Commanders’ rookie class ranked 31st by NFL.com

The early returns for Washington’s draft class aren’t good.

The Washington Commanders finished 4-13 in 2023, with head coach Ron Rivera losing his job last month. With new ownership and three consecutive non-winning seasons, Rivera entered his fourth season in Washington on the hot seat. He didn’t help himself with a miserable 2023 offseason.

The Commanders’ most significant move in free agency was re-signing defensive tackle Daron Payne to a new four-year deal. That was the right move. However, to fix Washington’s beleaguered offensive line, Rivera chose to sign Nick Gates to a three-year as the new center and Andrew Wylie to a two-year contract to play right tackle.

In the 2023 NFL draft, Rivera gambled on cornerback Emmanuel Forbes with his first-round pick and doubled down on defensive back Quan Martin in the second round.

The remainder of Washington’s draft was spent on developmental players.

While it’s impossible to fully evaluate a draft class after one season, Eric Edholm and Chad Reuter of NFL.com ranked all 32 2023 NFL draft classes, giving each class a letter grade.

As expected, the Commanders faired poorly, coming in at 31st with a D+ grade.

The Commanders used their first two picks on DBs, and both had their share of struggles as rookies. Forbes was a playmaking artist in college, but that skill didn’t translate readily in Year 1, as he was repeatedly picked on early in the season (miscast in a zone-heavy defense) and stripped of his starting role. His best moments — and Forbes had a few — tended to come against lesser offenses. It seems clear he’ll face a big offseason with Dan Quinn and the next coaching staff.

Martin earned the nickel role down the stretch, and he spent some time at safety, too, much like he did in college. Finding the right spot for him in a new defense will be interesting. Martin also could project to be a jack of all trades capable of playing multiple roles.

Henry got his chance following the trades of Chase Young and Montez Sweat, logging some eye-opening snaps along the way. The body of work as an every-down player remains incomplete, but Henry could make it as a rotational rusher next season. Jones also saw a late-season uptick in playing time, albeit with fewer flash plays.

Washington could have used OL help but received almost nada from Stromberg and Daniels as rookies. Stromberg played 26 snaps of mop-up time, and Daniels landed on IR after struggling in camp and preseason. Their futures seemingly remain very much up in the air, especially with the new Quinn regime in town.

If there was a rookie bright spot, it was Rodriguez, who averaged 4.8 yards per carry and established himself as an angry, forceful runner in spite of being overlooked much of the season. He logged a long carry of at least 11 yards in each of his final five games and could be a first- and second-down tone-setter if he can avoid injuries.

One of new head coach Dan Quinn’s top priorities will be restoring the confidence of Forbes. The good news is Quinn has hired a talented and experienced coaching staff on both sides of the ball.

Bryan Bresee’s midseason grade ranks high among 2023 first-round draft picks

Bryan Bresee’s midseason grade ranks high among 2023 first-round draft picks. The rookie defensive tackle has been exactly what the Saints hoped for:

This is good to see. Draft Wire’s Jeff Risdon shared his midseason grades for every rookie picked in the first round of the 2024 NFL draft, and he’s got a positive review for New Orleans Saints defensive tackle Bryan Bresee.

Based off the first-year pro’s work so far, Risdon graded Bresee with a B, writing that:

“Bresee brings a lot of energy and activity to the Saints defensive front, though it’s not always pointed in the right direction. The pass rushing has been solid and ever-improving. If he learns to stay disciplined in the run game, Bresee is going to be a very useful player for a long time.”

Better harnessing that energy is something Allen has talked about with Bresee — emphasizing that the rookie needs to maintain a lower pad level and hold up stronger in run defense. Too often he gets moved off the line of scrimmage or pushed aside to open a running lane. But when Bresee is given the green light to get after the passer, he does a great job, and that’s largely why the Saints drafted him.

Just look at his stat line going into Week 10: 11 tackles (7 solo, 3 tackles for loss), 17 pressures (at Pro Football Focus) and 1.5 sacks, plus 5 passes defensed, which are the second-most by a rookie defensive lineman in Saints franchise history. Bresee is impacting passing plays even when he isn’t getting home to the quarterback.

He’s been exactly as impactful a defender as the Saints expected when they called his name on draft day. Let’s see if Bresee can keep this momentum going into the second half of his rookie season.

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The 2023 NFL draft GPAs for all 32 teams

The draft GPAs for all 32 teams after factoring over 25 post-draft grades, from the top (Eagles) to the bottom (49ers)

Draft grades tend to be all over the place in the wake of the NFL draft. Different evaluators look for different things in a draft class to evaluate and grade, and those divergent viewpoints make for crazy fluctuations sometimes.

That’s why a draft aggregate grade is an important tool. As he does every year, Rene Bugner calculated draft grade point averages for all 32 teams and their draft classes.

