The Decision That Changed The NFL Draft Forever

with the NFL draft being a couple days away I thought why not take a look back at some of the most memorable draft moments over the past 15 years some good and some bad the NFL draft is meant to bring hope to franchises by adding young Talent maybe this is the year your team finally hits on that great wide receiver or maybe your team gets to steal the draft in the fourth round or the best potential option they finally hit on that franchise quarterback all these scenarios are real thoughts that go through NFL fans Minds leading up to draft day unless you're a Raider fan which perfectly leads us to our most recent draft Topic in 2018 the Raiders hired head coach John Gruden and GM Mike Mayo to help turn the franchise around and they wasted absolutely no time doing that trading both khil Mack and Amari Cooper in the same season for a total of three first round picks although you traded away two of your best players you did set up your rebuild perfect with six first round picks over the next 3 years is is what they thought with having that many first round picks in consecutive years you think your odds are high on drafting Elite Talent and I want to say this in advance this topic is going to sting a little more for me because I'm unfortunately a Raider fan myself and remember this time all too well I was a junior in high school sitting at my grandma's house watching the 2019 NFL draft and I called the top three picks before they even happened and then it gets to the Raiders and I say with the commissioner with the fourth pick of the 2019 NFL DFT draft the Raiders select Josh Al Cleveland frell a player mocked to go late first to early 2 was taken at number four and if you're familiar with the NFL at all you know this is what those two players have been like so far but they still have two first round picks left so it could only go up from here right nope the Raiders would select two of the bottom four most valuable positions to take in the first round a running back and a safety and the following year it would get even worse the entire College season I truly believe CD lamb would end up in Vegas I remember Raider Twitter could nonstop talking about it I would religiously send my dad highlights telling him how good CD will look in the silver and black and even with that the Raiders did the only reasonable thing to do draft a wide receiver that ended up in prison meanwhile cidd is literally breaking records in Dallas so from 2019 to 2021 here are the first round picks the Raiders made and do you want to guess how many of these players are still on the team in 2024 none six first round picks over three years and zero are still on the team just 5 years later that is literally mathematically impossible but maybe not more impossible than two teams backto back passing on potentially the greatest defensive player ever one common draft strategy in the NFL is the draft Edge prospects from the 25 to 32 range and in 2017 this was no different situation three teams were looking to draft edges late in the first the Falcons at 26 Cowboys at 28 and Steelers at 30 now everyone knows the NFL draft is truly a mystery some of the greatest college players in history have notoriously not been great in the NFL but some mistakes by NFL teams I just can't understand here are the picks of those teams I just mentioned at 26 the Falcons selected Tac McKinley at 28 the Cowboys selected Taco Charleston and at pick number 30 the pit B Steelers selected TJ Watt and I know me bringing this up is putting a lot of pain in Falcon and Cowboy fans Hearts but I just don't get how you have the brother of a three-time defensive player of the year sitting there and you pass on him twice to select tarist and taco so far through those two players career they have 312 sacks combined TJ watt has 22.5 in one season accounting for over 71% of their sacks in just 15 games and that ladies and gentlemen is how you torture two NFL fan bases at the same time but this whole video isn't just going to be the bad times like how in 2011 we witnessed maybe the greatest first round in NFL history and I mean that with no exaggeration the first seven picks of the draft ended up all being all pros at a point in their career and it didn't stop there 16 players from this first round ended up being a pro bowler 16 that meant you literally had a 50% chance of drafting a pro bowler and here are the total accolades from this round 78 Pro bowls 41 all Pros three defensive player of the years and an MVP but the greatest part about this draft was the defense and specifically the defensive line the 2011 Draft produced the most sacks ever from a single class and it featured seven players with 80 plus sacks this draft had 168.5 sacks from the first round picks alone not in including Justin Houston and his 112 sacks or Jerell Casey and his 51 and with a number like this I don't think a single draft class is touching what 2011 did for defense for a long time even when you look at history the 1985 draft had three players with 150 or more sacks Bruce Smith with 200 Kevin green at 160 and Chris dolman at 150. five and even with that production this draft still has over 200 less sacks than the 2011 Draft class truly a special class with defensive numbers we may never see again in NFL history and this final draft story is one that literally changed the NFL forever most NFL fans understand how contracts work specifically rookie contracts the higher you get drafted the more money you make as well as every first round pick receiving a fifth year option pretty simple concept right but this hasn't always been the case in the NFL in fact this has only been the case for 13 years before 2011 the rookie wage scale was not a thing so NFL teams were able to give a rookie their own contract they believe was the right price in 2007 the Lions gave Calvin Johnson a 6-year deal worth $555 million the following two years featured Matt Ryan receiving a 6-year $70 million deal as well as Matthew Stafford getting the most money ever by a rookie at the time a 6-year deal worth $72 million but after the 2010 draft the NFL had to step in and couldn't let this go on any longer because of what the Rams did in 2010 the Rams had the number one overall pick and selected Sam Bradford out of Oklahoma hoping he would become their franchise quarterback in doing so they gave him the largest contract by a rookie in NFL history a 6-year deal worth $76 million to show how ridiculous that is Bryce young the number one overall pick of last year's draft contract isn't even 50% of that number number and to make things even worse Sam Bradford only spent four seasons with the Rams and this is how his time went he completed 58% of his passes and averaged 14 touchdowns a year and nine interceptions a year so I'd say the NFL made the right decision implementing a rookie weight scale in 2011 and those are some of the best and worst draft moments over the past 15 years if you have any notorious draft moments you experienced let me know Down Below in the comments good or bad and as always hope everyone who watched this video learned something and also enjoyed thanks for watching I'm out peace

Channel: Dxvin

Views: 7,749

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Id: RmunCIDhOz4

Length: 7min 35sec (455 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 23 2024