NFL Draft 2018: Worst Draft Class Award goes to…
By Dan Salem
We have a consensus on which team wins the Worst Draft Class award for the NFL Draft 2018. Combining risky picks with disregard for team needs, the Seattle Seahawks ‘win’ the award.
Pinpointing one NFL franchise as having the worst NFL Draft class is a two-pronged plan. It involves locating which teams failed to address their biggest holes heading into training camp. However, teams can be excused for doing so if they instead draft the best players available at the time of their selections.
Failing to do both parts, or reaching so horrendously to accomplish part number one, is what makes a bad draft. The consensus seems to indicate that one of New Orleans, Seattle, or Oakland had the worst NFL Draft 2018. However, certain publications are also incredibly low on the Buffalo Bills, for obvious reasons. That’s what happens when you spend oodles of draft capital on a quarterback who half the sport thinks was barely worth scouting. The other half loved what Buffalo accomplished. Let’s remove the unnecessary anticipation. We have reached a consensus.
Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate the NFL Draft 2018 in today’s NFL Sports Debate.
Todd Salem:
Though I’m fond of dumping on Jon Gruden, I don’t hate the Raiders’ draft as much as some. They spent heavily on both lines. Though there was a question on Kolton Miller in the middle of round one, Arden Key and Maurice Hurst were both excellent value picks in the middle rounds. Get on Gruden for any number of things but not for having the worst draft.
The Saints made a big splash to perhaps reach for Marcus Davenport. They also failed to address a number of roster holes. Seattle made a bizarre first-round selection and then beefed up its defense but failed to address that unit’s biggest hole: cornerback. My worst class of the NFL Draft 2018 comes down to these two, with the Seahawks holding the edge…in the bad way.
Seattle is in the midst of a major downturn thanks to years of succeeding wildly and putting off roster hell. That time arrived, and the Seahawks needed to replenish all of their offensive skill positions. Yet they didn’t draft a wide receiver at all. And the tight end they took is no Jimmy Graham replacement. Instead, he’s deemed one of the best blocking tight ends in the class.
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If Seattle is going heavy on the running game, it made sense to reach for a back, though the Rashaad Penny pick was certainly a reach that looked pretty bad immediately. And this team still has arguably the worst offensive line in football and needed corners on the other side of the ball.
Obviously, everything couldn’t be replaced in one weekend, but what is the plan with this roster now? Even if the defense remains solid, management had an entire offseason to make sure the offense wasn’t Russell Wilson doing his football Russell Westbrook impression, and it failed.
Dan Salem:
Pegging the team that had the worst NFL Draft 2018 is definitely challenging less than a week later. Its damn easy two years down the road, because we’ll know exactly which players busted. That being said, a few teams certainly came up short in terms of filling major needs to help themselves this season. Oakland is not one of them. The Raiders know their strength and added to it, while also selecting five defensive players to aid their weakness. That does not equal “worst draft” by any means.
New Orleans did just okay and Seattle made several truly perplexing decisions, but I’m looking at one other team who managed to bungle things up worth than either of them. That team is the Seahawks. See what I did there? After analyzing the remaining NFL teams, no one made as many head scratching selections as Seattle. I just can’t figure out why they drafted the players they did, when they did.
Perhaps the Seahawks were utilizing the best player available approach, but we know they needed offensive line help in a major way. According to ESPN, Seattle had two major areas of need, that being the offensive line and tight end. This is probably a bit generous, considering the lack of a running game and holes on defense, but the manner in which the Seahawks executed their selections is just weird. I don’t hate their pick of a running back, but I don’t like that they prioritized it in round one over the offensive line. They waited until Round 5 to pick an offensive lineman, after they drafted a punter!
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I also don’t understand their seventh round quarterback selection. Seattle wasn’t the only team to pick a sixth or seventh round quarterback, but when you have Russell Wilson, there is no reason to waste that pick on a position that is obviously not a need. If Penny is a slam dunk running the football, then none of this matters. But right now it appears he and Wilson will be getting tackled in the backfield an awful lot. This is no way to rebuild around your star quarterback.