Biggest losers from the 2023 NFL Draft

The 2023 NFL Draft is in the books and it’s time to break down everything that happened over the weekend. Obviously, everybody got better by adding young talent, but some teams used their draft capital better than others – whether that’s just the players they picked or their overall strategy.

In this article, I will lay out my five biggest losers from the weekend. This could be a specific team that did really well in terms of how they used their assets, individual prospects, position groups or NFL veterans, due to how they will be affected.

Brad Holmes believers (in the analytics community)

I just talked about the Cardinals kind of fleecing the Lions in a couple of trades during the draft and mentioned that they sent a veteran running back to Philly at some point, so let’s just continue with them here.

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They've got some really good football players – don’t get me wrong here. However, the way they approached the weekend in terms of when and where they moved, how they tried to maximize value and the overall strategy, I would certainly question.

Since I just said that the Cardinals might have gotten a little bit lucky with the Texans being hell-bent on picking two and three in order to get their cornerstone pieces on either side of the ball, let me take some heat off Brad Holmes and the rest of the Lions brass.

I’m pretty sure they did not expect the Seahawks to take what was probably the guy they targeted all along in Illinois’ Devon Witherspoon. He was a minus-favorite to go sixth overall in terms of betting odds at the start of the calendar week already and I think throughout the process I may have seen two mock drafts that lined Seattle to him.

With that being said when the Cardinals called – and I obviously don’t know if that was the only team interested – they barely gained surplus based on draft value charts by moving back six spots to 12 (in exchange for 34 and 168, whilst getting back pick 81) and drafted the number two running back Jahmyr Gibbs from Alabama.

I absolutely love him and probably had him as high as anybody at 17th overall on my big board, but even for me, that is pretty rich. More importantly, they could have had people who are legitimately considered generational prospects like Texas’ Bijan Robinson if they just stuck at six.

The result of picking a running back there was them ultimately trading away a high second-rounder from a couple of years ago with a very similar skill-set in D’Andre Swift for a 2025 fourth-rounder by the Eagles.

With their other first-round pick (18th) overall, they selected Iowa linebacker Jack Campbell, who was my LB1 and is wrongly portrayed as just this inside thumper. I really like the player, but once again – it’s too high for me and more importantly, even if you see a major drop-off after him, the next legit off-ball linebacker to come off the board was Arkansas’ Drew Sanders early in the third round – and he actually has legit rush upside.

Then after targeting the two lowest-value positions, I did like Iowa tight-end Sam LaPorta (34th overall) and Alabama nickelback/safety Brian Branch (45th) in the second round, which I think do make a lot of sense. I’ve heard people saying that if you switched some of those names, that’s actually a solid group, which I agree with – but that’s not how this thing works!

I get the Hendon Hooker pick (68th) in the third, even though I would have felt much better if they had made sure to get Will Levis at the top of the second, since that would seem like more of a clear direction for them, but then what really annoyed me is them picks 122, 139 and 168 for a selection just inside the top-100 that was used on a developmental nose-tackle in Western Kentucky’s Brodric Martin, who based on my and consensus rankings was a seventh-round prospect.

That’s just a poor understanding of the board and allocation of resources all around and I think all the analytics services will end up grading their class extremely low.

Ryan Tannehill

Assuming nobody expected Andy Dalton, Davis Mills or Gardner Minshew to start this year – at last for the full season – Ryan Tannehill would be the one on the opposite end of the spectrum to Geno Smith, who I mentioned earlier as a winner.

There was some discussion around him last year already when the Titans drafted Malik Willis and he received some (unwarranted) criticism for saying at a press conference that he wasn’t “here to mentor” the rookie, but that guy fell to them in the third round and even though I had him as QB1 in a much weaker class, I didn’t expect Willis to start that year.

He didn’t until Tannehill’s foot got hurt initially, and when that guy was placed on injured reserve, Tennessee signed Josh Dobbs in hopes of still winning a weak AFC South – who ended up starting the final two weeks.

Now, however, they actively traded to 33rd overall, moving up eight spots in exchange for a pick-swap in the third round and another three next year, in order to select Kentucky QB Will Levis.

So while it seems that Tannehill was able to fend off Willis, who I still believe has a lot of talent and isn’t really getting a fair shot, considering he got thrown in on very short notice and had basically no pass-catching options around him to help him out, as somebody that I believed shouldn’t see the field until late into his rookie season, now there’s another challenger in the room.

