NFL DraftNFL DraftThe Giants got a quarterback, the Jaguars made a massive deal, the Patriots were left hanging, and Shedeur Sanders is still available. That and more from night one of the NFL draft.
Getty Images/Ringer illustration
By Steven RuizApril 25, 7:45 am UTC • 13 min
The first round of the NFL draft is in the books! Here are the winners and losers from an exciting day one.
So much for Schoen and Daboll being lame ducks in New York. The embattled Giants general manager and head coach—who barely survived a disastrous 2024 campaign and were so embarrassingly inept on HBO’s offseason version of Hard Knocks that no other NFL team would agree to go on a second season—were allowed to run it back in 2025. And despite the now-infamous decision to let Saquon Barkley walk (to a division rival, no less) and a hopeless 3-14 season (which included the release of Daniel Jones, whom Schoen signed to a $160 million deal in 2023), team owner John Mara still let the duo cook on draft night. After selecting Penn State edge rusher Abdul Carter with the third pick, the Giants traded back into the first round to take Mississippi quarterback Jaxson Dart.
The Carter pick was a no-brainer. He was viewed by many as the top player in the draft and has the physical profile of a dominant pass rusher. It wasn’t a pick dictated by team fit or the front office’s preferences. Any team drafting in that spot would have taken Carter. And even if Daboll and Schoen aren’t around next season, the next regime will probably be excited to have Carter on the roster.
The same may not be true of Dart. Even before Thursday night, it was well known that Daboll was enamored of the former Ole Miss quarterback. After the pick was made, ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio said Daboll had compared him to Josh Allen, citing size and arm talent as the connective tissue between the two quarterbacks. That’s a generous comp for Dart, who has a good (not great) arm and at 6-foot-2 and 223 pounds isn’t nearly as big as the Bills’ hulking passer. Daboll oversaw Allen’s development in Buffalo from a raw prospect to a superstar quarterback, which ultimately earned him the Giants job in 2022. But getting a similar years-long window to work with Dart would require a miraculous turnaround in New York next season. Daboll has already declared Russell Wilson the starter ahead of the rookie, so there’s a chance that if the team has another down year, the coach wouldn’t last long enough to even see Dart make his first NFL start.
Daboll and Schoen seem to be confident in Dart’s ability to lead a franchise turnaround. They weren’t willing to wait until the second round, where they had the second pick, to take him. They weren’t willing to settle for Shedeur Sanders, either. They went and got their guy, presumably with the backing of their increasingly impatient owner.
More From Round 1
More From Round 1
If the goal of the NFL draft is to come away with the best players—and it is—then it’s hard to consider the Jaguars anything but winners after their daring move up the board to take Travis Hunter with the no. 2 pick. The two-way superstar, who won the Heisman Trophy playing both receiver and cornerback, is the best player in this class. Still, Jacksonville’s rookie general manager, James Gladstone, paid a price that’s typically reserved for quarterback trades to land the pick, sending the no. 5 selection along with a second, a fourth, and next year’s first-round pick to the Browns to land him.
It was Gladstone’s first big swing as Jags general manager and one that seems to be straight out of Les Snead’s “Fuck Them Picks” playbook. The 34-year-old worked under Snead for nine years in Los Angeles before taking the job in Jacksonville, and watched his former boss burn through first-round picks in trades for established veteran talent (while other teams coveted them as building blocks for a better future). But that’s not exactly what Gladstone did here. Hunter is a rookie and doesn’t have an established position, much less an established track record of NFL success. This poses a significantly greater risk than any of the trades that earned Snead his reputation.
This wasn’t a “Fuck Them Picks” trade; it was a “Fuck Positional Value” trade. Nobody would have blinked if a team had sent that trade package to move up for a quarterback. But even if Hunter develops into an All-Pro cornerback or a Pro Bowl–level receiver, we could look back at the price Jacksonville paid for him with healthy skepticism. For Hunter to be worth this haul, he’ll have to become the two-way star he was for Colorado. That appears to be the initial plan Jacksonville has cooked up for their first-round pick.
