Meaningless wins for several teams have completely changed the face of the draft.
The NFL should be largely set by Week 17. We know the elite teams, the playoff-likely, as well as those on the bubble. We know who is good, and who is bad — and we have a pretty good idea of what the draft order will be for April.
Well, that’s what normally happens. The final week of NFL football for 2024 threw everything into absolute chaos when it comes to the 2025 NFL Draft picture. Largely meaningless wins by the Giants, Jaguars and Raiders caused a cataclysmic shift in the Top 10, and now have a draft order that is monumentally different than it was a week ago.
The New England Patriots now have the keys to the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft, and here’s a comparison of the changes that took place on Sunday.
As it pertains strictly to the Top 5:
Of course there’s some value to winning meaningless games when you’ve been eliminated from playoff contention. Victories on Sunday could very well have saved the jobs of Brian Daboll, Doug Pederson, and Antonio Pierce — but while it’s nice for coaches to keep their jobs, from 30,000 feet these wins unquestionably damaged the organizations. There is a substantial difference moving down a pick or two inside the Top 5, especially when it comes to future plans.
Nobody was more disrupted on Sunday than the New York Giants. Within the span of three days this team went from fans photoshopping Shedeur Sanders into Big Blue, to now being forced to wonder if they’ll be able to take a quarterback at all in April. That is a very real scenario, and one Giants fans will need to cope with now.
Obviously the Patriots won’t take a QB at No. 1 after taking Drake Maye a year ago, but this now gives them option to trade out to a QB-desperate team, or the more-intriguing prospect of taking Colorado CB/WR Travis Hunter. Even if we assume Hunter’s snap count will be down in the NFL over college, the idea of him being an occasional deep threat on offense while beefing up the New England secondary across from Christian Gonzalez is too great to pass up.
Now we get to the back-to-back quarterback teams. Surely the Titans have to see the writing on the wall when it comes to Will Levis. They took a flier on him in 2023, and it didn’t pan out. All things considered the 2nd round pick risk was minimal considering the upside, and Levis has simply been too inconsistent to have any faith in moving forward.
That would potentially open the door for someone like Miami QB Cam Ward with the No. 2 overall pick — yes, jumping Sanders who is the presumptive QB1 in many eyes. A young offensive coach like Brian Callahan will likely value a more consistent signal caller who can follow his script over Sanders’ more improvisational, boom-or-bust play style.
Then we have the Browns, who crave someone with Sanders’ playmaking ability under center. With an established offense and a solid coach at the helm in Kevin Stefanski this team could absolutely harness that potential and nurture him into being a special player.
Now we’ve reached the Giants. Without a QB on the board they’re likely pressured into taking a really good player like WR Tetairoa McMillan or CB Will Johnson — but neither will transform the organization. It would take a future 1st and more to move the Patriots off the No. 1 pick in a potential trade, meaning this one sad win in late December either costs New York from finding their future QB, or rolling the dice in a less-than-stellar class on a player who might not be worth trading up for.
Make no mistake, the fall hurts a little for the Raiders and Jaguars as well, but not nearly to the same level. The Raiders had fallen outside of the QB picture anyway without a trade, while the Jaguars saw their Travis Hunter dreams evaporate before Week 17 anyway, and they’ll likely bolster their defensive line, which is wide open inside the Top 10.
If you’re a fan of Pyrrhic victories then there’s probably a positive you can pull out of the Giants blowing up their draft position to knock out the Colts. It might feel good right now, but the damage of this win will echo for several years in New York and beyond.
Now let’s spin around the rest of the NFL to check out the winners and losers from Week 17.
It was a big old day for two guys who appeared to be washed up in Carolina. Baker Mayfield demolished his former team and keep the Buccaneers in playoff contention, while Sam Darnold’s heroics led the Vikings to a season-affirming win over the Packers.
It’s nice to see good things happen to good people. Both Darnold and Mayfield handled their disastrous time in Carolina under Matt Rhule with the utmost professionalism in impossible circumstances. A bad team, a horrible coach, horrific weapons. Nothing was right on that Panthers team.
Now these guys are showing the potential they displayed leading up to the 2018 NFL Draft when they were taken with the No. 1 and No. 3 picks respectively. There’s never been a greater example of why fit is often more important than ability than Mayfield and Darnold being cast off by multiple teams to now find their footing on elite teams that a thriving because of them.
All that’s standing between Saquon Barkley and an immortal season is the woeful Giants defense and coach Nick Sirianni potentially resting him.
Barkley had another mammoth day on Sunday, rushing for 167 yards in another Eagles win. A big day against the Cowboys was his biggest stumbling block towards Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record, and now he’s poised to break the mark, which has stood for 40 years.
Hitting that goal wouldn’t just be monumental in terms of the NFL, but could also be the kind of eye-popping record which could lead to a running back winning the MVP award for the 2024 season.
This is purely for selfish Mac Jones purposes. Someone out there is going to see Jones perform well in Jacksonville and wonder if he could be the next Mayfield or Darnold. It’s enough to save his career and take him to be something more than a backup.
With a dearth of QB talent in this draft watch someone roll the dice on him.
I don’t care if Aaron Rodgers wants to come back to New York — do the Jets even want him? It was another haphazard, crummy performance from the Jets’ ‘savior,’ who has been given absolutely everything he wanted and can’t do a thing with it.
Sure, you can bend over backwards to handwave this away as “it was against the Bills,” but here’s a list of the QBs who have performed better against Buffalo this season than Aaron Rodgers:
If you want a guy who’s worse that that list of guys, Aaron Rodgers has got you covered.
Steichen came to the Colts with a weight of expectation that he would get the team over the hump and become a consistent playoff squad. On paper a 9-7 season followed by a 7-9 record shouldn’t be enough to lose a head coaching job — but blowing your playoff hopes against the hapless Giants will turn heads.
Now Steichen is having to answer questions about his future and his seat is hot when it never seemed it could go that way.