Bugner compiles the grades from 29 different evaluators and figures out the aggregate GPA from those 29 grades. Here’s what he came up with for GPAs in 2023, from top to bottom. How did your team fare?

 

Colts had third-best consensus grades from 2023 NFL draft

The consensus draft grades praised the Colts’ haul in 2023.

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The Indianapolis Colts used the 2023 NFL draft to bring in a new foundation of players with 12 selections overall throughout the offseason’s biggest weekend.

With a new quarterback in tow, some exciting athletic pieces added to the defense and some new weapons for that rookie quarterback, the analysts around the league seemed pretty pleased when we did our draft-grade roundup earlier in the month.

However, now we can quantify those grades and compare them to the rest of the league. All thanks to football analyst René Bugner, who compiled the post-draft grades for 2023 from 29 different sources.

Our friends over at Touchdown Wire put those GPAs in ranking form. The Colts came away with the third-best grade at 3.77 across the 29 analysts from Bugner’s pool.

The only two teams to grade out with a better GPA were the Philadelphia Eagles (4.12) and Pittsburgh Steelers (3.94). The Colts were tied at No. 3 with the Seattle Seahawks.

Here’s what Touchdown Wire said about the Colts:

Colts general manager Chris Ballard, who has been feeling some heat in recent years, nailed this draft, and he did it by focusing in traits-based players, which can get some GMs in trouble. Richardson could nuke the NFL in the kind of QB run game new head coach Shane Steichen just ran with Jalen Hurts in Philly, and that’s an easy like-as-like transition. Defensive coordinator Gus Bradley has three new big, athletic cornerbacks in Julius Brents, Darius Rush, and Jaylon Jones, who should thrive in Bradley’s single-high, island-based coverages. Josh Downs will be a great target for Richardson, and he has some aspects of his game that are similar to former Colts star T.Y. Hilton. Blake Freeland needs to add about 20 pounds to his frame to deal with NFL defenders, but he may be the best pure athlete at his position in this class. Combine star Adetomiwa Adebawore is a guy that Bradley can move around in his fronts to great effect.
Getting their franchise quarterback was the big, obvious move, but Ballard and his staff had a draft here that could open things up for a good, long time.

Though draft grades are never the end-all, be-all, the Colts did a strong job of matching value with positional need while adding elite athletes across the board. With a 12-player draft class, there’s bound to be a handful of hits.

Though this class mostly rests on the shoulders of Anthony Richardson, there are plenty of reasons for optimism that the Colts are turning the ship in the right direction.


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Vikings NFL draft class ranks in bottom third of league

A compilation of 29 expert grades from the 2023 NFL Draft has the Minnesota Vikings ranked with the 23rd best class.

The 2023 NFL draft was four weeks ago and we have an average of all the expert’s draft grades. As compiled by Rene Bugner where he ranks them based on grade point average, the Minnesota Vikings ranked 23rd in the National Football League with a GPA of 2.66. That is the equivalent of a C+.

When you look at the grades, that doesn’t seem unfair. The Philadelphia Eagles received no grade lower than an A- across the board and a 4.12 GPA. They had an excellent draft and got the arguable best player in the class at ninth overall.

The Vikings had wide-ranging grades. Eddie Brown of the San Diego Tribune and Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press both gave the Vikings an A with Nate Davis of USA Today (D) and Thor Nystrom of Fantasy Pros (D+) had the Vikings with the lowest grades in the class.

The grades overall weren’t very harsh. Only five graders gave out an F and 15 of the 29 gave out one or more D’s. That is common with draft grades, as none of these players have played a single snap in the National Football League.

You can look at how the draft grades shaped up and the GPA’s for each NFL team here.

CBS regrades the 2020 NFL draft after three years and the Commanders remain the same

What grade would you give Washington’s 2020 NFL draft now?

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They say you can’t truly grade a draft until at least three years removed from that draft. So, now feels like the perfect time to go back and grade the Washington Commanders’ 2020 NFL draft.

That draft, of course, was the year Washington selected defensive end Chase Young at No. 2 overall. Over the last two years, we’ve seen some do redrafts, which is a silly notion, and give the Commanders quarterback Justin Herbert.

That sounds great, but we live in reality. You do not get do-overs.

As for Young, things began as expected. At times, he was a game-wrecker on the edge, recording 7.5 sacks and helping lead the Commanders to a surprising NFC East division title, albeit with a losing record, and won the NFL defensive rookie of the year.

Since that time, Young has only appeared in 12 games due to a significant knee injury. In the nine games before his 2021 knee injury, Young had just 1.5 sacks. He returned in Week 16 of the 2022 season and looked like his athletic self, but he did not record a sack.

The Commanders declined to pick up Young’s fifth-year option, guaranteed at over $17 million for 2024, making him a free agent after the 2023 season.

