouri), Mason Taylor (TE, LSU).
• Dallas Cowboys: Donovan Ezeiruaku (edge, Boston College), Shavon Revel Jr. (DB, East Carolina).
All these teams drafted players in pairs, or players at complementary positions to make a spot on offense or defense an advantage in some way (we’ll address the Browns’ QB room in a second). The Broncos, for example, opted for the potential of the best secondary in the NFL over a slightly upgraded running back room. The Steelers opted for the possibility of the best front seven in the AFC instead of a No. 20 starting quarterback. The Cowboys had the chance to upgrade WR2, or to attempt to make both their pass rush and secondary possibly excellent.
• As it pertains to the Browns’ quarterback room, I made a joke on social media about the pick but I have been arguing for years that a successful QB room is simply a talent accumulation game. Certainly, beyond all the noise, Sanders is a second-round-caliber player whom Cleveland got in the fifth round.
One might assume that Sanders’s attitude, and the attitude of his famous dad and his famous dad’s friends, got the cold water bath necessary after the lengths to which Sanders had to wait to be drafted. Now, if Sanders doesn’t conform to the NFL’s faux paramilitary standards, the fifth-round pick’s contract is easily disposable—just like it would be with some kind of project cornerback or fringe-sized defensive tackle who is available now. This is the failsafe option for the Browns, who were just recovering from a God-awful stretch of self-inflicted embarrassment at the QB position. For a team that deserves absolutely zero benefit of the doubt, I am very, very cautiously optimistic.
The other reason I like this: Sanders is now, for the first time in his life, in an environment where every practice rep matters. Sanders was never at serious risk of being benched at Jackson State or Colorado, with his dad as head coach (same going all the way back to Prime Academy and Trinity Christian High School, if you really think about it). He’ll either wilt or flourish. There is no middle ground. And, again, in the fifth round, this is a risk worth taking for a possible starting-caliber passer with outlier confidence and experience in pressure situations.
Sanders profiles as a low-end NFL starter in an offense that provides immediate answers. That feels like a Kevin Stefanski system. Now, Cleveland has two players—Sanders and Joe Flacco—who are win-with players in the absolute best-case scenario. Kenny Pickett and Gabriel, if they continue developing, could turn out to be high-end backups.
In terms of how it will work in 2025, here’s my guess: One of these four quarterbacks will almost certainly get injured and spend the season on IR. Or, the player who clearly loses the competition between Gabriel and Sanders will get “injured” and spend the season on IR.
• Ignoring my preference for developing dominance, my favorite draft class was the Seattle Seahawks’. I thought nearly every pick through the first three rounds was a masterstroke with immediate positive implications. Gray Zabel gives Seattle position depth and flexibility as a quality starter at four different positions on the offensive line. Nick Emmanwori is a chess piece that will allow Mike Macdonald to sit in what would essentially be a larger-format nickel formation. The great scheme writer Cody Alexander has written a lot about the big nickel formation and last season it emerged as the most effective antidote for the Kyle Shanahan offense. Emmanwori, who can hit like a linebacker but cover like a defensive back, can remain on the field and keep Seattle sound against a thumping run game, while not leaving the unit flat-footed as Shanahan tries to morph his offense into a set that would yield some sort of mismatch.
The selection of Jalen Milroe, my favorite quarterback in this draft, also gives Seattle the option to install a true QB-led run game that could be hyper effective in the red zone and take pressure off Sam Darnold. Milroe has untapped upside as a passer but, more importantly, could operate an incredibly heady run game that was first installed for Milroe by current Browns offensive coordinator Tommy Rees at Alabama. Milroe was running what looked to me like zone read, though Alabama would block the traditional read player, which got Milroe to the edge untouched and unbothered about having to “read” whether an end was crashing on him or sitting in containment.
Then, once Milroe reached the edge, he was so deadly that he could demolish whatever single defender was left. A skilled offensive staff such as Seattle’s could easily distill the heart of this into a truncated package that gets Milroe involved in the more condensed red zone area.
• Jerry Jones danced after the Cowboys got Revel out of East Carolina and, while it absolutely pains me to admit it, that selection put a capstone on an incredibly strong first three rounds for the Cowboys. Had Seattle not completely swept me off my feet, I would be thinking about Dallas as a major draft “winner.”
Revel is a true press-man cornerback. Watching him against the eventual NCAA champion Michigan Wolverines in 2023—Revel missed most of ’24 with a torn ACL—he looked like a sure-fire first-round pick. There was a play in that game where he was nearly knocked out by a tight end and still managed to possess the wherewithal to tackle the running back five yards into the backfield. It’s also the wheelhouse in which Jones’s Cowboys excel. Because Jones can never fire himself and, it would seem, will never part ways with his coveted personnel staff, the team can take massive swings on high-upside players with injury red flags. Revel could end up being the best cornerback in this class if he stays healthy.
But the way he was asked to play at East Carolina leads me to believe he’s an ideal fit for someone such as DC Matt Eberflus. Eberflus loves to rush only four. It puts a lot of stress not only on his defensive front but the back end. Because Revel was experienced, Eberflus can devote resources elsewhere. Revel also just never looks beat to me; even when a receiver somehow gains separation, he is able to recover and close the door.
Even though Eberflus is not a blitzer, Revel adds that option from the cornerback position.
• Count me obsessed with—or at least very curious about—Isaac TeSlaa. Yes, that is the name of a real person and not the name of an opener at Coachella. He is a former wing T quarterback who finished with an athletic score of 96—one of the best total athletes to appear at the combine, regardless of position. He’s now a Detroit Lion. He could also be the Day 2 player we’re talking about in November.
While I’m not always a fan of teams taking a dart throw on athleticism, the Lions have an offense in place that can manufacture touches for pure athletes. Their presentation of a strong offensive line, a stable of talented backs and field-stretching wideouts is dizzying. Adding in TeSlaa, who had limited collegiate production but looks like a skinny George Kittle with the ball in his hands, fits so perfectly into the Dan Campbell ethos. Now, even the slot receiver—where TeSlaa played exclusively—is a bully position (which, with Tim Patrick and Josh Reynolds, kind of always was). Detroit traded up for him, which drew some ire given that TeSlaa was so far off some respected big boards that are circulated in the media. But the Lions, like the Ravens, have such a thorough understanding of what they want. This strikes the same note to me as when Baltimore drafts another rangy safety or pressure player off the edge. And, yes, the pun possibilities are endless.
• We’ll round it out with this: Another draft I liked was the Cincinnati Bengals’. First-rounder Shemar Stewart puts former highly-drafted edge Myles Murphy in a put-up-or-get-out situation, assuming the Trey Hendrickson contract situation gets resolved (he was not traded as of the end of the draft). I still think Murphy has a chance of developing, by the way, but rendering Murphy to a rotational player while we see what Stewart—the holder of a perfect Relative Athletic Score—can give on a down-to-down basis.
College production is often a useless indicator, especially when you don’t understand the nuances of a particular scheme. I checked in on this during the draft, related to the focus on Stewart having only 4.5 sacks in three seasons, and it’s worth noting that Mike Elko’s Texas A&M defense often brings a lot of pressure on third downs, which means that the Aggies’ sack numbers are going to be more broadly dispersed among linebackers, safeties and defensive backs. Four more sacks might look a little prettier on the stat sheet, but those who observed him during his time at College Station refer to him as an “All-Pro in waiting.” Stewart impacted a ton of plays and had the highest pressure rate in college football. That matters far more than a glamour statistic.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as NFL Draft Takeaways: Smart Teams Double Down on Strengths.