Biggest losers from the 2024 NFL Draft
The 2024 NFL Draft is in the books, and it’s time to recap all the action. There were plenty of surprises, as is the case year after year.
While some events aligned with many analysts' projections, fans got to see some unexpected draft-day action. With a lot of teams adding decent value to their rosters, some lost out badly.
That said, here are the biggest losers from the 2024 NFL Draft.
Biggest losers from the 2024 NFL Draft
Losers
Atlanta Falcons
This of course has to start with the pick that lit the NFL world on fire, as they shocked everybody by drafting Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. eighth overall. I will go more into detail on most of these quarterbacks in the “reaches” segment, but for the context of this, I had the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy 40 spots lower on my personal big board.
So I think you could make a case for him to be a late first-rounder at least based on the benefit of a potential fifth-year option, but that’s the smallest issue here. Just 45 days before the draft kicked off, they signed free agent Kirk Cousins to a four-year, 180-million-dollar contract.
That’s coming off a torn Achilles he suffered mid-season and while I’ve heard some people argue that this can be looked at as quarterback insurance, if they didn’t think the veteran would be ready by week one, how can you justify handing out a deal like that? And you’re actually facing disciplinary action for openly tampering with the guy.
I had high expectations for Atlanta’s offense going into this past season, but when they struggled to consistently move the ball, I thought Penix’s aggressive downfield passing could elevate them. That doesn’t however match with a situation where neither the rookie nor the veteran will be particularly comfortable under these circumstances.
From all the people Cousins has close connections with, the words “trust” and “security” are up there at the top of the list, and don’t tell me that this is just like the Jordan Love situation. Sure, it was also surprising, but a disconnect between Rodgers and the Packers was already developing.
They drafted his eventual replacement 26th overall while making clear that this was a future investment into the 22-year-old. Cousins had barely settled in yet, and there’s a real chance he may not be ready until the late parts of the offseason – when everybody in the organization has watched Penix sling it around at practice – and they used a premium pick on Penix just over a week before he turns 24.
And the statement by general manager Terry Fontenot on Penix potentially “sitting him four or five years being a great thing” is just asinine, because that would entirely defeat the benefit of a rookie quarterback – which is already limited even if they take the earliest exit on Cousins two years from now, which still comes with 100 million dollars guaranteed – and that you still might have very limited tape on a top-ten pick in live action, aside from the fact, of course, this comes with an opportunity cost of having selected their choice of the top defender in the draft or maybe having traded down.
I could have easily listed Cousins here as well or the rest of that roster now having to deal with that distraction.
Now, while that’s the main crux here, I was also scratching my head when they traded up eight spots in the second round for Clemson interior D-lineman Ruke Orhorhoro (35th overall) in exchange for moving down 107 spots from the third to the sixth round.
He could turn into a really useful player with alignment versatility, thanks to how low he plays, and his combination of length, short-area quickness, and play demeanor, but how he counters double-teams and approaches the initial phase of pass-rush reps still clearly needs work.
I actually had him slightly higher than consensus boards, but that was still 23 spots later than where he was ultimately selected. The rest of the prospects they picked came at an appropriate value I thought, even though I didn’t have draftable grades on the final two, but they also didn’t draft one of their two main needs on defense – corner.
When asked about it Fontenot ironically responded by saying “You don’t want to reach in the draft”, when the pick they traded up from in the second round ended up being Rutgers DB Max Melton, who I and consensus boards had higher than Ruke for example.
Miles Sanders
In terms of more specific NFL veteran players, there aren’t a lot of guys who have seen a bigger fall from grace over the last calendar year than Miles Sanders. Now, this by no means is writing off his career entirely and I’m not going to act like he was set up for success under Frank Reich and Thomas Brown bouncing play-calling duties back and forth last season.
However, after rushing for well over 1200 yards and 11 touchdowns behind the tremendous Eagles offensive line and being part of their run at a Super Bowl the year prior, Sanders went for just 432 yards on the ground and found the end-zone once, whilst averaging an abysmal 3.3 yards per carry.
That was after the Panthers handed a four-year, 25.4-million-dollar deal and the only real competition on the roster was Chuba Hubbard. With what new head coach Dave Canales was able to get out of Rachaad White in Tampa Bay last season, there’s still a chance that Sanders can earn trust as the lead-back for this offense that added a bunch of other pieces, as I already mentioned, but that’s not the message this operation is currently sending and competition just got a lot stiffer.
It’s not just that Carolina selected Texas running back Jonathon Brooks in the second round, but they actually moved up six spots 46th overall to make sure they’d get RB1 off the board, jumping the Giants who might’ve been in the market for the position – they ultimately waited until the fifth round.
