With the draft being over, lots of NFL teams had made many choices that fans and scouts would say were incredible and others made “terrible” decisions as well. In this story, I will be going through the bottom five ranked teams from The Athletic justifying each team and defending them for their choices that were made in the draft this year.
Number Five: The Houston Texans
In this top five, some teams were without a first-round pick which puts them on this list with the Houston Texans not being excluded. The Texans didn’t have a first-round pick which their first pick was in the second round at pick 42. They had decided to select Kamari Lassiter, a cornerback from Georgia, which doesn’t make the most sense when your team was a bottom 16 team in offensive line rankings. Even though this was a decision they had made, Kamari Lassiter shows tons of promise and could turn out to be incredible for the secondary while he will be paired with Derek Stingley to make the duo a seemingly top-tier secondary. Not only did the Texans take a very good corner, but moving down to the fourth round; The Texans had been able to pick up Cade Stover, the tight end out of Ohio State. He’ll get his time to develop under Dalton Schultz for a couple of years and potentially break out when he gets his chance to play. So even though the Houston Texans were put as the fifth worst team in the draft; I’m sure the team will perform and develop some rookies into incredible players.
Number Four: The Jacksonville Jaguars
As much of a bad look this gives the AFC South, the Jaguars find their way onto this list as the fourth-worst drafting team for this year. Notable players that were drafted are players such as Brian Thomas Jr. LSU Wide Receiver, and both Maason Smith and Jordan Jefferson, who both are Defensive tackles for the LSU Tigers. As it may seem the Jaguars look bad with these decisions, Brian Thomas Jr. Will fill in the WR3 position for the Jaguars and will have the chance to shine with a quarterback, Trevor Lawrence. And the fact that they were able to upgrade the defensive line will show to be much more beneficial than many people may believe.
Number Three: The Cleveland Browns
Yet again, another team without a first-round pick. Sadly, they were given a low ranking on the list. The team doesn’t need much filling at any positions and with what was available for them I believe they made the right decisions. When the only weak depth position on your team is quarterback, even though you have a young developing quarterback behind Deshaun Watson, you truly don’t need that much. But they were given a poor ranking simply because they didn’t get any “star” players in the draft. They were able to improve the depth on the offensive line with offensive guard Zak Zinter and they were also able to improve the defensive line with Michael Hall Jr., a Defensive Tackle from Ohio State University. While the ranking for the team technically seems fair, they didn’t have much availability for some “incredible” seeming players.
Number Two: Denver Broncos
As surprising as it is, the Denver Broncos were ranked 31st out of 32 in this rank listing. Which honestly doesn’t make too much sense to me. The team had worked on improving their receiving core, and linebacker core, and getting a quarterback who has the potential to produce in the NFL. Drafting Bo Nix, the quarterback from Oregon after transferring from Auburn, and even the WR1 for the Oregon Ducks puts a duo that’s already got chemistry and a relationship with one another. I believe this will mean a ton for the team and I hope to see the team thrive with this new rookie duo that the league might want to be aware of next season.
Number One: Atlanta Falcons
As hard as it is to defend this team, they honestly didn’t do that terribly with their draft. Selecting Michael Penix Jr. was a bit of a stretch but they decided to do so that way no other team would do so. As a lot of people judge the pick, they had only signed Kirk Cousins, who hadn’t even gotten to play last year and they just wanted to solidify the quarterback position if Kirk Cousins were to get injured that way Michael Penix Jr. could learn and develop behind a veteran quarterback the league knows and loves. Alongside that, they improved the defensive line in the second and third rounds and that was one of the primary weak points of the defense. I think that even though the Falcons took Michael Penix Jr. super early, the team didn’t do that badly.
It’ll be really exciting to see and watch the teams next year and it’ll be even more exciting with a draft full of players that show lots of potential and skill in their games. But It will be fun to see how these bottom-ranked draft teams use these rookies at their use.
