Biggest winners from the 2023 NFL Draft

2023 CFP National Championship - TCU v Georgia

Kicking specialists & Mid-round quarterbacks

This one is pretty insane. Let’s start with the specialists because we saw three kickers and punters each selected in this draft. In 2022, we actually saw four punters go, but only one kicker.

We didn’t have any long-snappers selected, but just looking at “kicking” specialists, over the last 20 years, we’ve only seen six guys hear their names called on three other occassions – 2004, 2012 and 2018. Even more glaring to me was how early those guys went.

We didn’t have somebody like Roberto Aguayo, who was a second-round pick in 2016 – and look how that turned out – but the 49ers used a top-100 pick on Michigan’s Jake Moody (99th overall), the Patriots picked Maryland’s Chad Ryland (112th) early on Day 3 and the Packers took Auburn’s Daniel Carlson (203rd) in the sixth round.

In terms of the punters, New England came back and took another specialist just inside the top-200 in Michigan State’s Bryce Baringer (192nd) and then we had two more with the second Michigan guy here in Brad Robbins (217th) going to Cincinnati and Ethan Evans (223rd) from Wingate joining the Rams.

Meanwhile, we had an unprecedented run on quarterbacks in the middle rounds. We started the draft with three QBs inside the first four picks, while Will Levis from Kentucky had to wait until the top of Day 2 for the Titans to make the move up for him.

After that, there was a break for 35 spots until we saw Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker (68th overall) come off the board – a range I thought was much more appropriate than some first-round buzz he received, considering he’s a 25-year-old who will miss his at least most of his rookie season with a torn ACL and is coming from an offensive system that shows very little resemblance to what he will be asked to do in the pros.

Things really started to pick up from 127th overall on, as over the next 72 selection, we saw eight(!) signal-callers come off the board – Fresno State’s Jake Haener, Georgia’s Stetson Bennett, Purdue’s Aidan O’Connell, UCLA’s Dorian Thompson-Robinson, Houston’s Clayton Tune, Penn State’s Sean Clifford, BYU’s Jaren Hall and Stanford’s Tanner McKee in that order.

Half of them went where I thought it was appropriate for them. Yet, you can absolutely tell that there was a Brock Purdy effect, considering how many teams took a stab on these guys in the middle rounds when better football players were available – as 12 selected within the first five rounds actually set a new record. We’ll have to see how that strategy turns out, but good for all the guys that benefitted from it already.