I had Florida State’s Trey Benson as the top player at the position, but if Brooks wasn’t coming off a torn ACL, he would’ve been inside the 50 highest-ranked players overall for me. He may not have an elite top gear, but he gets up to speed very quickly, is an efficient mover in his transitions, and navigates well through condensed space as well as around bodies in the open field, with the contact balance to pull through loose wraps.
In terms of the passing game, he wasn’t asked to run an overly complex route tree, but he can be deceptive in his body language, he has natural hands and consistently made the first man miss after the catch.
So while some of the limitations that Sanders showed with the Eagles showed in terms of not being able to turn 10-15 yard runs into long touchdowns, I see more from him in terms of working in foot-fakes and pulling his legs out of the grasp of would-be tacklers as individual qualities. And watching how he made use of double-teams and pullers as part of Texas’ GT power plays, I like his projection into more of a gap-scheme run game which Canales will emphasize.
Along with Brooks, I also like the big-play potential Jaden Shirden from Monmouth provides as an undrafted free agent. It’ll be a long road to make the actual final 53, but I could see him getting elevated from the practice squad on a few occasions and demanding a handful of touches, to go along with the rest of the bodies they had in Carolina last year already.
Kalen King & Leonard Taylor
Two players in this draft were projected to be likely first-round picks heading into the 2023 college football season and now actually both declared as true juniors. Penn State’s Kalen King was up there with Iowa’s Cooper DeJean and Alabama’s Kool-Aid McKinstry, who ultimately went back-to-back at the 40th and 41st overall selection, as the top corner prospects.
Meanwhile, Miami’s Leonard Taylor was much more of a projection guy, but in terms of movement skills and flashes of dominance he showed on the interior defensive line, there was a lot to like if he had continued on his developmental track.
Yet, King barely squeezed in on day three as the third-to-last pick of the entire event (255th overall), while Taylor didn’t get a call until Mr. Irrelevant had already been announced, and he has since signed with the Jets. Let’s talk about how they got here individually.
During summer scouting, I landed on King as my CB2 heading into the year and really appreciated his scrappy style of play. While he obviously didn’t come in with the same kind of length or NFL bloodlines as Joey Porter Jr. (33rd overall pick by the Steelers in 2023), watching Penn State tape, he was the better all-around corner.
On 59 targets his way, he only allowed 27 completions on 5.8 yards pass thrown his way and one touchdown compared to three interceptions plus 18(!) PBUs, without getting penalized once. The numbers weren’t remarkably worse on fewer looks, but the ball production dropped off dramatically, without any picks and just two PBUs.
More importantly, however, I thought the competitiveness toughness, and aggressiveness he put on display was sub-par, highlighted by getting roasted by Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr. for a second straight year, but approaching the matchup with more disinterest I felt.
Then came the pre-draft process and I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a prospect tank his stock as much as King. King lost pretty much every single rep during Senior Bowl practices, where he just showed no confidence in his technique and regularly got blown by. Then he went to the combine and ran a 4.61, which reinforced concerns about his long speed considering his 10-yard split was at least average.
As for Taylor, I was somewhat indifferent on his projection to the NFL, because he was so all over the place technically, with his play recognition and overall consistency. Nevertheless, I did see the potential and high-level moments on his tape. I’m not going to act like he was put in a position to succeed all the time, in terms of alignment, what he was asked to do, and to some degree probably his player development.
With that being said, I saw basically no progression in 2023 or things that translate to the next level, with the flashes of dominance becoming less frequent. Both his number of sacks and tackles for loss were cut down to a third of their ’22 totals (3.5 and one respectively), while his PFF pass-rush productivity was nearly cut in half, down from 9.4 to 5.8.
You see him just shoot into the backfield and blow plays up every once in a while when he was allowed to attack upfield and you see him ride offensive linemen into the quarterback a few times, but he just doesn’t seem to really know what he’s doing out there yet.
Then he went to the combine and for a supposedly freaky athlete, Taylor finished in the 40th percentile or worse in all the combine drills he participated in (excluding short shuttle and bench press).
The old Eagles corner room
I’ll leave it up to you here if you want to look at the word “old” as in the former or their actual age, but considering how long those guys have been in the league by now, both are very fair.
Looking at the personnel moves by Eagles general manager Howie Roseman, the two they would definitely like to take back in retrospect were veteran cornerbacks Darius Slay and James Bradberry, who both received three-year contracts last offseason worth a combined 80 million dollars, with more than half of that number fully guaranteed.
By the time this season rolls around, they’ll be 33 and 31 years old respectively and you saw them show their age this past year, as they went from both being Pro Bowlers to below-average starters, which particularly in Bradberry’s case can be considered a mild description.
Yet, understanding where this franchise is, with a lot of cap hits of younger plays they’ve built the foundation around about to hit in future years, they didn’t let those financial implications affect their draft investments too much.
