Thor's "Draft Haul" Grades

17. Jacksonville Jaguars | Draft: 18, UDFA: 13 | 2019 HAUL grade: C+

The Jaguars derived an enormous amount of value from their first two picks, getting a top-three talent at 1.7 and a mid-first round talent at the top of Round 2. Despite those wins, Jacksonville sagged to No. 17 in the rankings with a poor run to close the draft, including the baffling overdraft of Quinnen Williams’ brother on Day 2.

18. Miami Dolphins | Draft: 20, UDFA: 2 | 2019 HAUL grade: C+

I hated what the Dolphins did with their picks. But to their credit, they brought in a high-end UDFA class and also completed the stroke-of-genius Josh Rosen trade that isn’t included in this grade.

19. Carolina Panthers | Draft: 17, UDFA: 32 | 2019 HAUL grade: C

The Panthers no-showed the UDFA process after signing a bunch of AAF guys, and I thought they air-balled the 2.37 pick of Greg Little as well as the fliers for Scarlett and Godwin. But the Panthers still managed to grab a top-20 grade due to enormous values on Burns and Grier.

20. Cincinnati Bengals | Draft: 19, UDFA: 19 | 2019 HAUL grade: C

An up-and-down draft process for the Bengals, who hit it out of the park with the Jonah Williams pick and signed this year’s best UDFA in Nebraska WR Stanley Morgan. But Cincy devolved into a hit-and-miss M.O. with its other machinations, and the UDFA crop doesn't yield much promise outside of Morgan.

21. Kansas City Chiefs | Draft: 22, UDFA: 3 | 2019 HAUL grade: C

I loved the Thornhill and Thompson picks, and the Chiefs UDFA crop graded out top-3 in all of the NFL. Kansas City sagged in the rankings because I thought the rest of their draft was quite poor, notably the reach for Hardman.

22. Pittsburgh Steelers | Draft: 21, UDFA: 28 | 2019 HAUL grade: C-

Pittsburgh made a nice move up the board for Devin Bush in Round 1 and then scooped up a steal on Day 2 (Layne) and Day 3 (Smith). The rest of the class feels like a throwaway, and little was done in the post-draft portion with UDFAs.

23. Green Bay Packers | Draft: 23, UDFA: 22 | 2019 HAUL grade: C-

I hated the Gary pick and disagreed with the decision to sink so much equity into Darnell Savage when good safeties were still on the board in Round 4 (this isn't hindsight analysis -- there were eight or nine safeties in this class that most reasonable minds concluded were within shouting distance of one another, so we knew a few were going to be available later than otherwise might have been and that proved to be the case).

All that said, the Packers absolutely destroyed their two Day 2 picks and then signed the second-best UDFA prospect in Nijman to salvage the overall crop. The Sternberger pick in particular was genius. He's going to light it up in this offense.

24. New York Giants | Draft: 25, UDFA: 7 | 2019 HAUL grade: D+

The Giants needlessly squandered a metric ton of draft equity to acquire Jones, Lawrence and Baker in Round 1. And my model hammered them for it. The Giants averted abject disaster by grabbing one of the draft’s biggest steals in Julian Love on Day 3, and by bringing in a nice UDFA haul.

25. Detroit Lions | Draft: 24, UDFA: 17 | 2019 HAUL grade: D+

TJ Hockenson was my favorite prospect in the draft and the model gave Detroit due credit for getting what I consider to be a top-five overall prospect at 1.8. The rest of the draft was forgettable. Tavai had better turn into a good starter or Detroit may not have much to show for the class outside of Hockenson -- who, to be fair, is a generational talent.

26. Tampa Bay Bucs | Draft: 26, UDFA: 10 | 2019 HAUL grade: D+

The Bucs got their guy at 1.5 in Devin White, and I thought they stole Anthony Nelson in Round 4. Tampa also signed one of this year’s top UDFAs in Buffalo WR Anthony Johnson. The rest of the effort left a lot to be desired.

27. Atlanta Falcons | Draft: 27, UDFA: 23 | 2019 HAUL grade: D

Forgettable draft process for the Falcons. The first two picks were understandable but reaches nonetheless, and the over-drafts got more egregious from there.

28. Seattle Seahawks | Draft: 30, UDFA: 4 | 2019 HAUL grade: D

L.J. Collier was one of the biggest reaches of the draft. Marquise Blair was also a puzzling reach at 2.47 considering the other quality safeties that would remain on the board for two more rounds. D.K. Metcalf and Ben Burr-Kirven helped to keep Seattle out of the 30s in these rankings.

29. Indianapolis Colts | Draft: 29, UDFA: 21 | 2019 HAUL grade: D-

I thought the Colts reached throughout the draft. Indy didn’t do much when it closed, either. But I will say: I love the idea of moving Banogu to off-ball linebacker. I ranked him as an off-ball LB in my first draft because I thought his game might sneakily suit better for those duties, but ended up chickening out and listing him as an EDGE. I think Banogu's game will play up when he's given the latitude to run sideline-to-sideline with abandon and weaponize his athleticism in coverage.  

30. San Francisco 49ers | Draft: 28 UDFA: 31 | 2019 HAUL grade: D-

I loved the Jalen Hurd pick and was fine with Bosa at 1.2, even though I would have preferred Josh Allen, I didn’t really understand what San Francisco was doing outside of those two picks, though.

31. Dallas Cowboys | Draft: 31, UDFA: 9 | 2019 HAUL grade: F

Dallas got credit for nice value picks on the Miami defenders in Round 5 and for signing a nice crop of UDFAs. But the rest of the draft was rough, featuring a procession of objective over-drafts.

32. Oakland Raiders | Draft: 32, UDFA: 5 | 2019 HAUL grade: F

I can’t describe my feelings about what the Raiders any better than I did in my grades column. And since my cold analytical model came to the same conclusion as my lyin eyes, let's just re-run that assessment raw and unedited...

I actually loved what the Raiders did on Day 3, but I refuse to bump them up to a D- for the small-potatoes stuff. Thursday night, Mike Mayock’s first day in charge of the draft, was one of the most breathtaking squanderings of draft capital that we’ve even seen on Day 1 of the draft. Mayock took a mid-first rounder at 1.4, a second-round passing-down back with 18th-percentile athleticism at 1.24*, and an athletically-limited one-trick-pony enforcer SS with 36th-percentile athleticism at 1.27 who I predict will be outperformed by more than one safety who went on Day 3.

*(laughably, this news was leaked months in advance, probably because Mayock had loose lips about his Jacobs affinity with his NFL.com friends, who helped stoke Jacobs' out-of-control buzz by mocking Jacobs in the top-five after the national title game — and yet no team bothered to hop Oakland for Jacobs, all the indication you need that Mayock and Jon Gruden were on an island with regards to Jacobs' value range).

These weren’t even Las Vegas-esque high-upside gambles. Where's the upside here? Can you envision Ferrell becoming one of the class’ top-three players 20 years down the line? Can you envision Jacobs and Abram becoming top-25 players in this class? How? At their respective positions with their respective games in the modern NFL, each would have to become superstars to qualify.

Jacobs would have to become an every-down stud (something he's never been) and Abram would have to become at least "objectively good" in coverage (something he's never been), and both will have to get there without upper-tier athleticism. Those are two new cars whose value dropped by half as they were driven off the lot.