The NFL Draft is more of a marathon than a sprint, but early success can certainly fuel a strong showing and facilitate franchise growth.
On the other hand, a misstep early on can set NFL teams back years. When all is said and done, these first-round picks gain context, but as we sit here today, here are the squads that did well for themselves on Day 1 and the ones who have positioned themselves behind the eight-ball.
2025 NFL Draft Winners: Tennessee Titans
Just because it’s obvious doesn’t make it wrong. Entering the draft, there was one pick seemingly everyone agreed on, and the Tennessee Titans executed – good on them!
Tennessee has made some significant moves to improve their offensive line this offseason (inked Dan Moore Jr., the former Pittsburgh Steelers starter, to a big four-year, $82 million deal and brought in former Detroit Lions starter Kevin Zeitler on a one-year deal), a unit that ranked 21st in PFSN’s OL+ metric last year and showed signs of life as the season wore on.
Playoffs might be a stretch, but ending a three-year slide feels doable. With a last-place schedule and solid QB play, they’ve got a real shot at .500. Games against the Seattle Seahawks, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, Las Vegas Raiders, Cleveland Browns, and Indianapolis Colts (twice) all feel winnable.
Jacksonville Jaguars
There was a lot of speculation entering the draft about where the Jacksonville Jaguars would go. The order changed from mock draft to mock draft, but the first four players were pretty stable for much of the past month — and Jacksonville decided they wanted in on the action!
ESPN Sources:
🏈Browns are trading the No. 2 overall pick, a fourth-round pick (No. 104), and a sixth-round pick (No. 200) to the Jaguars.
🏈Jaguars are trading the No. 5 overall pick, a second-round pick (No. 36), a fourth-round pick (No. 126) and their 2026 first-round pick… pic.twitter.com/9J3QPHqhhU
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 25, 2025
Were the Jaguars going to open the Liam Coen era with a flashy skill position pick? Could they go to the offensive line to give Trevor Lawrence a chance to prove himself as the high-pedigree signal caller we were promised?
Everything was on the table. That’s not a good thing, as it means you have plenty of holes. That said, this was the rare draft where there was a unique way to fill multiple needs with a single selection.
Defensive Pressure by Season:
- 2022: Third in pressure rate (37.6%)
- 2023: 16th in pressure rate (35.3%)
- 2024: 27th in pressure rate (29.4%)
The Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl, and the Lions were atop our power rankings for an extended stretch. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Denver Broncos were among the two most surprising teams a year ago. All of those teams ranked inside the top seven in pressure rate in 2024.
Jacksonville earned a 62.7 in PFSN’s Defense+ metric, the second-worst mark of the year (ahead of only the Carolina Panthers) and the sixth-worst grade over the past four years. How Hunter will be utilized is TBD, but his versatile skill set gives this defense an avenue to improve in a significant way.
And on offense? Jacksonville had one player reach 415 receiving yards last season. One. Brenton Strange was their second-leading pass catcher behind Brian Thomas Jr., and he ranked 118th in the league in receiving yardage with 411 (behind Tyler Conklin and tied with Marquez Valdes-Scantling).
This is a perfect spot for Hunter.
Coen is betting on Lawrence being “the guy” under center, and with a bona fide WR1, the amount of pressure put on Hunter initially will be limited. That said, the ceiling could really be the roof — this offense can put as much usage on Hunter’s plate as he can handle without rushing his development.
Jacksonville gave up a ton of draft capital to make this marriage happen — maybe too much. But what that tells me is that this franchise is willing to explore Hunter’s uniqueness, and if they maximize him the way the Los Angeles Dodgers did Shohei Ohtani, we will look back on this deal as a bargain.
New England Patriots
The trenches.
We all know that the quarterback position is what drives success as much as anything in this era of football, and the ability to keep your prized possession upright is a good place to start when it comes to building a winning culture around your franchise centerpiece.
READ MORE: Live 2025 NFL Draft Grades
The Patriots believe Drake Maye is their guy under center for years to come, and thus, improving an offensive line that only graded better than the Houston Texans and Seahawks last season was always going to be a logical way to spend the fourth overall pick.