Jaguars are expected to play their first-round draft pick Travis Hunter on offense and defense. They will on-board him by giving him a heavy dose of the wide receiver position while still playing him at his more natural position on defense. Two positions for pick No. 2.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 25, 2025
“They told me they were going to let me do what I do,” Hunter told ESPN after being drafted. “They put me on the phone with both coordinators.” Gladstone called Hunter “a player who could alter the sport itself,” which suggests the Jaguars have ambitious plans for his usage. On a human level, I’m concerned. Football is a brutal sport, and NFL seasons are long. Hunter has the talent to play on both sides of the ball, but I’m not sure any player has a body that’s capable of withstanding essentially two seasons in one. No part of my rational mind considers this a viable plan for Hunter. However, as a football fan, I also can’t wait to see how this unfolds.
We haven’t had a true two-way player since Hunter’s college coach, Deion Sanders, played cornerback and receiver for the Cowboys in 1996. Before that season, it had been 34 years since the NFL had seen its last true two-way player in Chuck Bednarik. And there hasn’t really been one since. Chargers fullback/defensive lineman Scott Matlock is the only player who’s logged at least 15 snaps on both sides of the ball in a single game since 2000, as far back as TruMedia’s statistics go. Even Deion didn’t really play a full season on both sides of the ball. The Cowboys scrapped the two-way bit in late November after a few months of his inconsistent play at receiver. Hunter is trying to pull off something we haven’t seen in the modern NFL.
If any player is capable of pulling it off, though, it’s Hunter. He took significant strides on both sides of the ball last season. After a solid first year at cornerback in Colorado, he developed into a true lockdown terror during his final season. Opposing offenses feared him, and he showed why with an interception rate over 10 percent, according to Pro Football Focus. He allowed just one touchdown and only seven receptions that went for a first down. And as a receiver, he increased his production across the board after moving from the slot to the perimeter. He’s far from a polished wideout, but that didn’t limit his route tree, and Hunter consistently produced explosive gains, whether he was running a deep vertical route or a quick one underneath. He won 50/50 balls at a high rate and forced plenty of tackles after the catch. Whether he’s in coverage or running routes, Hunter has an expansive skill set. The Jaguars will need to utilize every bit of it to get their money’s worth on this trade.
From the Browns’ perspective, the analysis of this trade isn’t complicated. The Jaguars sent Cleveland an offer it couldn’t refuse and GM Andrew Berry, who’s in desperate need of a quarterback he wasn’t going to get by drafting no. 2 in 2025, moved down a few spots, picked up a damn good prospect in defensive lineman Mason Graham, and landed a second first-rounder in what is expected to be a strong class of quarterbacks in 2026. The Browns have plenty of holes outside of quarterback and could have used a player of Hunter’s ability. But Berry was on record saying he viewed Hunter as a wide receiver, and we haven’t seen a pass catcher go in the top-two picks in a draft since Detroit took Calvin Johnson in 2007. Cleveland let positional value guide their strategy, which is usually the prudent way to approach the draft. It’s just not very fun.
The first night of the NFL draft is in the books, and perhaps the most recognizable prospect of the class is still on the board. Shedeur Sanders watched teams pass on him 32 times. He may have been the prospect with the widest range of outcomes—even when it appeared he could go in the top half of the first round. But it was surprising to see him fall out of the top 32 entirely and down to third in the quarterback pecking order after the Giants made their move for Dart. Sanders’s tape, skill set, and production scream “second-round prospect,” but we don’t really see quarterbacks taken in that range anymore. Will Levis is the only quarterback who was drafted in the second round in the past three years. Presumably, Sanders will add his name to that list tomorrow night as the Browns will be on the clock with the first pick of the day and have another selection two picks later. If Cleveland were to pass on him twice, the Saints, Raiders, and Jets are all in need of long-term solutions at the position and have picks in the top 10 of the round.
