Winners:

Cleveland Browns

Despite not winning a playoff game since 1994, the Cleveland Browns left the Draft with one of the best classes this year. Because they had the worst record last year, the Browns got the first pick, and they drafted Myles Garrett. Garrett was a beast at Texas A&M, and he arguably has more potential than anyone in the draft class. Later in the first round, they selected safety Jabrill Peppers and tight end David Njoku. I don’t like the Peppers pick, but Njoku is tremendously undervalued, and he is a great athlete. In the later rounds, some of their notable picks included DeShone Kizer, Caleb Brantley and Groza-winning kicker Zane Gonzalez. The Browns won’t be good this year, but this year’s class sets them up well for the future.

San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers had a horrible season in 2016, but they bounced back with a great draft this year. They had the third pick in the draft and took Stanford defensive end Solomon Thomas. Thomas had a great senior season and selecting him was one of the safest picks in the draft. They had the steal of the draft later in the first round by selecting Alabama linebacker Reuben Foster. Foster was ranked as one of the top prospects by most draft sites, but his stock fell when he failed the combine drug test and got into a fight with a medical examiner. Despite these off-the-field questions, Foster is one of the most talented players in the draft class, and picking him with the 31st pick was a steal. A few of their interesting selections from the late rounds include running back Joe Williams, quarterback C.J. Beathard and defensive tackle D.J. Jones.

QBs in the First Round

They didn’t get picked by the Browns; that’s a for them.

Losers:

Chicago Bears

The Bears were in desperate need of a good draft, but that is not what they got. Chicago traded up for the second pick and selected quarterback Mitchell Trubisky, who is unproven and only started 13 games in his career. Chicago should have traded back to try to get DeShaun Watson or Patrick Mahomes II, but they settled on Trubisky, which was the worst pick in the draft in my opinion. The Bears didn’t have any horrible picks after that, but they only had five total picks in the draft. A pick I do like is North Carolina A&T running back Tarik Cohen in the fourth round. Cohen is a human highlight reel, but I’m not sure a good pick in the fourth round comes close to making up for a massive mistake in round one.

Atlanta Falcons

The defending NFC champions looked at this draft as an opportunity to fill some needed positions, but I’m not quite sure this draft achieved that. Their first selection was UCLA linebacker Takkarist McKinley, who is a talented player, but I’m not sure it was the best pick with Reuben Foster still on the board. Also, Takkarist McKinley has off-the-field issues, as he dropped multiple profanities in his post-draft interview and scored a 12 on the Wonderlic test. To give perspective on how low that is, a 10 represents a person is probably literate. The rest of the draft wasn’t necessarily bad, it just wasn’t good. Their six selections this year were very lackluster and won’t help the team immediately.

QB DeShone Kizer  

Well, good luck in the CFL…