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Chris Meaney
Bettings
The headline of the weekend is the hundreds of aspiring players who had their dreams come through, but of course all the picks of the 2024 NFL Draft matter for more than just those players. What about the players in place who just lost a gig? Or the ones who might have if their teams had acted differently but instead have a new lease on life?
Today, we’re looking back at the draft from the perspective of the players who weren’t drafted at all. Who were the fantasy football winners among the veterans? And who were the losers?
Welcome to town, Marvin Harrison Jr.
They still have Tee Higgins. They drafted a receiver (Jermaine Burton) and a tight end (Erick All, from TE University Iowa). And they picked up Amarius Mims, the latest entry in the Bengals’ quest to keep Burrow upright be merely making a line that is too big to run around.
The Chiefs’ biggest needs in the draft were receiver and offensive line. They traded up to address both, adding Xavier Worthy and Kingsley Suamataia.
Well, the team didn’t draft his replacement, which is a big win. And instead, they gave him either the best or second-best receiver in the field in Malik Nabers. The question now is whether Darren Waller returns, but Jones is set up pretty well for at least one more year.
Whoever ends up with the Pittsburgh job will be behind a rebuilt offense line and with an extra receiver. It’s still not an elite group of targets, but Roman Wilson is a big step up from Van Jefferson/Quez Watkins.
Brock Bowers would have been fun, but for my money, the Jets went the smarter direction in the first round by adding Olu Fashanu. Job 1 (and frankly Jobs 2-10) in New York this year is keeping Rodgers healthy and upright.
This one is tenuous, but the Patriots took a quarterback in Drake Maye who might get some time to learn in the NFL, which would mean Brissett gets to start at least from the beginning of the season. If they had ended up with a Jayden Daniels, Brissett would have gone right to the bench.
The Eagles’ rush rate dropped by 4 percentage points last year, in part because the running game was suspect and in larger part because a suddenly porous secondary kept other teams scoring and so the Eagles had to pass to keep pace. Barkley’s arrival should address the former, and the Eagles landing Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean in Rounds 1-2 should address the latter. Don’t be shocked if the team turns back to the run again.
White looked pretty good down the stretch last year, but he’s also a 2022 fourth-rounder who only has 521 career rushing yards. The team could easily have looked to replace him. Instead, Vegas drafted a tight end and two O-linemen in the first three rounds, helping White in other ways, and didn’t address the backfield until Dylan Laube in the sixth.
Remember that aforementioned Bengals offensive line that is the biggest collection of humans this side of My 600-Point Life? Yeah, that should help the running game as well, along with the fact that the Bengals didn’t draft anyone to supplant Moss.
The “all in” Cowboys still haven’t address running back this offseason other than bringing in Royce Freeman. Right now, Dowdle is atop the depth chart, while it seems increasingly likely that a reunion with Elliott is in the cards. Either option could have been scuttled if the Cowboys had pounced on one of the rookie backs, but instead they (wisely) built up the line with Tyler Guyton and Cooper Beebe. Whoever is the RB1 in Dallas is in a good spot.
The Chargers didn’t draft a back until the sixth round, not even Jim Harbaugh favorite Blake Corum, but they did bolster the offensive line with Joe Alt. The ex-Ravens duo gets a strong line to run behind. (Admittedly, this is a half-hearted winner, because Kimani Vidal is at least interesting.)
Mixon looked dead in the water when he was a Bengal. He became the starter in Houston after his trade, but the Texans not bringing in a replacement before the sixth round only strengthens his hold on the No. 1 job.
Galaxy brain time. The Bengals didn’t trade Higgins this weekend. They still could, but at this point it would be for 2025 (or beyond) draft capital, so the return would already be lower. And while Jermaine Burton isn’t Tee Higgins, the Bengals did spend a third-rounder on Higgins’ potential replacement. So either (a) Higgins still gets traded, indicating the acquiring team really wants him and accordingly spends big to get him or (b) he doesn’t, indicating the Bengals even with Burton are counting on Higgins to be Higgins-like in 2024. Either way, this weekend tells me he’s got plenty of 2024 value.
It doesn’t take much to be the best quarterback McLaurin has ever had in the NFL, but Jayden Daniels kind of laps the field. If he is any count at all, McLaurin could be the big beneficiary.
It’s one thing when the Lions talk up their belief in Williams’ 2024 when the alternatives are Kalif Raymond and Donovan Peoples-Jones. What else are you going to say? But the fact that they didn’t address the receiver position tells me they are walking the walk and not just talking the talk.
The Chargers drafted a receiver. They could have justified drafting, like, four. Sure, Ladd McConkey as the second pick in the second round is likely to be the WR1 straight away. But the team not doing much else at the position (they did get Jerry Rice’s kid Brenden Rice and Michigan product Cornelius Johnson in the seventh), says Johnston’s role is still relatively safe.
Maybe the fourth-round selection of Jared Wiley will temper this a bit, but I’m more interested in the impact of first-rounder Xavier Worthy on Kelce. With Worthy and free agent signee Marquise Brown bringing extreme wheels to Kansas City, defenses are going to have to account for that threat more than they ever had to in 2023, and that could leave Kelce more free to do his underneath work.
A lot (like, a lot-lot) of people assumed the Jets were taking Brock Bowers when he fell to them. So them going offensive line there (which, at least in my opinion, was the smart play) leaves Conklin still as the starting tight end in an offense that has some very good weapons but isn’t very deep.
