NFL Draft: Winners and losers from three days in Detroit

Yet another NFL Draft has come and gone in which every team got the player it wanted all along with every pick. Well, that’s what we’re told, anyway.

We know better. In some cases, it would seem, much better.

Most of the teams that needed a quarterback got one pretty early (sorry, Raiders) along with a team that didn’t seem to need one! The offensive playmakers who make the league spin came flying off the board early. Offensive linemen remained at a premium, while running backs were as rare as drop kicks through the first three rounds.

Knee-jerk reactions to draft classes can be tricky, but there definitely are some teams (and entities) that feel as if they came out of the past three days better than they were, while others appear to be flailing a bit.

Here, then, are some of the biggest winners — and losers — from the just-concluded 2024 draft:

WINNERS

CALEB WILLIAMS

Yes, the Bears are happy to get him. But how lucky is he to get the Bears? Very. Most first overall picks wind up going to organizations that have “earned” the right to select where they are through dysfunction, ineptitude and mismanagement. The Bears have had some of that for sure, and they have whiffed badly on first-round quarterbacks in the past decade, but they seem to be well on their way toward straightening themselves out. So Williams takes over a team that went 7-10 with a decent chance at making the playoffs late last year. He has an arsenal of playmakers on offense, a pretty good defense and the potential to win right away. The Bears were in the spot they were only because of the trade with the Panthers last year that landed them D.J. Moore. It’s the rare case in which QB1 in a draft class is the final missing piece and not the first stone set in an uncertain foundation. Plus he spent about an hour of his career as a Bear before Chicago gave him Rome Odunze as another receiver to play with. Not too shabby.

STEELERS

The other Pennsylvania team usually is lauded for its draft picks, and yes, Howie Roseman and the Eagles darted up and down the proceedings to make some fine selections. But it was the Steelers who somewhat quietly put together one of the best classes in the league. Like Pittsburgh itself, the group is not flashy but very steady, has something to prove and — coupled with the shrewd quarterback acquisitions in free agency that landed them Russell Wilson and Justin Fields — should keep that impressive streak of 20 straight non-losing seasons going for the franchise. There were some risks involved, sure. First-round pick Troy Fauntanu, an offensive tackle from Washington, slipped on some boards because of knee issues, and that’s the main reason he was there for the Steelers at 20. And third-round pick Payton Wilson, a linebacker from N.C. State, reportedly has no ACL in one of his knees. But both managed to be uber-productive college players with their issues and there is little reason to believe that will change in the NFL. Oh, and the pick they used to select Wilson? It came from the trade they made earlier this year when they sent quarterback Kenny Pickett to . . . the Eagles.

JIM HARBAUGH

He may be back in the NFL, but Harbaugh couldn’t resist belting out a chorus of “Hail to the Victors” after his Chargers picked linebacker Junior Colson from Michigan in the third round. He also seems to be forging his new team in the personality of his old one, relying on physicality over finesse. “I know the question is going to come up: ‘What about a weapon?’ ” he said after taking offensive tackle Joe Alt with the fifth overall pick rather than a receiver (or trading back for more picks). “Offensive linemen, we look at them as weapons. That group, when we talk about attacking on offense, the offensive line is the tip of the spear.” Whether that attitude winds up being refreshing or antiquated remains to be seen, but just in case, the Chargers traded up and grabbed wide receiver Ladd McConkey early in the second round to give quarterback Justin Herbert a much-needed target. Alt and Rashawn Slater should give Harbaugh dominant bookend tackles for the next few years, perhaps long enough for other folks to start hailing the Chargers as victors.

BILL BELICHICK

The future Hall of Fame coach may not have been a hands-on participant in the draft for the first time in about five decades, but he fit seamlessly into his new role as an analyst and showed that he still has a lot to offer to the game. His first big TV gig, appearing with Pat McAfee on ESPN to break down the first round, was a hit and a revelation of the kind of insight, honesty and humor he would save for private conversations all those years. “Felt like I was back in a team meeting!” former Patriot Jason McCourty, now with NFL Network, announced on social media after watching Belichick’s shtick. If Belichick can keep bringing that and his personality to his broadcast appearances — he’s reportedly going to become a regular on ESPN’s Monday Night Football “ManningCasts” — he’ll be a delightful addition to the football viewing experience and, who knows, might not ever want to go back to the sideline.  

OTHER WINNERS

The Rams hadn’t made a first-round pick since 2015 and made the most of this one by getting edge rusher Jared Verse of Florida State. They also grabbed a fellow FSU product, defensive tackle Braden Fiske, in the second round as a potential replacement (positionally speaking, anyway) for recently retired Aaron Donald . . . The Eagles restocked their secondary with Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean in their first two picks . . . Who cares about whom the Jaguars actually picked; think of all the promotion Tony Khan, son of owner Shahid Khan, got for his other venture, AEW pro wrestling, by showing up in character — and in a neck brace! — in the draft room after being pile-driven in an event earlier in the week? . . . Detroit showed out as the host city for the draft. It’ll be a tough act to follow for Green Bay next April.

