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Touchdown Wire’s Natalie Miller re-distributes the NFL’s best talent with a 2023 draft in which every player is on the open market.
It is the offseason and that means there are a ton of hypothetical questions burning a hole into everyone’s minds until we get football in August. One of the most fun hypotheticals being; what would happen if the NFL reset all player contracts and held a league wide draft?
Today we examine the first round of this hypothetical draft, and see what teams gets to change the fortune of their franchise.
(Note: The draft was entirely randomized and has nothing to do with prior performance)
The third day of the 2023 NFL draft will be filled with second- and third-round talent, and this fourth-round mock illustrates just that.
Things tens to change for NFL teams when the third day of the draft gets underway. Now, it’s generally less about filling the positions of need with impact players, and more about a round-robin of talent, where you’re trying to get the best players available, and you can deal with the fit after the fact. That’s not to say that fit isn’t a factor, but now, it’s about who can do what in general from an athletic and football standpoint.
The third day of the draft starts with the fourth round, of course, and in the fourth rounds of recent drafts, teams have come away with more than enough estimable talent for teams to know that it’s best to keep one’s eye on the ball.
Kirk Cousins, Geno Atkins, David Bakhtiari, Dak Prescott, K.J. Wright, De’Vondre Campbell, and Za’Darius Smith are among those players who could attest to that.
The 2023 draft in particular presents a group of third-day talent with second- and third-round grades, which makes it quite exciting. In this fourth-round mock draft, you will find players much better than that fixed designation — it’s just where they happened to fall in their draft class.
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.
In Doug Farrar’s final first-round mock draft of 2023, four quarterbacks go with the first four picks for the first time in pro football history.
Things get weird as the draft beckons.
Teams looking to trade up or down are increasing the frequency and intensity of their offers. Teams with the desired picks are sitting in the proverbial catbird seat, awaiting the proposal that might pry a pick loose. Players may be involved as well, as every team with a stake in the first round tries to establish pole position before 8:00 p.m. EST on Thursday night.
With all that in mind, we have quite an aggressive final first-round mock for the 2023 NFL draft. For the first time in the history of professional football, quarterbacks are selected with each of the first four picks. It’s only happened with the first three picks three times:
1971: Jim Plunkett, Archie Manning, and Dan Pastorini;
1999: Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb, and Akili Smith;
2021: Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, and Trey Lance.
Now, the trio becomes a quartet, and here’s how it hypothetically happens:
That takes the Texans out of the quarterback derby high in the first round, and there have been multiple reports indicating that Houston’s on board with that in favor of multiple and valuable picks at other positions.
There is also a fifth quarterback taken in the first round, with Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker going to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with the 19th overall pick. If you think that’s a reach given Hooker’s injury status and time in a spread/veer offense, remember that this is the same franchise that selected Florida’s Kyle Trask in the second round of the 2022 draft. Hooker would be the value pick of the draft in comparison.
We have one more bit of attendant weirdness in this first-round projection: Not only do the Philadelphia Eagles select Texas running back Bijan Robinson with their first of two picks in the first round, they trade up with the Atlanta Falcons to the eighth overall pick to do so. Eagles general manager Howie Roseman has never taken a running back in the first round, and the Eagles may not value the position as other teams do, but… I’m looking at the best running back prospect since Adrian Peterson in an offense that already pins defenses to the wall with Jalen Hurts in the run game, and I’m thinking “Lombardi Trophy.”
So, with all that background, here’s my most YOLO first-round mock of 2023. Because, you just never know what might happen.
Who are the best underrated prospects in the 2023 NFL draft? Doug Farrar runs down the sleepers who could make surprising differences in the NFL.
Several NFL executives have already made it clear that they’re struggling to find as many as 20 prospects in the 2023 NFL draft class deserving of a first-round grade.
That may look like a pull quote, but it’s not entirely uncommon. Drafts like the 2023 one, which starts Thursday at 8:00 p.m. EST, are wider than they are tall, which means that while there aren’t a ton of obvious first-round guys, there are second- and third-day players who can make a difference on an NFL roster right away.
And that’s why it’s so important to have your scouting go all the way through all seven rounds and beyond. Ask the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, who got their eventual starting running back (Rutgers’ Isiah Pacheco) in the seventh round. Or the Seattle Seahawks, who bagged starting cornerback Tariq Woolen out of UTSA in the fifth. And of course, there were few more interesting rookie stories in 2022 than the tale of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, the most relevant “Mr. Irrelevant” in pro football history.
Looking ahead to the most talented sleepers in the 2023 draft class, there are prospects who have been pushed down in loaded position groups, those who need a bit of finishing work to fully unlock their NFL potential, and those who don’t have a total skill set, but who do a few things very well. They are all more than worthy of NFL consideration, and just because they’ll probably hear their names called in the late second or early third day of the draft, don’t automatically discount their NFL potential.
That’s a mistake the smartest NFL teams never make. Here are my most gifted sleepers — the “Secret Superstars” of the 2023 NFL draft.
In this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os with Greg Cosell,” Greg names his favorite underrated prospects in the 2023 NFL draft.
Every week, in “The Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire talks with Greg Cosell of NFL Films and ESPN’s NFL Matchup about the intricacies of the game. With the 2023 draft just around the corner, Greg gets into six of his favorite underrated players in this draft class — guys who won’t be taken in the first round, and maybe not even in the second round, but Greg just enjoyed watching their tape, and he believes them to have impact potential at the next level.