I’m sure whichever team drafts Sanders will claim that he’s a first-round talent. They’ll shoot down the notion that his confidence bordered on cockiness in pre-draft interviews, a sentiment that was echoed numerous times during the process. In fact, they’ll probably tell you how much they love his confidence and how it was a key factor in the decision to draft him. But the league, as a whole, already showed us how it felt about Sanders on Thursday: His skills—which include solid accuracy, toughness in the pocket, and keeping cool under pressure—did not outweigh the concerns that filled anonymous reports over the past few months.
Or maybe league evaluators didn’t view Sanders as a strong prospect in the first place. If he were a true day one talent, his cockiness would have been framed as swagger. If he were even a strong Round 2 prospect, it’s hard to imagine him falling past 32 teams given how franchises covet quarterbacks on rookie deals—and the fifth-year option teams get with first-rounders. The truth is, Sanders’s on-field flaws should be more of a concern than any perceived deficiencies he may have as a leader. He took sacks at a concerningly high rate in college, his accuracy came and went, and he doesn’t have the athletic profile we now expect every first-round prospect to carry. When looking beyond his name, the recognition that comes with being Deion’s son, and being the leader of one of college football’s biggest draws over the past two years, you’ll find a game that wasn’t worth all this hype in the first place.
This has nothing to do with New England’s first-round pick. Will Campbell, a tackle out of LSU, is a good prospect regardless of his arm length, and he fills a gaping hole on the roster. He also pledged to “fight and die” for Drake Maye in a Southern drawl after he was picked, so I have no choice but to take him at his word. We even got a post-draft anecdote about Campbell knocking Pats coach Mike Vrabel on his ass during a pre-draft workout. This was the perfect pick for the first draft of the Vrabel era.
But it’s hard to shake the feeling that New England could have come away with more. Don’t forget that the Patriots would have owned the top pick in this draft if not for a meaningless Week 18 win back in January and could have shopped that pick for a package on par with what Cleveland got from Jacksonville. But by beating Buffalo’s backups in the final week of the season, the Pats dropped down to the fourth pick and moved out of range for that sort of trade offer. Vrabel said on Thursday night that New England had been open to trading back but they didn’t get much interest from other teams.
Did the Patriots get offers for the No. 4 pick?
Mike Vrabel: “No. It was pretty quiet. We would’ve entertained anything but it was quiet.” pic.twitter.com/5mQSScw7Qp
— Chad Graff (@ChadGraff) April 25, 2025
Unable to move off the pick in a class that is short on blue-chip talent, the Patriots had to watch as the Jaguars leapfrogged them for Hunter and the Giants took Carter off the board. Vrabel and Co. made the best of the situation by finding a franchise tackle to protect Maye’s blind side, but taking a safe offensive line prospect rarely makes for a fun draft night. And if Hunter becomes the transcendent star Jacksonville thinks it’s getting and Carter turns into a dominant pass rusher, Pats fans will always wonder what could have been.
God, it played out just like a classic Falcons collapse. Through the first three quarters of the night, Atlanta fans had to be feeling good. They had watched their team draft a Georgia Bulldog for the first time since the ’60s—Jalon Walker, an impressive prospect who fills a need at edge rusher. And with no other first-round picks, the team was seemingly done for the night. There was no way they could spoil the vibes. But somehow, general manager Terry Fontenot found a way.
The Falcons surprisingly traded back into the first round to take pass rusher James Pearce Jr. out of Tennessee, costing the team a first-round pick in next year’s draft. It was a steep price to pay to get back into the bottom of the first round in any draft. And in this draft in particular, which many experts believe is stronger in the later rounds, it was a confounding move for a team that is not close to contention.