LOSERS

ATLANTA FALCONS

The biggest head-scratcher of the draft — by far — came when the Falcons were on the clock with the eighth overall pick and selected quarterback Michael Penix Jr. That was a lot sooner than many thought the passer from Washington would go, but hey, every team evaluates players differently, right? The real surprise of it, though, was that it came just a little more than a month after the Falcons gave Kirk Cousins a $180 million contract with $100 million guaranteed. While it elicited eye rolls and chuckles from the outside, it was hard to tell who was more shocked and disappointed by that decision on the inside: Cousins, who made it known through his agent that he was not pleased by the pick, or owner Arthur Blank, who was shown on war room cameras apparently demanding an explanation from general manager Terry Fontenot. The guess here is that the more shocked/disappointed person was Blank, who already had been talked out of hiring Belichick as his coach this offseason and now saw his football people add a quarterback they openly admitted might not play for “four or five years” while praising that as a good thing. Scouting reports suggest that the Falcons’ day two picks — DE Ruke Orhorhoro at 35 and LB Bralen Trice at 74 — were both modest reaches, so there was no counterbalance to the Penix pick. Most predicted the Falcons would come into the draft needing receivers and cornerbacks, and through the first two days, all they got were raised eyebrows.

FORMER JETS QBs

If Sam Darnold and Zach Wilson thought they were getting fresh starts with their new teams this season, the Vikings and Broncos, respectively, they were as wrong as the Jets were in originally drafting them. Darnold got pushed out of the presumptive starter’s job when Minnesota traded up (with the Jets, no less) to select J.J. McCarthy 10th overall. Then, less than a week after Wilson arrived in Denver hoping Sean Payton might be able to resurrect his flagging career, the Broncos grabbed Bo Nix with the 12th pick. Given the investments in the rookies, there is a good chance neither of the former Jets flops will see the field much or at all in 2024.

GIANTS

Oh, the players they got were fine. They made the best of the first round by picking Malik Nabers, who is a polished player, will help a low-scoring offense and should turn out to be a really good fun-to-watch wide receiver. And they solidified a shaky secondary in rounds two and three. But don’t misinterpret what happened this weekend as a resounding vote of confidence in Daniel Jones. The Giants tried really hard to trade up from sixth to the third overall selection to get Drake Maye to replace Jones. Jones remains at the top of the depth chart not because the Giants have so much faith in him but because the Patriots were unwilling to let Maye slide past them (and, in retrospect, because Tommy DeVito and the Giants beat New England, 10-7, in an otherwise forgettable late-November game). So Nabers becomes the latest piece added to the Giants’ efforts to “build around Daniel,” joining the likes of Kenny Golladay, Kadarius Toney, Darren Waller and Golden Tate, none of whom lived up to that challenge. Starts to make you think about the common denominator in all their plights. Don’t be shocked if the Giants are back in this mediocre quarterback limbo — not quite needy, but not quite satisfied — and back near the top of next year’s draft, too.

BUFFALO BILLS

There is a reason teams don’t, as a rule, make trades within their own division. It makes no sense to have to go up against a player whom you could have had twice a season for the next however many seasons that player will haunt you. But there are divisions like the AFC West and NFC South in the NFL, and then there are divisions in the caste system within the league that group teams into playoff hopefuls, perennial postseason participants and true title contenders. The Bills are supposed to be in the latter of those categories, and they made a swap at the end of the first round that should help the one team they haven’t yet been able to get past: Kansas City. Buffalo, which needs a wide receiver for Josh Allen after trading Stefon Diggs and letting Gabe Davis go in free agency, had the 28th pick but traded back to 32 with the defending champs, allowing Kansas City to grab speedy receiver Xavier Worthy. Buffalo did get a receiver with its first pick of the draft — it traded back again from 32 to 33 and took Keon Coleman — and the Bills also picked up a third-rounder in the initial trade (which wound up being defensive tackle DeWayne Carter) to help restock the diminishing talent on their roster. But given the history of the two teams involved and the history of the one from Western New York in particular, it’s easy to imagine Worthy catching the game-winning touchdown pass from Patrick Mahomes someday in another playoff heartbreaker for Buffalo.

OTHER LOSERS

The Raiders are left with a quarterback competition between Aidan O’Connell and Gardner Minshew after being shut out of a clear-cut upgrade in the first round . . . The Cardinals landed Marvin Harrison Jr. with the fourth overall pick, but for a team that came into the draft with seven picks in the top 90, it didn’t feel as if they got all that much better elsewhere . . . Maye got to be the third overall pick, but the Patriots did little else to give him a chance to succeed. It may be the worst landing spot for any first-round selection . . . Do the Cowboys know the offseason is almost over? It feels as if they haven’t even begun to build toward 2024.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.