Is it fair to grade draft picks as they happen, as opposed to two or three years down the road, when we can really what prospects can do with their NFL teams?
Probably not.
Is it fair to evaluate draft picks as they happen, based on value, pick, and best players available around the prospects taken? Sure, and that’s what we’re doing here.
By assigning letter grades to every first-round draft pick, we’re not saying that this or that team failed with a prospect (for the most part — sorry, Saints). We’re saying that these picks made more or less sense depending on draft capital and prospect talent. Add in who else might have still been on the boards, and you start to get a clearer picture of each pick.
Of course, many of these grades could turn out to be catastrophically wrong, and I certainly hope that all the negative grades are. Nobody wants to see a draft pick fail at the next level. But as things stand right now, here’s my analysis of each first-round pick in the 2022 NFL draft.