Dan GrazianoApr 25, 2026, 07:08 PM ETCloseDan Graziano is a senior NFL national reporter for ESPN, covering the entire league and breaking news. Dan also contributes to Get Up, NFL Live, SportsCenter, ESPN Radio, Sunday NFL Countdown and Fantasy Football Now. He is a New Jersey native who joined ESPN in 2011, and he is also the author of two published novels.Follow on XMultiple Authors
play1:57Domonique Foxworth: Rams’ selection of Ty Simpson is a ‘risky bet’Dan Graziano and Domonique Foxworth detail why the Rams’ decision to draft Ty Simpson in the first round isn’t expected to pay off immediately.
Graziano on Cardinals’ pick of Love: ‘Awesome player, terrible pick’ (1:07)Dan Graziano details why the Cardinals selecting Jeremiyah Love third was not a great financial decision. (1:07)
Domonique Foxworth: Rams’ selection of Ty Simpson is a ‘risky bet’Dan Graziano and Domonique Foxworth detail why the Rams’ decision to draft Ty Simpson in the first round isn’t expected to pay off immediately.
Dan Graziano and Domonique Foxworth detail why the Rams’ decision to draft Ty Simpson in the first round isn’t expected to pay off immediately.
play1:02What Drew Allar brings to the SteelersWhat Drew Allar brings to the Steelers
The Eagles’ two-year NFC East title streak will end in 2026
The Rams will regret taking Ty Simpson in the first round
The Cardinals blew it by picking Jeremiyah Love at No. 3
Malik Willis made a huge mistake signing with the Dolphins in free agency
Drew Allar will be the Steelers’ starting quarterback in 2027
The Raiders can be legitimate AFC West contenders in 2026
The thing is, some of your reactions will turn out to be correct. Some won’t. We just don’t know which is which as we sit here on Saturday evening with the 2026 draft still fresh.
What we can do is take our best guesses. And you just knew the overreactions column was going to wake from its offseason nap to weigh in on a few.
You also knew we had to trot out this old chestnut. The 2025 Eagles repeated as division champs, ending a stunning 21-year stretch in which no team won the NFC East in back-to-back years. Can they make it three in a row? Absolutely, they can.
The Eagles spent the past couple of days adding a first-round receiver in Makai Lemon (USC), a second-round tight end in Eli Stowers (Vanderbilt) and a third-round offensive lineman in Markel Bell (Miami). They also acquired edge rusher Jonathan Greenard in a trade with the Vikings on Day 2 of the draft.
The Eagles might still be the favorites to repeat, but repeating is always hard in this division, and there are plenty of reasons for the other three teams to think they’re closing the gap.
After barely losing the NFC West title, the No. 1 seed and the NFC Championship Game to the division-rival Seahawks, the Rams seemed like a good bet to use the pick they got from Atlanta in a 2025 draft-day trade to make their 2026 roster better. Instead of taking a wide receiver or edge rusher who could have helped this year, they took a player who, if Stafford stays healthy all season as they hope, won’t see the field until 2027 at the earliest.
Could the Rams potentially regret not taking, say, Makai Lemon if Puka Nacua and/or Davante Adams have to miss time? Sure. Could they regret not taking Miami’s Rueben Bain Jr. if they have trouble trying to sign their excellent young edge rushers to extensions in the coming years? I guess. But I think the reaction to this pick has been way too much.
Heck, if he’s what McVay thinks he is, it’s not out of the question to think Simpson could help them in 2026 if Stafford has to miss a game or two and they need their backup to win a game. The Rams are an organization that has earned the benefit of the doubt. I’d be surprised if this pick costs them a chance at next year’s Super Bowl. I would not be surprised if Simpson turns out to be Stafford’s successor and this looks like a very smart pick in retrospect.
Domonique Foxworth: Rams’ selection of Ty Simpson is a ‘risky bet’
There is no question that Love is a wonderful player who, on talent alone, deserves to be picked this high. The reason this is even a debate is that Love plays running back, and picking a running back at No. 3 in 2026 means giving him a four-year, $52.5 million fully guaranteed rookie contract.
That’s by far the most money ever guaranteed to a running back — rookie or otherwise — at signing, dwarfing the $36 million Saquon Barkley got from the Eagles in his most recent deal. Love’s average salary of $13.125 million makes him the seventh-highest-paid running back in the league right away (pending expected extensions for Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs), which makes this a very expensive pick relative to the market for his position.