They took the first corner off the board in Toledo’s Quinyon Mitchell (22nd overall), without having to move up 10 spots potentially, which was about where he was projected to be taken, and then they did actually move up 10 spots in round two with their division rival Commanders to take advantage of the falling Cooper DeJean from Iowa (40th overall), who was considered a consensus day one guy, even if there was discussion about his ultimate position fit.
Mitchell was CB1 for me and the majority of people in the industry, finishing as the 12th overall prospect on consensus boards. Yet, with the first defensive player not coming off the board until pick 15 (UCLA edge defender Laiatu Latu to the Colts), in large part due to teams wanting to get their hands on the top wide receivers and tackles, along with the six QBs inside the top-12, this pushed everybody else down the board.
You can read more about Mitchell as a steal in the next segment, but he was a superstar in the MAC who absolutely rocked this pre-draft process and if he played at a major program, he would’ve most likely been a top-ten pick in the majority of drafts. Meanwhile, DeJean was a bit more of a divisive name, because there was no consensus on where his best spot in the secondary may ultimately be.
He almost exclusively lined up at outside corner this past season but operated out of the slot regularly the year and at a little over six-foot, 205 pounds with his type of football IQ and spatial awareness as a zone defender, you could also project him to play some safety at the next level.
With how well he tested and moved around during the Iowa pro day, however, it felt like he secured himself a spot in the first round, which he was always projected to go in anyway, even coming off a leg injury.
Both of them project really well into a match-zone scheme under new defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, where they play off and trigger on what happens in front of them since that’s what they were mainly asked to do in college as well.
That’s why both of Philly’s veteran corners are put on notice, while DeJean could also push starting nickel Avonte Maddox, who they brought back for this season at a two-million-dollar price tag.
Alec Pierce & Juju Smith-Schuster
There were plenty of wide veterans already in the NFL before this past weekend, who will now be battling rookies for starting or even roster spots, as 35 new names have entered the fold, and even beyond that, there was an influx of talent in the market of undrafted free agents.
So we could make this a grander point about the veteran pass-catchers, but I want to focus on two names in particular, with Alec Pierce on the Colts and Juju Smith-Schuster on the Patriots.
Since the former is only just entering his third season in the pros (as a second-round pick 2022), it’s more about playing time and opportunities, while the latter I could legitimately see getting cut one season into his three-year 25.5-million-dollar contract. Here’s why I’m concerned for the two of them:
While I wasn’t as high on Pierce as some others coming into the 2022 draft (my 16th-ranked wide receiver), because I thought he certainly needed some refinement and to take advantage of his physical advantages more consistently, I did of course recognize the explosiveness, catch-radius and ball-skills to make him an attractive vertical target.
That profile didn’t make him a great match for the corpse of Matt Ryan during Pierce’s rookie role, along with nothing of note in terms of the passers they brought on in relief for him.
Yet, when Indy selected Anthony Richardson out of Florida last year, I got pretty excited about the idea of the match between those two, having a quarterback willing to really air it out. However, we didn’t even get four full games of that experiment for Richardson was placed on injured reserve. Still, I came into this offseason with fairly high hopes for the young wideout.
However, that was before the Colts stole my WR4 Adonai Mitchell from Texas 52nd overall, who I’ll talk about in more detail in the next paragraph and believe he’ll be a more complete option alongside Michael Pittman Jr., and then they also used an early fifth-rounder (142nd overall) on Oregon State’s Anthony Gould, who misses about seven inches and 30 pounds on Pierce, but brings nearly the same speed, is savvier at the top of routes and has a lot better make-you-miss skills after the catch, to at least steal some more reps.
Meanwhile, the Patriots actually used an even higher selection on the wide receiver position – even if Adonai Mitchell was valued more highly by me and the draft community – when they used pick 37 on the “other” Washington WR Ja’Lynn Polk, to pair up with third overall selection Drake Maye (QB, North Carolina).
However, they came back on day three to select what everybody soon after understood to be a highly confident receiver from UCF in Javon Baker (110th overall), and while officially listed as a tight-end, Florida State’s Jaheim Bell (231st overall) is also relevant in this conversation.
Polk may have the type of juice to blow the top of a defense, but he can stack his man vertically and shows no fear attacking the middle of the field, with excellent adjustments to passes mid-flight. Baker also may not quite have that final gear, but he gets up to speed very quickly, can efficiently break off routes when given a cushion and has special skills at the catch-point, to win through and turn away from contact.
And Bell was an all-purpose player between legitimately playing running back at South Carolina for stretches and as an H-back plus a big slot at FSU. While the offensive coaching staff has been adjusted, they could look at him as a much cheaper version of Jonnu Smith, as a YAC specialist, who does his best blocking on the perimeter.
Other drafts I have questions about:
Carolina Panthers
Dallas Cowboys
Jacksonville Jaguars
New York Jets
Tennessee Titans