Now, the two positive angles for the veteran signal-caller are that the Titans could have already secured themselves Levis at 11th overall but passed on him initially, playing the board and taking a gamble to some degree, and then I look at the rookie as somebody who is on a similar developmental arc as Willis last year.

Now, the difference with Levis is that he actually operated in a pro-style offense in 2021, with extensive experience working from under-center and being asked to make NFL-type of reads.

If Liam Coen doesn’t become the Rams' offensive coordinator for the 2022 season, before returning to Kentucky, we look at the Wildcat QB as less of a project, because his decision-making and inconsistent footwork are paid closer attention to and worked on, while having a play-caller capable of overcoming lesser pieces on the O-line and in terms of receiving talent.

So while there are things on tape that you wouldn’t expect from a redshirt senior with 26 career starts, there’s also a lot to like in terms of the way the ball jumps off his hand, the arm strength to take shots down the field off play-action, the running threat he presents without the foot injury and the toughness overall.

I think all parties involved would benefit from Levis sitting until late in the year, if Tennessee is eliminated from playoff contention potentially, but I wouldn’t rule out Tannehill being moved during the offseason or ahead of the trade deadline, if the Titans don’t get off to a good start.

2023 CFP National Championship - TCU v Georgia

The safety class

Now let’s talk about the players in this draft and the position group received no love. Depending on whether you count Alabama’s Brian Branch and Illinois’ Jartavius Martin as safeties, since they primarily lined up at nickel and that’s where they’ll likely be deployed by the Lions and Commanders respectively, you can argue no legit safety came off the board until Martin’s former teammates Sydney Brown going to the Eagles at the top of the third round (66th overall).

Only two others were selected for the rest of the day – Penn State’s Ji’Ayir Brown (87th) going to the 49ers and Alabama’s Jordan Battle (95th) going to the Bengals. Two more were selected in the fourth round, before we finally saw 13 combined over the final three rounds of the weekend.

Generally, I wouldn’t pay too much attention and many people have called this a weaker safety class. While I don’t consider it one of the stronger groups we’ve seen in recent years and we lack any type of blue-chip players among it, I do disagree with the sentiment about the class as a whole.

I had eight guys inside my personal top-100 big board (including Branch and Martin, who I mentioned at the top) and six more among the “next 30 names” I listed below it – so basically 14 inside my top-130.

I know that I was personally higher on the group than consensus, but even looking at where some of these names were projected to go – Texas A&M’s Antonio Johnson (160th) ended up being a fifth- instead of a fringe second-/third-rounder, Florida State’s Jammie Robinson (145th) went about 50 picks later than expected, Georgia’s Chris Smith II (170th) waited nearly 100 picks longer.

Altogether 19 safeties were inside the top 259 prospects, based on the consensus board provided by MockDraftDatabase.com.

Now, what does this tell us? Well, first of all, there may be some medical issues with these guys that we’re not aware of. I can’t speak to any of that. However, my theory revolves more around the schematic changes the meta of defensive football has experienced recently.

With more NFL teams adapting split-safety principles, the profiles of guys they’re now looking for on the back end has changed. Sure, there are teams who still value free safety types who can make plays on the ball-numbers-to-numbers and rangy players will always be desirable, but it’s not as much about finding those high-level athletes all the time.

Many teams are looking for more well-rounded skill sets, where they can roll somebody in the deep post, but also drive on routes in quarters to their side, basically play off-man against slot receivers with extra cushion, and maybe most importantly, charge up the alley against the run, in order to even out negative box counts.

Those player profiles are currently easier to find in the later rounds still – which was apparent with how much this class got pushed down – and that’s a trend I’ll be following closely going forward.

New York Jets

I didn’t want to badmouth too many teams here as a whole, because like I said at the very start – everybody got better over the weekend and each team selected players that I really enjoyed watching on tape.

There were a couple of others that I’d put in the same bucket as the Jets (listed below in the next paragraph), but they kind of stuck out to me, because I’m not sure how much better they get right now.

Considering they’ve now consciously entered a window, in which they need to take full advantage of having a defense that finished last season top-five according to several metrics (points per game, DVOA, success rate, etc.), two Offensive Rookie of the Year candidates (if Breece Hall had stayed healthy) and now Aaron Rodgers dropped into the mix.

You combine all those factors and you understand that with a head coach entering year three and a general manager now in his fifth year, they have to win this season.