The whole Michael Penix kerfuffle was certainly weird, but it also appears to give an expiration date to Cousins’ Atlanta tenure. It’s hard to imagine the Falcons would spend the No. 8 pick on Penix without designs on making Cousins’ four-year deal a two-year one. And if Cousins struggles out the gate (and, you know, he’s a 35-year-old coming off an Achilles tear), the Penix murmurs will get loud.
All that “Ooooh, Darnold might start!” intrigue vanished when J.J. McCarthy fell to Minnesota at 10.
The Miami backfield was crazy productive in 2023, even with Achane popping up to take work from Mostert several different times. Those two could have been a dynamite 1-2 punch again in 2024. But now, the Dolphins doubled (tripled? Octupled?) down on insane speed by grabbing Jaylen Wright in the fourth round. Would it really surprise anyone if the rookie with the 4.38 wheels takes a big share of the work from the 5-foot-9 guy who missed time to injury three different times in 2023 or the 32-year-old? At best this is a difficult committee.
Josh Jacobs’ contract in Green Bay was commonly referred to as a four-year deal, and sure, it could be that. But the Packers could easily get out of Jacobs’ deal after as little as one year, and their third-round selection of MarShawn Lloyd increases the chances of that. And at the very least, Lloyd probably unseats the disappointing Dillon as the Packers’ RB2.
Conner is 29 in a week and has missed multiple games every year of his career. That wasn’t going to scare anyone off when his backups in Arizona were Emari Demercado and DeeJay Dallas, but adding Trey Benson suddenly throws Conner’s outlook into question.
While I disagree with the Panthers’ draft strategy, Jonathon Brooks should take no time at all rising to the top of this backfield depth chart. I wouldn’t be shocked if Sanders is unemployed by the start of the season.
Blake Corum is kind of a Kyren Williams starter kit, so having him could lead to a backfield split. That isn’t likely to be 50/50 any time soon, but even 70/30 would be worse for Williams’ fantasy stock than the virtual 100/0 he had prior to Corum.
The only way (to me) the Brock Bowers selection makes sense for the Raiders is if they plan to keep Michael Mayer doing most of the traditional tight end-y work and let Bowers run around as a de facto receiver. That means targets for the rookie. Those have to come from somewhere, and we have to assume Davante Adams won’t be the one to lose targets. Sorry, Jakobi.
With Jerry Jeudy gone, Sutton was the primary game in town for the Broncos among receivers, with a bunch of question marks after him. They drafted Bo Nix, which wasn’t going to change much, but then they also got Nix’s Oregon teammate Troy Franklin. If there’s anything at all to the Shower Narrative, Nix could look Franklin’s way a lot, to Sutton’s detriment.
I’m not saying the Chiefs drafting Xavier Worthy has to mean they are expecting Rice to miss time to a suspension. But they could have easily justified going into the season with a Rice-Marquise Brown-Travis Kelce trio. So the fact that they drafted a first-round receiver — and traded up for the right to do so — could be an indication that they expect to be without Rice for a bit.
We all more or less knew the Cardinals would get a new WR1 in the draft, either Marvin Harrison Jr. or someone else after a trade-down. So Wilson wasn’t going to open the year as the team’s WR1. But still, the arrival of Harrison dings Wilson, and it’s made even worse that Wilson’s role as the only big receiver in Arizona is now gone.
The book isn’t closed on Hyatt, but after a rookie year when he played all 17 games but managed only 373 yards and no scores, the Giants went out and got a clear new No. 1 receiver in Malik Nabers. Hyatt has a lot to prove now if he wants to resurrect what was never that bright a star to begin with.
Thielen’s success in 2023 was at least partially due to being the only game in town in Carolina. They added Diontae Johnson earlier this offseason, then drafted Xavier Legette and TE Ja’Tavion Sanders. We can quibble over the quality of the game in town, but at least there’s more than one now.
Like Thielen, Bourne’s greatest advantage in New England was a lack of competition. Now, the team has added Ja’Lynn Polk and Javon Baker to the receiver room in addition to late-season riser DeMario Douglas. Bourne’s candle is dimming.
After the Jaguars signed Gabe Davis, it was general consensus they’d move on from Jones as soon as they re-signed Calvin Ridley. Then, when that didn’t happen, Jones was issued a stay of execution. The first-round selection of Brian Thomas Jr. could be what makes the axe finally fall.
The Giants selecting Malik Nabers at six overall didn’t have to mean they expect Waller to retire. But them going on to select Theo Johnson in the fourth round after already signing Chris Manhertz and Jack Still this offseason tells me at the least that they’re hedging against the possibility.
Ertz and Ben Sinnott are two very different tight ends. In our Day 2 recap, I said they could be a thunder-and-lightning combo in Washington. But it’s hard to imagine the Commanders team, with a running quarterback, will throw enough for two tight ends to get worthwhile target shares after accounting for Austin Ekeler, Terry McLaurin, Jahan Dotson and third-rounder Luke McCaffrey.
I said earlier that the Brock Bowers pick only makes sense to me if the Raiders use the rookie as more of a gadget-y receiver and leave Mayer to do the more traditional stuff. And by “traditional stuff,” I mean all the fun blocking jobs that do not lead to receiving work. Hard to imagine Mayer having a big impact in 2024.