And we’ve seen this story play out before, or at least something close to it. The Bengals drafted Joe Burrow in 2020, and in the 2021 NFL Draft, they opened with Ja’Marr Chase before drafting three offensive linemen and a running back before the week was over.
That may sound like an obvious blueprint (draft your star and build around him), but executing a plan deserves to be commanded this time of year, and the Patriots checked that box by picking Will Campbell. That Cincinnati team won four games during Burrow’s rookie campaign (23rd in PFSN’s QB+ metric), but they realized it was a marathon more than a sprint, and they haven’t logged a losing season since.
New England won four games last season, and Maye posted the 21st-best QB+ grade in the process. I’m not sayin’; I’m just sayin’.
Dallas Cowboys
The last Dallas receiver not named CeeDee Lamb to reach 700 yards in a season was Amari Cooper in 2021. So, yes, a Robin to Lamb’s Batman is on the shopping list, but in this economy, do you just willy-nilly buy your eggs at the first grocery store you go to?
No. No, you don’t. It would be reckless to pay a premium for a product when you can probably get 95% of the quality at 65% of the cost somewhere else. See where I’m going with this?
There were probably 4-6 WRs with top-45 grades in this draft, not even counting unicorns like Hunter. Dallas didn’t settle. Instead, they showed the desire to build from the inside out by selecting Alabama’s Tyler Booker.
This offense was forced into a quick-strike style after ranking 24th in pass-block win rate; without elite depth at the receiver position, thriving in such an offense is difficult, if not borderline impossible. By picking up Booker here and potentially addressing the WR position later rather than drafting the same positions in the opposite order, Dallas maximized the expected value of its selection, and that’s all you can really ask for.
Seattle Seahawks
We know now that Sam Darnold’s nine-figure deal with the Seahawks is more of a glorified one-year deal with cap gymnastics, but the point remains: They are betting on the former Minnesota Vikings QB and would like to be right.
Will they be? We have plenty of time to litigate that, but they are at least giving themselves a chance with their first-round selection of Grey Zabel of North Dakota State.
Darnold was great last season, and if you simply look at the raw “under pressure” numbers, it would be easy to assume that, in his age-27 season, he took massive steps toward being the franchise QB he was drafted to be.
Numbers Under Pressure:
- 2019-23: 44.9% completion rate, 57.0 passer rating, and 18 TDs to 20 INTs
- 2024: 50.5% completion rate, 84.1 passer rating, and 13 TDs to six INTs
That level of growth could be sold without a second thought. Maybe situations in the past weren’t ideal, or maybe his developmental curve was simply delayed. Those are reasonable assumptions to make, but if you split the data further and look at money time, when Minnesota’s season was on the line and opponents had game film to react to … well, those numbers look different.
Numbers Under Pressure, 2024:
- Weeks 1-14: 56.6% completion rate, 109.8 passer rating, and 12 TDs to three INTs
- Weeks 15-WC: 41.1% completion rate, 44.3 passer rating, and one TD to three INTs
By no means am I saying that Zabel will fix that. To be honest, I have no idea. We are more than four months away from seeing him play his first down at the professional level and have plenty of time to flush out what we think he can be.
What I am saying is that Seattle is playing this correctly. They are giving the Darnold era a chance to be successful. This franchise has had one losing season since going 7-9 in 2011 and should again be able to flirt with double-digit wins this season if they are as strong in self-assessment as I view them to be.
2025 NFL Draft Losers: Las Vegas Raiders
Ashton Jeanty is a great prospect and very well might end up being an All-Pro with time. As crazy as this sounds, that doesn’t mean this pick is a smash hit.
Jeanty’s profile is often compared to the greatness of Saquon Barkley, and I’m old enough to remember the former Nittany Lion being great from the jump and not facilitating growth in the wins department. The New York Giants earned the right to draft Barkley with a 3-13 season; they held the fourth-worst winning percentage in the NFL over the next four years.
