I think the story of this draft was missed opportunities. Obviously can't really grade a draft until 2 or 3 years down the road. But I think you can grade the draft process immediately. Rounds 1-3 you are expecting either immediate starters or major contributors. Round 4 may fall into this category as well but at a minimum a rotation player that makes the team. But then once you start getting into Round 5 and beyond, it really is just dumb luck as all teams agreed these players weren't worthy of being selected early so if you find a good one, everybody essentially missed including yourself. But the key draft picks are typically rounds 1-3 and the questions are did you come away with the guys you were targeting, are you getting value with those picks, are they filling pressing needs on your team, etc.... I think those things can be judged immediately.

I liked how the first round went. Was able to acquire additional picks while still getting a guy everyone would have liked at our original spot. Fills a big need. Looks like he has a lot of potential. It is possible they really had their eye on one or two players they would have drafted with or original pick. And with no one falling they moved back some. But I still think they came away in a great spot.

In the 2nd and 3rd rounds I think they were disappointed with how the board fell. Baalke talked later about how you can't always trade up but it sounds like they tried. As Baalke and Pederson were sitting there in the draft room as the first round came to an end, looking at how many good players were still on the board falling to the second round, thinking of all the extra draft capital they had just acquired, I don't believe there was any chance at the end of night 2 that they thought they'd walk away with just a backup TE and at best a 2nd string RB. And it's not as though this was one of those fringe first round TEs that had fallen. This guy was clearly in a lower tier than the others. If he was rated as highly they wouldn't have felt okay trading back and still landing him. Again Baalke mentioned it takes two to tango but there were trades happening all night. It's not as though no one was trading. Were we just being too stingy with what we would have to give up? There were a number highly rated players that fell within 10-15 spots of our original 2nd round pick. And the draft capital to move up wasn't that excessive. Packers essentially moved from 45-50 and only got a 5th and 6th out of it. We couldn't have moved from 55 to 45 if we had really tried? Imagine if we had given up a 4th and a 5th to get Brian Branch. I probably would have done that. And then in the 3rd round again a number of trades were made by teams wanting to move. Unfortunate we couldn't move to an area where the value would have met the need better. But very surprised we used a 3rd round pick on a RB when we already have a crowded RB room. If we really just wanted a third guy to share the carries who could be more capable in short yardage situations, I have to think we could have found 3-4 UDFAs and let them compete. It's hard to find a special game breaking RB. It's not hard to find a serviceable guy who fills a specific role.

Round 4 was fine. Solid rotation players. Thought Miller's pick was a little odd as definitely zero need there. I am curious to see if his selection suggests a move for Lloyd to more outside rusher. Otherwise is it him and Quaterman fighting for last roster spot? And then round 5 and beyond was basically just a shotgun approach. Hopefully you hit something. Johnson is the more intriguing one as he was projected to go much higher. Clearly we didn't love him as we passed over him 4 other times (including the trade back) on day 3. Wonder why so many teams were scared to pull the trigger. Injuries, off the field, maybe just good athlete but no football awareness? Hopefully he becomes a player for us though.

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