After weeks, nay, months of anticipation, the NFL draft finally took place this past weekend with the Chicago Bears kicking things off on Thursday with their selection of Caleb Williams to join what looks to be a dynamic offence in the windy city.
Offence was the prevailing theme on day one of the draft. Prior to this year, Dan Marino held the record as the earliest quarterback to be taken sixth in his class when he was selected at twenty seven. However, the Broncos smashed that number when they selected Bo Nix 12th overall.
In fact, the first defensive player wasn’t selected until the Indianapolis Colts scooped up Laiatu Latu at fifteen, which finally started a small run on defensive players as nine of the final eighteen picks were on the defensive side of the ball. Overall 21 of the first 32 picks were offensive players, proving that franchises are prioritizing building their teams on that side of the ball in the modern NFL.
There were plenty of winners and losers from the draft, at least on paper, so let’s take a breath, look at the weekend’s festivities and break down the weekend’s biggest storylines.
The Falcons Picked WHO?!?
The Atlanta Falcons took everyone’s mock drafts, crumpled them up, and set them on fire by selecting Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth overall pick. This, just weeks after signing Kirk Cousins to a massive four year contract that includes over $100M guaranteed. The structure of the contract ensures that Cousins will be the team’s starting quarterback for at least the next two seasons, so using such high draft value to draft his successor before he’s even played a snap for the team is down right astonishing.
According to Cousins’ agent, and confirmed by conversations with Cousins after day one, the 36 year old quarterback wasn’t informed that the Falcons were planning to select Penix. In fact, the team didn’t even book a round one interview session with Penix leading up to the draft. Instead, they watched him perform at the combine and had a conversation there. That was apparently enough for GM Terry Fontenot and new head coach Raheem Morris to put a whole lot of eggs in the Penix basket.
This was the fourth straight season that Fontenot has had a top ten pick for the Falcons, and for the fourth straight season he’s taken an offensive skill position, following TE Kyle Pitts, WR Drake London and RB Bijan Robinson. With that much investment on the offence, and with the signing of Cousins, the team seemed to be a piece or two away from making a serious run at the divisional title and actually making some noise in the playoffs. Everyone and their dog had them drafting an impact defensive player, particularly an edge rusher, as it seemed like forever since they have gotten any production there, with the odd prognosticator hinting that them might consider Malik Nabers or Rome Odunze to line up opposite of London to put the offence into overdrive.
The Penix pick is shocking for several reasons. There weren’t many people that had a high first round grade on Penix, as he was largely viewed as a developmental pick. Penix is also already 24 years old. Meaning that due to the Cousins contract, the earliest that Penix will realistically be taking snaps for the Falcons will be in his age 26 season. Defenders of the pick (and trust me, there aren’t many) will point to Jordan Love and Jalen Hurts – quarterbacks who were drafted by teams who were seemingly already set at quarterback and were looking to develop one for the future. The problem is, Love and Hurts were selected at 26 and 53 respectively, not 8th overall. Also, Hurts is entering his 5th season in the league at 26. Jordan Love, who sat for two full seasons before taking over the starting job in 2023, is only five months older than Penix. Oh, and 21 year old J.J. McCarthy was still available to them.
Penix’s style also isn’t even comparable to Cousins. Which means that if he needs to step in due to injury or poor play, the Falcons will have to change their entire offence to play to his strengths. Cousins plays great in structure, has strong mechanics and can read pressures fairly well. Penix is more of a grip it and rip it type player. He loves to be aggressive and take deep shots down the field and is overly willing to throw the ball into tight windows. He can make almost any throw, but the finer details of being a quarterback, including footwork when facing pressure and his reluctance to throw the ball to the middle of the field will limit his ceiling in the NFL. Due to his age, it’s reasonable to be concerned that he’s already reached his peak in terms of his development.
Penix also has an injury history that reportedly took him off of many team’s draft board’s altogether. Penix has stayed healthy for the past two seasons, but he’s had two separate ACL tears in the same knee, a clavicle fracture and a shoulder A/C joint separation. Three of those injuries were long term, keeping him off the field and taking away from essential development reps.
Fontenot and the Falcons likely have a sick taste in their mouth after watching Desmond Ridder and Tyler Heinicke run their offence for the past couple of seasons. And, from what we saw in the NFL last season, having a legitimate backup quarterback is more important than ever in the NFL. There’s a world in which Michael Penix Jr. learns from Cousins, works with Atlanta for the next few seasons and turns into the best quarterback they’ve had since Matt Ryan. Unfortunately, I don’t think we live in that world. Atlanta will find out very soon that they’ll need to sign all of their offensive weapons to their second contracts to keep the offence together, so their window is open right now to take advantage of their weak division and try to make a legitimate run with Cousins under centre. Drafting a backup quarterback who might be a slightly above average starter for them in two years instead of adding an immediate impact player is a head scratching move that could spell the end for Fontenot.