The problem is that the main purpose of the draft, in a league with a salary cap, is to extract maximum value from players during the early years of their careers so you can spend your cap space elsewhere. You are looking for guys who will outplay the value of their contracts.
If Love plays like a top-10 running back all four years, the Cardinals will be paying him accordingly. If they’d taken, for example, Ohio State’s Arvell Reese with that pick, Reese would have made the same $13.125 million per year (35th among edge rushers). Ohio State’s Carnell Tate, who went one pick later to the Titans, will make an average of $12.7 million over the first four years of his career. That makes him the 32nd-highest-paid wide receiver.
Again, this is no offense to Love, who I hope has an excellent career. The concern is that by the time the Cardinals are likely to contend, they’ll be confronting a contract extension with Love that they might not be able to afford. Arizona could easily be wasting the early years of his career while paying him a premium salary.
After two encouraging seasons as the backup quarterback in Green Bay, Willis signed a three-year, $67.5 million deal with the Dolphins this offseason. Miami has a new coach and a new GM and is clearly in a rebuilding phase. The Dolphins released Tyreek Hill and traded away Jaylen Waddle, leaving them with a wide receivers room led by Malik Washington, Jalen Tolbert and Tutu Atwell.
Miami drafted two wide receivers — Texas Tech’s Caleb Douglas and Louisville’s Chris Bell — in the third round Friday night, but Bell is recovering from a torn ACL, and it might be a while before he can be a factor for the team this season. The pass-catcher cupboard isn’t exactly bare in Miami, but it’s not overflowing with obviously excellent options on a roster that also needs help in a lot of other areas.
The Dolphins view the Willis signing as more than a one-year proposition. They think he can be their franchise quarterback, and their hope is to build up the roster around him in the coming years.
By the time the fifth round ended Saturday, Miami had already made 11 picks and had two still to go. The Dolphins landed an offensive tackle, Kadyn Proctor, in the first round, which they hope will help make Willis’ life easier. They drafted some key players on defense and a tight end, Will Kacmarek, from Ohio State.
The Dolphins can lean on dynamic running back De’Von Achane while the young offense takes shape. They might not contend this season, but Willis is part of a larger plan, and I have to believe he signed with Miami with his eyes wide open to the reality of the situation.
The Steelers fired up their western Pennsylvania fan base by using their third-round pick on the Penn State quarterback. Allar joins a quarterbacks room that includes veteran Mason Rudolph, 2025 sixth-round pick Will Howard and maybe … maybe … Aaron Rodgers, eventually.
Pittsburgh seems to believe Rodgers will return and play a second season for the team, but so far he has not. If he does — and if he stays healthy all season — Allar should get a chance to sit and develop for a year at least. But the Steelers still likely will need a new quarterback in 2027, by which point Rodgers will be 43 years old and probably done at long last, right? Right????
Dangerous as it can be to assume anything when it comes to Rodgers, let’s live in a world in which he’s not back with the Steelers in 2027. They could draft a quarterback for third year in a row. They could go the veteran Band-Aid route for the fourth year in a row. They could go any number of ways, but the Steelers know they need to solve this QB problem in a real and lasting way at some point.
Allar was drafted three rounds earlier than Howard was. The Steelers seem to like Howard, but he was injured for most of his rookie year and might not be much further along in his development than Allar is. The Steelers hired Mike McCarthy as their head coach after Mike Tomlin stepped down, partly because they believe in McCarthy’s ability to work with and develop young quarterbacks.
What Drew Allar brings to the SteelersWhat Drew Allar brings to the Steelers
Las Vegas, with yet another new coaching staff, used the No. 1 pick on Heisman Trophy winner and CFP champion Fernando Mendoza, hoping he’s the guy who can stabilize the Raiders at the most important position and lead them into a highly successful future. They had what looks to be a very strong draft even after that.
The Raiders landed Arizona safety Treydan Stukes in the second round and Auburn edge rusher Keyron Crawford in the third. They took a flier on ubertalented but injured Tennessee cornerback Jermod McCoy and drafted well-regarded Arkansas running back Mike Washington Jr. later in the fourth round.
They made eight total picks in the first five rounds and still had two left. After an active free agency that followed the hiring of Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak as their head coach, there’s excitement for the future in Las Vegas.
This is more than a one-year rebuilding project, and the Raiders know it. It’s one of the reasons they felt it was worth the risk to stop McCoy’s fall at No. 101 on Saturday afternoon. If he can get healthy, he’s potentially a high-impact defensive playmaker on a team that has been short on those. Mendoza has the traits to make you think he can be a franchise QB.