Oh, and if you don’t remember, Barkley was nothing short of special during his introduction to the league. Since 2000, here are the instances in which a player racked up 3,200 yards from scrimmage and caught 100 balls during their first two professional seasons:
- LaDainian Tomlinson (2001-02)
- Le’Veon Bell (2013-14)
- Barkley (2018-19)
If we re-draft the 2025 class in seven years, the same way we’ve done 2018 since Barkley led the Eagles to a Super Bowl title, I think it’s very possible that Jeanty’s profile makes sense going in the top 10. The landing spot, however, matters, and I’m not sure the Raiders are in a position to turn this potentially generational talent into victories.
They currently have two more picks in the top 70. Could they have planned on getting a viable back with one of those selections while turning this pick into a more sturdy position and/or leveraging the selection into a higher volume of impactful assets?
I’m zagging a bit here, but asking the Raiders to enter win-now mode during the always-underwhelming projected shelf life of running backs is a bit optimistic, especially given the teams they are competing with in the AFC West, never mind the rest of the conference.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Not to oversimplify things, but Tampa Bay graded as our third-best offense and 16th in defense.
It would be one thing if this were an aging offense that was at risk of falling apart, but Bucky Irving and Jalen McMillan profile as future assets, so that’s not really the case here.
The defensive numbers improved as last season wore on (second-best scoring unit following their Week 11 bye), but five of those seven games came against a team that picked inside the top 10 of this draft.
They ranked 24th in sack rate when not blitzing and 31st in interception rate last year. Without improvement on that side of the ball, they are at risk of having to be nearly perfect on offense, and that’s simply an unrealistic expectation, just ask the Cincinnati Bengals.
Emeka Egbuka (19th overall pick) is a good player. Heck, it’s not crazy to think he could be the most productive wideout in this draft class when all is said and done. But this isn’t fantasy football — this is about constructing a well-rounded roster. By taking a receiver here, Tampa Bay opted to lean into a strength as opposed to address a weakness, a strategy that is a tough sell if playing deep into January is the goal.
Parting shots: The Panthers taking Tetairoa McMillan with the ninth pick wasn’t where most thought the Arizona Wildcats star would land. Regardless of what you think of the player, this pick tracks process-wise — if you think you have a franchise quarterback on the roster, supporting him becomes a priority, and they are clearly making that effort.
That same logic holds for the Chicago Bears taking Colston Loveland two picks later. He’s a tight end in name only and gives the Bears a pass catcher to develop alongside Caleb Williams. We’ve been beaten over the head with the value of quarterbacks in the draft for years, but only recently have teams been open to the idea of spending up on their supporting cast.
The Broncos’ electing to strengthen our top-ranked defense (eighth-best, per Defense+, since 2019) with Jahdae Barron (20th overall pick) instead of adding an offensive weapon for Sean Payton to play with was interesting. For me, this is another bet on Bo Nix — a bold move but one that could pay off in a big way with time. If Nix is the QB Payton believes him to be, then he’s a talent elevator, not someone who needs elite talent to elevate him.
Supporting Justin Herbert is one thing, but doubling down at the running back position instead of adding to the offensive line or receiving core is … something. Omarion Hampton was picked with the 22nd pick and now joins Najee Harris in a suddenly deep backfield. We know Jim Harbaugh wants to play 1990s football, and he’s leaning into it even more than most thought likely — can he win at a high level by zagging?
There was some talk pre-draft that the Washington Commanders could look to build backfield depth to support Jayden Daniels, but instead, they aimed for quality of carries via the addition of Josh Conerly Jr. with the 29th overall pick as opposed to spreading out the quantity of carries with a committee running back.
This is a bet on Brian Robinson Jr., something that the advanced stats community is in favor of.
Robinson’s Yards per Carry After Contact by Season:
- 2022: 2.69
- 2023: 2.93
- 2024: 3.07
Robinson’s PFSN Elusive Rating by Season:
- 2022: 24.4% (32nd, worse than AJ Dillon)
- 2023: 28.1% (21st)
- 2024: 33.7% (11th, better than Josh Jacobs)