The Trade Market was Shockingly Quiet
One of the most predictable things about the pre draft process is the trade rumour mill churning at an incredible rate, only for reality to slap us boldly in the face on draft day.
The Minnesota Vikings were supposed to sell their future assets to move up into the top five to draft J.J. McCarthy. Instead, they held steady, McCarthy fell, and they were able to get him by only moving up one spot. They were then able to package their second first round pick to jump up and draft an impact player on defense in Dallas Turner who was predicted to be a top 10 pick (to the Falcons…). The Vikings held onto their assets and came out as absolute winners from day 1.
The quarterback trade rumours came in late to try and steal some thunder. Apparently there were multiple teams, including the New England Patriots, that called Jim Harbaugh and the Chargers to see if Justin Herbert was going to become available for a huge package so that Harbaugh could clear the way for his former college quarterback J.J. McCarthy. None of these trades really had much juice, and Harbaugh had to come out and tell the media that no offers for Herbert were ever considered.
The wide receiver market seems to have quieted slightly. But signs indicate that at least one team might be on the verge of moving on from their star wide receiver. The San Francisco 49ers drafted wide receiver Ricky Pearsall in the first round, despite currently rostering both Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk. The Aiyuk rumours have been active for weeks, but the drafting of Pearsall has now pushed the pendulum towards the idea that it’s in fact Samuel who they would prefer to trade to free up space to sign Aiyuk to a major extension. Pearsall is a savvy route runner who has magnet hands and is extremely tough. But much of what he can do on the field also mimics what Deebo has done for the organization.
Aiyuk has had a slow run to becoming the wide receiver that he currently is, including spending several weeks in Kyle Shanahan’s doghouse, but that tough love has seemed to have paid off. Aiyuk is a top tier receiver and one of the better blockers at the position in the league. With all of the work that Shanahan has put into Aiyuk, it’s reasonable to believe that he would rather keep Aiyuk on the roster and reap the rewards of his hard work.
As of this writing, there haven’t been any major wide receiver trades. Even the once rampant rumours surrounding Cincinnati Bengals WR Tee Higgins have quieted for the time being (although they did take a receiver in the third round who I am fairly high on in Jermaine Burton), so get ready to listen to these rumours get repeated all the way up to training camp.
David Tepper Continues to Embarrass his Organization
As per usual, the Carolina Panthers made headlines for all of the wrong reasons. While they traded up to get into the end of the first round, it probably wasn’t necessary to do so to select Xavier Legette. They used their next pick to take the first running back in the draft in Jonathon Brooks, and their fourth pick was on a tight end. With a team that’s so flawed, spending picks on skill positions is a questionable strategy, but they do need to surround Bryce Young with more talent to try and give him an opportunity to succeed.
However, it wasn’t the actual draft picks that caused the most noise. David Tepper made a surprise visit to Dilworth Neighbourhood Grille in Charlotte to confront the manager over their sign out front that simply said “Please let the coach and GM pick this year.” While the manager who was confronted by Tepper did say that he wasn’t upset and that they had a polite conversation, Tepper did reach over and take off the hat of the host while mid discussion, which might be the most rich boomer move you could possibly do to try and ensure everyone knows you’re an angry old man.
Since purchasing the Panthers in 2018, Tepper has been said to be overly involved in the team’s day-to-day decisions, with rumours suggesting that he was the reason that the team selected Bryce Young over C.J. Stroud in 2023. Which gives fans of the franchise plenty of reason to critique their team’s owner.
If this were 90% of team owners, this story wouldn’t have ever come to light. At the end of the day, there was no assault, or even raised voices in the confrontation. However, considering Tepper’s past run-in with fans, including getting into screaming matches with fans in the stadium and allegedly throwing a drink at someone at the end of the 2023 season, this is just another embarrassing chapter in the story that is Tepper.
All in all, Detroit showed up for the event in droves. The organizers were turning away fans before the event began on Thursday evening as they had already reached their capacity of 150,000 people. We can all now take a temporary breather until training camps start up in earnest.
-Devon Gallant
Twitter: @DevGallant
Photo: Bobak Ha’Eri. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.