Two things I didn’t want to let my standpoint influence too much here – as tired everybody is of Zach Wilson, I really believe that the Jets failed him at least as much as he has done so far as a second overall pick when they pulled him really because of a simple “No” at a press conference when he was 4-and-2 as a starter at that point.

So I’m not going to give them a ton of credit for making Aaron Rodgers come out of his darkness retreat with a switched mindset and wanting to join their team, especially when considering that they gave up way more than I expected to acquire him from the Packers, who had already moved on to their young QB on the roster.

With that being said, now having just two picks each of the first two days, they really started to nail it. And while I think they got good value with Wisconsin center Joe Tippman 52nd overall, there’s a really everybody had them taking a tackle at pick number 15.

Instead, they watched the top three names come off the board within the first eleven selections and didn’t feel the urgency to secure that spot for them. The division-rival Patriots gladly helped out the Steelers in jumping New York for Georgia’s Broderick Jones and there they were 15th overall, taking another defensive end, when they already had at least four legit guys as part of the rotation.

I get that they love keeping those bodies fresh and that they denied being locked in on OT, but I’m just not buying it.

The Gang Green came back on Day 3 and ultimately invested in that position with Pittsburgh’s Carter Warren (120th overall), who I believe is a long, well-coordinated athlete with the potential to turn into a starter down the road, but he’s coming off a torn meniscus, only ever started at left tackle and had serious issues producing penalties in college.

I certainly like Izzy Abanikanda as a big-play threat from the backfield out of Pitt (143rd overall), but I think recouping depth in the back-seven should have been higher on the priority list.

Of their final three picks, only one had a draftable grade on – Old Dominion tight-end Zack Kuntz, who shockingly lasted until the seventh round despite a historically great combine, probably due to injury concerns – and all of them mainly even got selected due to elite athletic testing. It’s just not close to the standard GM Joe Douglas has set in recent years.

Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl - Ohio State v Georgia

Dawand Jones

For the final one here, I considered “Kenneth Walker dynasty owners”, since the Seahawks drafted another running back I really like in the second round and a passing down specialist in the seventh, to take away opportunities for fantasy production.

However, I haven’t discussed an individual draft prospect yet and one I thought needed to be mentioned here is “the other” Ohio State offensive tackle. After being projected to be a top-50 pick and seeing his name frequently mentioned in mock drafts, the monstrous lineman waited all the way until Day 3, when the Browns finally ended the slide at 111th overall.

That was after seeing his fellow Buckeye left tackle being selected sixth overall and nine total OTs coming off the board first.

The obvious concern with Jones, just looking at how gigantic he is, is if he can keep himself in football shape. When we last got measurements on him at the combine, the Ohio State OT was 6’8” and 374 pounds.

He ran as expected, with a 5.35 in the 40 and the worst ten-yard split of the event (1.92). Neither in Indy nor at the Buckeye pro day, he decided to do the jumps or agility drills, along with refusing another weigh-in in Columbus. However, what apparently really didn’t sit well with NFL evaluators was the fact that after one dominant practice at the Senior Bowl, he decided – or his agent told him – to sit out the rest of the week with no apparent injury.

His lack of willingness to commit himself fully to the process and maybe not having appropriate answers in the meetings when asked about are what I believe might have caused him to drop this far.

Since contract numbers are basically locked in due to where players get selected, that’s most likely more than 1.5 times less money on his contract than he would have received had he gone around pick 50.

Not only did going this late hurt Jones financially, but he also will have a tough time seeing the field anytime soon in Cleveland – unless they use him as a jumbo tight-end in certain short-yardage packages.

The Browns recently picked up Jedrick Wills Jr.’s fifth-year option, keeping him at left tackle for the next two seasons at least, and the guy on the right side Jack Conklin just signed a more back-loaded four-year, $60-million extension in December.

For people considering if they could move him to guard – I have a tough time seeing any scenario where they’ll try taking the potential outs in either of Joel Bitonio or Wyatt’s deals, since those are Pro Bowl/All-Pro level players.

They also just re-signed center Ethan Pocic by the way. The one bright spot for Jones is that he’ll get to work under one of the top O-line coaches in Bill Callahan, to develop a kick-set necessary to make it in the pros.

Other questionable draft classes: Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears, Kansas City Chiefs & San Francisco 49ers.

If you enjoyed this breakdown, please consider checking out the original piece and feel free to check out all my other video content here!