It’s the second consecutive season in which the Falcons have stolen the draft spotlight by taking an unnecessary risk. Last year, Fontenot drafted Michael Penix Jr. just months after giving Kirk Cousins a four-year, $180 million contract. Fontenot somehow survived the Cousins disaster and uninspiring 2024 campaign to get another crack at things in 2025. And he’ll get the blame when this gamble eventually backfires. But owner Arthur Blank, who allows Fontenot to make these decisions year after year, shouldn’t be spared either.
Every football fan has been through what Micah Parsons experienced on Thursday night during Bleacher Report’s live draft show. We’ve all felt that moment of disappointment when our favorite team passes on the player we want for a pick we had never even considered. It sucks, but we cope with it and quickly convince ourselves that the pick will work out. In Parsons’s case, though, he’s employed by his favorite team and he had to go through that cycle of grief in front of a national audience. This was Parsons’s reaction to the Cowboys drafting guard Tyler Booker with the 12th pick:
Parsons played it off well, calling Booker a “beast” and explaining that he just wanted to see the Cowboys add someone to the defense. Which is a plausible explanation, but not one that holds up to scrutiny. Earlier in the night, Parsons was bummed when the Panthers took Arizona receiver Tetairoa McMillan with the ninth pick. “That was supposed to be our pick,” Parsons said. “He was supposed to be opposite CeeDee Lamb.” Parsons even punched the air just to sell his disappointment. So while he can claim he wanted a defensive player over Booker, he’d been clamoring for an offensive skill player just a half hour prior.
Parsons should be used to disappointment now. Not only does he play for the Cowboys—heyo!—but he went through almost the exact same experience a year ago when Dallas took guard/tackle Tyler Guyton in the first round.
That is not the face of a happy camper.
The running back resurgence is showing no signs of slowing down. Just a few short years ago, the outlook was so dire for the league’s best backs that they got together for an emergency Zoom call about the state of the position. Now we’re back in a spot where an NFL team can use an early pick on a running back and won’t get widely ripped for a poor understanding of positional value.
The Las Vegas Raiders may not be equipped to get the most out of a player like Ashton Jeanty, whom they took with the sixth pick on Thursday, but it is fitting that Pete Carroll was the coach who drafted the star back. The first-year Raiders coach was once viewed as a key antagonist toward the NFL’s passing revolution. He was the guy who refused to let Russell Wilson cook when all of the data suggested that the Seahawks’ run-first philosophy was holding the team’s offense back. Carroll hasn’t been fully vindicated in the years since, but we have seen the importance of the run game grow over the past few seasons, with run-first offenses in Detroit, Baltimore, and Philadelphia finding success. Even the Bills, with Josh Allen, improved when they took up a run-first approach.
As that’s happened, we’ve seen the value that a superstar running back can provide a team. A good scheme and a road-grading offensive line will make for a productive run game no matter who’s getting the carries. But if you combine those elements with a runner who can turn 4- and 5-yard runs into explosive gains, you get massive results. Saquon Barkley supercharged an already productive Eagles run game and helped Philly win the Super Bowl last season. Derrick Henry joined forces with Lamar Jackson to form a historically efficient ground game in Baltimore. Jahmyr Gibbs, a controversial first-round pick for the Lions in 2023, was a walking explosive play behind Detroit’s mauling offensive line. Those offenses are loaded across the board, but they’ve been boosted by home-run-hitting running backs. And now other NFL teams are looking for guys with similar skill sets. Jeanty may have been a first-round pick in any draft, but it’s unlikely that Omarion Hampton, who went to the Chargers with the 22nd pick, would have been viewed as a day one prospect if not for the reemergence of running-back-centric offenses in 2024.
An earlier version of this piece misidentified the owner of the Atlanta Falcons; it is Arthur Blank, not Arthur Smith.
Steven Ruiz has been an NFL analyst and QB ranker at The Ringer since 2021. He’s a D.C. native who roots for all the local teams except for the Commanders. As a child, he knew enough ball to not pick the team owned by Dan Snyder—but not enough to avoid choosing the Panthers.
