They Took Who? NFL Teams That Drafted The Wrong Player

April 28, 2024

2024 NFL Draft article looking at winners and losers from the first round. What NFL players are in better and worse positions after the first round?

The 2024 NFL Draft has come and gone and teams have made some major moves. While the draft can be a time for franchises to reload, it can also be a time to unload. It is also clear that some teams have no clear direction.

Maybe it's drafting a position you don't need. Maybe it's taking someone lower on most people's draft boards when "better" prospects are still on the board.

Below are some of the picks that seemed to be the most confusing during this season's NFL Draft and still have us scratching our heads a few days later.

Michael Penix Jr. - QB - Atlanta Falcons

Alright, let's get this out of the way first since it's the most baffling pick of the first round. The Atlanta Falcons drafted Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth overall pick.

The biggest thing here is that the Falcons used a top-10 pick on a quarterback despite giving Kirk Cousins a $100 million guaranteed this offseason. It was the kind of money that screamed "YOU'RE OUR GUY," which is weird because taking Penix at Pick 8 screams "JK KIRK YOU AREN'T." So, which is it?

I'm not saying that Falcons shouldn't be looking ahead to a post-Cousins world. Kirk's heading into his age-36 season and is coming off a torn Achilles. There's no guarantee that he'll be able to get back to the level he played at before. However, the Falcons invested so much money in him that it would seem like a huge waste of resources to not give him the opportunity, plus he's not a mobile quarterback so the Achilles tear shouldn't have too much of a negative impact on his game.

With that in mind, it's especially weird for the Falcons to take Penix, who played parts of six different college seasons. He's someone who feels pro-ready at this point and if Cousins works out for the majority of the contract he signed with Atlanta, Penix would be in his late 20s before he sees the field as a starter. It's a really strange timeline.

Ricky Pearsall - WR - San Francisco 49ers

There was a run on wide receivers at the end of the first and beginning of the second round, and the two teams that started that run land on this list because it didn't really make sense why they picked the guys they picked.

Let's start in San Francisco, where the 49ers took Florida wide receiver Ricky Pearsall with the 31st overall pick. Pearsall can be a good NFL receiver, and I think his quickness is a fit for the 49ers. However, there were more intriguing options left on the board.

Pearsall is more of an inside receiver, and it just seems like the Niners could have looked at an Adonai Mitchell type here, someone who can stretch the field. I know Brock Purdy isn't the biggest armed quarterback, but it seems like the 49ers could help him build on the area of the game by giving him a weapon who could be involved down the field.

Also, it's not clear that the 49ers even needed a receiver here. For this pick to make sense, the team almost has to trade either Deebo Samuel or Brandon Aiyuk, but the best time to do that would have been during the draft

Xavier Legette - WR - Carolina Panthers

I loved what Xavier Legette did for South Carolina last season. It was legitimately one of my favorite college stories in years. Here's a guy who barely saw the field for four seasons, didn't transfer, and was rewarded with a monster fifth season, catching 71 passes for 1,255 yards and seven touchdowns.

I want Legette to be successful in the NFL, but we also have to consider reality here. This is a guy whose best season coming into 2023 was an 18-catch, 167-yard season in 2022. His 22.6 breakout age is in just the eighth percentile per PlayerProfiler.

Simply put, guys like Legette don't really exist, and it makes drafting him a risky proposition. The only other first-round receiver with a breakout age over 22 in the past decade was Kelvin Benjamin:

Legette now +160 to go R1 on DK.

He'd tie Big Benji for latest breakout age* of any R1 WR over the last decade. https://t.co/cfW1RVaeED pic.twitter.com/F1Uvxu2lrY

— Kyle Borgognoni (@kyle_borg) April 23, 2024

This was a huge risk for Carolina, especially with some really talented wide receivers left on the board. Legette plays a little like A.J. Brown, which would be great for the Panthers if he can hit that upside. The problem is that with a young quarterback like Bryce Young, you need to bring in weapons that are a little more of a sure thing than Legette is. You can't afford to have him be a bust.

Ruke Orhorhoro - DT - Atlanta Falcons

Ruke Orhorhoro has a shot to be a really good NFL defensive lineman, but the Falcons gave up a lot to trade up and draft him, which is where this pick becomes a mistake.

The Falcons traded Pick 43 and Pick 79 for Pick 35 and Pick 186 to draft Orhorhoro. In other words, to move up eight spots, the Falcons also moved down 107 spots later in the draft. That's...a lot of spots.

Based on the trade chart: https://t.co/WPsjyqbjhC

Falcons gave up 665 points in trade value
Cardinals gave up 567 points

So, you're not wrong. But the draft is always a seller's market. It's telling that Washington took a DT just after. Ruke may have been in high demand.

— Will McFadden (@willmcfadden) April 27, 2024

Just for some future what-ifs, let's see who landed in those spots. That 79th pick ended up going to Indianapolis, with the team taking Pitt offensive tackle Matt Goncalves, ESPN's 12th-ranked tackle. Pick 186 stayed with the Falcons, who took Alabama running back Jase McClellan, ESPN's 26th-ranked running back. There's a lot of value potentially lost there.

Jonathon Brooks - RB - Carolina Panthers

Look, I like Jonathon Brooks a lot as a prospect, but I don't really understand the move here by the Panthers. The former Texas Longhorn tore his ACL in mid-November, so he's likely to have a bit of a rocky transition to the NFL.

The Panthers aren't a good football team, by which I mean they don't need to be drafting a running back this high anyway, and that's made especially problematic for their roster building when that running back is returning from a major injury.

If the Panthers wanted to take a running back, why not take someone a few rounds later? Brooks could struggle to step in immediately, so if the goal is to get weapons for Bryce Young...then maybe a more pro-ready running back would work better. And if the goal was a running back for the future, is that a good value in the second round when your team has so many holes? This seemed like an odd spot for Brooks to go, especially with Carolina trading up to grab him.

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