In addition, Greg and Doug get into concepts about the draft, and current positional value, that are highly relevant to the NFL today.
Here are Greg’s All-Underrated players:
You can watch this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar” right here:
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Doug Farrar has evaluated his top 78 prospects in the 2023 NFL draft, and here’s every single hyper-detailed scouting report, with tape and advanced metrics.
With the 2023 NFL draft just around the corner, it’s time for teams to assemble their final evaluations, and get their ducks in a row. It’s the same in a different way here at Touchdown Wire where, with our lists of prospects at every positions, we’ve written up 78 prospects with multiple tape examples and analysis, as well as advanced metrics from Pro Football Focus, Sports Info Solutions, and Football Outsiders.
So, here are the best players at every position for the 2023 draft, with reports as comprehensive as you’ll see anywhere on the internet.
If you’d like to move to each position list right here, the links are below — and we have each position list featured in the article.
2023 NFL Draft: The top 9 safeties
2023 NFL Draft: The top 11 cornerbacks
2023 NFL Draft: The top 8 linebackers
2023 NFL Draft: The top 8 interior defensive linemen
2023 NFL Draft: The top 8 edge defenders
2023 NFL Draft: The top 5 offensive tackles
2023 NFL Draft: The top 8 interior offensive linemen
2023 NFL Draft: The top 8 tight ends
2023 NFL Draft: The top 8 receivers
In this week’s “4-Down Territory,” Kyle Madson and Doug Farrar get into the four most important questions as we near the 2023 NFL draft.
In this week’s “4-Down Territory,” Kyle Madson of Niners Wire and Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire get into the four most important questions as we near the 2023 NFL draft.
You can watch this week’s episode of “4-Down Territory” right here:
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How might the first round of the 2023 NFL draft play out after the Aaron Rodgers trade? Let’s mock it through!
Well, now we know. After nearly two decades with the same team, the Green Bay Packers offloaded their quarterback to the New York Jets, and moved on to their recent first-round draft pick before his rookie contract expired.
But enough about Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers. Let’s talk about Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love! On Monday, the Packers traded Rodgers to the Jets for a swap of the 13th and 15th picks in the 2023 draft in Green Bay’s favor, as well as the Jets’ 43rd pick and 207th pick in this draft, as well as a conditional second-round pick in 20234 that turns into a first-round pick if Rodgers plays at least 65% of the Jets’ snaps in 2023. The Jets also get Green Bay’s 170th pick in this draft.
It’s a big haul for the Packers, and now, for the first time since 1991, they get to deal with the same level of quarterback uncertainty that most other NFL teams have had to deal with most of the time.
We don’t really know which version of Rodgers the Jets are getting — he turns 40 on December 2, and his 2022 season was far from his best. But the trade has happened, and here’s how the first round of the 2023 draft might play out as a result.
Doug Farrar finishes up his positional lists for the 2023 NFL draft with the top eight running backs — all of whom do matter.
“Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” — Obi-Wan Kenobi
As we come to the end of our position lists of prospects for the 2023 NFL draft, we have to address the current maxim that running backs don’t matter. Of course, that’s not true as an absolute. What we generally mean when we say that is that the position is more fungible than it has been in the past, and that’s true. Fewer teams have every-snap bell-cow backs, because fewer teams are looking for them. There are more backfield rotations in which specific backs with specific skills are utilized in specific situations, and the days of the back getting 350 carries and beating defenses over the head with it are pretty much gone.
That’s as much a function of the modern NFL as anything else. It’s not that running backs are somehow worse or less effective than they used to be — quite the opposite in some cases. And it’s not as if some NFL teams don’t still want to define their offenses with the run game. I live in Seattle, so I can tell you that from about 10 miles away from my house. Today’s NFL is a 3×1 league. It’s a quick-game/RPO passing league with explosive plays coming out of those concepts. By that nature, you’re not going to see as many pro-sets and I-formation stuff. You can only put 11 guys on the field at the same time.
Peering more specifically into the 2023 class of draftable running backs, perhaps the question to ask is not whether they matter, but how do they matter? Ideally, you’d want a power back who can carry a serious load in the run game if it’s required, with the kinds of satellite skills that produce those explosive plays and keep defenses on edge.
There are as many different kinds of backs in this class as there are in most others, so it’s all about what flavor fits your offense. We have the additional paradigm complication at the top of a back who is truly generational (as much as we all overuse that word), and may well be the best prospect at his position in the last 15 years.
From Bijan Robinson on down, here are my eight best running backs in the 2023 draft class, and how they each could matter at the NFL level.
(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus, Sports Info Solutions, and Football Outsiders unless otherwise indicated).
(All prospect measurement percentiles courtesy of MockDraftable.com).
2023 NFL Draft: The top 9 safeties
2023 NFL Draft: The top 11 cornerbacks
2023 NFL Draft: The top 8 linebackers
2023 NFL Draft: The top 8 interior defensive linemen
2023 NFL Draft: The top 8 edge defenders
2023 NFL Draft: The top 5 offensive tackles
2023 NFL Draft: The top 8 interior offensive linemen
2023 NFL Draft: The top 8 tight ends
