2023 NFL Mock Draft: Second-round projections after the first round comes down

Now that the first round of the 2023 draft is in the books, here’s one version of how the second round might go.

Now that the first round of the 2023 NFL draft is in the books, there’s very little sleep for the league’s shot-callers. You go back and look at your board, move some guys around, talk to other shot-callers about possible trades, and get ready for the second day of the draft, which starts at 7:00 p.m. on Friday.

“We know where we’re positioned,” Houston Texans general manager Nick Caserio, who did all kinds of wheeling and dealing to come away with C.J. Stroud with the second and third overall picks, said about Day 2. “So we have 65 and 73 and then the two fours, the fifth, the three sixth, the two seventh. We have a little bit of flexibility. Tonight we’ll go back and kind of see what’s left, understanding there’s probably going to be another 30-ish, 35 players that are probably selected before we pick.

“Could we move from 65 into the second round? That’s a possibility, but that’s going to be player driven. So I think we’ve identified players that we like. We also understand we’re going to lose players. That’s the reality of it. We’re going to lose players along the way. I think, in that general range, kind of how we have the players graded relative to their value and potentially what their role could be, we think there will be an opportunity to add some players to our team that we’ll be happy to have in the building.”

It will be some manner of this process for all of the NFL’s evaluators, and there’s all kinds of talent left on those boards. So, here’s how the second round of the draft might go, were we calling the shots for every NFL team.