Let’s head back to that 2020 draft for a moment. Washington also selected running back Antonio Gibson [third round], offensive lineman Saahdiq Charles [fourth round], safety Kamren Curl and defensive James Smith-Williams [seventh round].

Gibson has been excellent at times, rushing for over 1,000 yards in 2021 after scoring 11 touchdowns as a rookie. Charles has yet to establish himself but has logged several starts.

Curl is the gem of the class and is in line for a significant extension once new ownership takes over. Smith-Williams was also an excellent Day 3 pick, starting several games and becoming an important part of Washington’s defensive end rotation.

Pete Prisco of CBS Sports gave Washington a “B” after the 2020 NFL draft. Three years later, Prisco sticks with that grade and explains why.

The Skinny: They took edge player Chase Young with the second overall pick. He flashed star potential as a rookie, but then suffered a major knee injury in 2021. He wasn’t the same player last season. This year is big for him. After that, they took running back Antonio Gibson in the third after trading their second-round pick the year before to draft Montez Sweat. Gibson has been a big part of their offense the past three years. Fourth-round offensive lineman Saahdiq Charles has been a sometimes starter, although he will open as a backup in 2023. They hit big on seventh-round safety Kamren Curl, who is one of the better players on their defense. Seventh-round edge James Smith-Williams had 14 starts and three sacks last season. But he has mostly been a backup.

How I did: I loved the pick of Young, but who didn’t? The injury has changed the trajectory of his career. I questioned trading the second to draft Sweat the year before, but Washington nailed that decision. I liked the picks of Gibson and Charles since both were on my Better-Than team that year. I also said fourth-round receiver Antonio Gandy-Golden had a chance, but he retired after two seasons with just one catch.

That’s fair. While Young’s career has been disappointing thus far, not all of it is his fault; his production before the injury is a concern, though. But that potential still exists, and 2023 is a massive season for him.

Curl, Gibson and Smith-Williams were all excellent choices, especially when you consider where Washington landed them.

Broncos coach Sean Payton had a good quote on draft grades

Forget instant draft grades. “[W]e will have a better idea of how this draft went” in three years, Broncos coach Sean Payton said.

We can’t help it. Every year, right after the NFL draft ends, pundits give out grades for each team’s draft class. It’s way too early to give an accurate grade, but we can’t help it.

Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton correctly noted after the 2023 NFL draft ended last weekend that this year’s class should be graded three years from now.

“Tomorrow [Sunday]’s the day that all the draft grades come out,” Payton said. “I love tomorrow. But truly, I hope three years from now when all of us will have a better idea of how this draft went, the reports will be good. We heard it a million times — we got our guy today. Half of them are lying, but I would say, and I don’t want to speak for George [Payton], but man, I was excited.

“The process and the hours going into it, all of that, because it was new for me and there’s elements of it that were new relative to how we scout. There are some things that were fantastic. If you started really at the beginning of it all and you said here’s free agency, here we are and the draft just ended — I’m really excited.”

Next year will mark three years since Paton’s first draft with the Broncos and it looks pretty good in hindsight with Pat Surtain, Javonte Williams, Quinn Meinerz, Barron Browning, Caden Sterns and Jonathon Cooper all poised to have key roles this season.

Three years from now, it will be time to look back on the 2023 class, and fans in Denver can only hope it will look as good as the 2021 class in hindsight.

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Grading all 12 picks from Colts’ 2023 draft class

Grading each pick in the Colts’ 2023 draft class.

The Indianapolis Colts walked away from the 2023 NFL draft with the biggest class of Chris Ballard’s tenure as general manager.

Throughout the weekend, they added a projectable franchise quarterback, starters and depth at the cornerback position and elite athletes all across the roster. The experts around the league graded the Colts’ draft with extreme optimism.

Before we get into it, we must acknowledge the ridiculousness of grading players before they even step on an NFL field. Of course, we have no idea how their careers will pan out, and a lot of times we’re wrong on how we view the outlooks of their developments. We won’t truly know how these picks have panned out until about three years after the fact.

But we’re going to do them anyway because that’s just the way the world works. We’re making these grades based on the information we have at hand and the projections we’re making for these players as they enter the league.

So without further ado, here’s how we graded each pick the Colts made in the 2023 NFL draft:

Experts grade the Colts’ 2023 draft class

The experts loved the Colts’ draft haul.

The Indianapolis Colts made it a point to add talent, depth and athleticism to the roster during the 2023 NFL draft.

Walking away with 12 selections and arguably the most athletic draft class in the league, the Colts achieved their objective. They also grabbed their quarterback of both the present and the future in Anthony Richardson while adding some talented players to positions of need.

Between the three draft trades and 12 players selected, here’s how the experts graded the Colts’ draft class: