Winners and losers from the 2017 NFL Draft
The 2017 NFL Draft will be remembered as one of the most thrilling in history, with shocking trades and unexpected (and occasionally controversial) picks marking the early rounds.
With all seven rounds now in the books, let's evaluate which teams and individuals benefited most - and who received our lowest marks.
Winners
Browns
We might be living a dream, or maybe it's the matrix, because the Browns suddenly appear to be one of the NFL's shrewdest organizations.
The league's perennial laughingstock entered the first round with picks No. 1 and 12 and somehow finished the evening with Myles Garrett, Jabrill Peppers, David Njoku, and the Texans' 2018 first-round pick.
The Browns then erased the one criticism of their first round - that they didn't land a quarterback - by catching a falling DeShone Kizer in the middle of the second round. For a player some analysts called the best passer in this class, that's incredible value.
The Browns are probably still a year or two away from playoff contention, and they still wear clown costumes for uniforms, but we might have to find another team to make fun of.
John Lynch
The 49ers raised a lot of eyebrows when they made Pro Bowl safety-turned-TV analyst John Lynch their general manager despite his complete lack of front-office experience.
Lynch changed a lot of minds with how he attacked the draft. It started with his masterful smokescreen with the No. 2 pick. We may never know if Lynch truly had multiple offers for the pick, but he convinced the Bears to move up one spot and surrender two third-round picks in the process for Mitchell Trubisky, a player the 49ers never wanted.
Lynch got his man, Solomon Thomas, at No. 3, then worked some more trade magic by popping up to the late first round to end Reuben Foster's fall. Two defensive difference-makers on the first day of Lynch's first draft on the job. Not too shabby.
Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota
This year's draft was Christmas in April for the top two picks in the 2015 draft.
The Buccaneers and Titans made it a clear focus to add weapons for Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, respectively, and both teams exited the draft with a playoff appearance dead in their sights.
The Buccaneers got the best tight end in the class when they made O.J. Howard their selection at No. 19, then added speedy receiver Chris Godwin in the third round and receiving tailback Jeremy McNichols in the fifth.
The Titans got things started with the fifth overall pick, where they showed they believe Corey Davis can be a true No. 1 receiver. They added another potentially dynamic receiver in Taywan Taylor in the third round, then finished that round by grabbing tight end Jonnu Smith.
Panthers
It's never a good thing when your starting quarterback is your fastest offensive player.
The Panthers spoke of a need to evolve their offense this offseason, and they accomplished that in a big way with the additions of hybrid offensive weapons Christian McCaffrey and Curtis Samuel with their first two picks. Each is a supercharged runner in space and an adept receiver.
If both players get on the field at the same time, and with the prevailing threat that Cam Newton could take off running at any time, the Panthers' opponents won't know what's about to hit them.
Defensive backs
Nine of the first 33 picks in the draft were cornerbacks or safeties. By the end of Day 2, 29 of the draft's 107 selections were DBs, shattering the record for the modern era.
The NFL isn't just a pass-first league, it's a pass-second and pass-third league. It follows that not only are quarterbacks highly valued, but so are the players tasked with preventing those quarterbacks from succeeding.
The city of Philadelphia
2017 will be remembered as the year the NFL draft transformed into a festival of football. An estimated 70,000 Philadelphians showed up to take in the first round of the draft in person, creating an atmosphere akin to a large-scale music festival except with periodic player selections instead of live music.
The fans were loud, rowdy, and occasionally rude - exactly what the NFL hoped. They booed their NFC rivals mercilessly, and sang "Fly, Eagles, Fly!" after every home-town selection.
Taking the draft on the road has proven to be a stroke of genius by the NFL, and future hosts now have a very high bar to aim for.
Losers
Alex Smith and Mike Glennon
The Chiefs made perhaps the biggest splash of the draft, moving all the way up from 27th overall to 10th to grab Patrick Mahomes, their quarterback of the future.
The move signaled that the Chiefs finally see what some fans have for years: Alex Smith simply isn't good enough to get the Chiefs to the Super Bowl. In many ways, Mahomes is everything Smith isn't. He's unpolished, unpredictable, and most importantly uncapped.
Mahomes needs time to develop, so Smith will almost certainly remain the Chiefs' starter in 2017 (and perhaps even 2018). But Mahomes is the future, not Smith, and that can't feel good for a veteran passer who has been good-but-never-great for Andy Reid's squad.
Mike Glennon doesn't have the pedigree of Smith, but he surely expected to be the Bears' starter after the team gave him a three-year, $45-million contract in free agency.
Glennon will probably get that chance to start, but purely as a stopgap in front of Mitchell Trubisky, the future of football in the Windy City. At the first sign of faltering (and that could be in Week 1, considering the Bears' brutal receiving corps), fans will begin clamoring for the rookie.
Saints
It's not that the Saints' first-round selections were poor - Marshon Lattimore is widely considered to be the best cornerback in the draft and was an excellent value at 11, and Ryan Ramczyk should be a solid O-line starter - but it has to hurt knowing neither player is who the Saints really wanted.
We've learned since Thursday that the Saints targeted Patrick Mahomes with their 11th pick, only to watch the Chiefs trade up to 10 and snag him. Then the Saints wanted Reuben Foster at 32, only to again have their pick snatched from under them after the 49ers traded up to 31. Foster even hung up on the Saints when he got the call from the 49ers. Ouch.
The Saints followed those near misses by trading into the third round, surrendering a 2018 second-rounder to do so, for Alvin Kamara. It was hefty price for a player who is currently projected to be the team's third-string running back.
Mock drafters
Mock drafts are rarely accurate; the best are lucky to get even 10 players matched to the correct team. But this year's mock drafts took a special kind of pounding thanks to the numerous shocking trades and selections in the first round.
Draftniks spend months meticulously constructing their fan fiction, only for all their hard work to be rendered meaningless the moment the first team goes off the board. Is it really worth it?
Eli Manning
Manning's job isn't in jeopardy, but the Giants' selection of quarterback Davis Webb in the third round suggests the team is at least contemplating life post-Eli.
The Giants witnessed how quickly things can change when their NFC East rivals in Dallas saw their aging passer fall, then be supplanted by a mid-round rookie last year.
Webb probably isn't the next Dak Prescott, but his selection tells us the Giants believe they might need to find Eli's replacement sooner than some of us might think.
Roger Goodell
Boooo.