2021 NFL Draft, First Round winners and losers: Bears score big, Raiders baffle

The first round of the 2021 NFL Draft didn’t play out quite as many had expected but which teams emerged from Round 1 as winners and who stumbled to loser status?

We’re 32 picks through the 2021 NFL Draft and things have already gotten wild. The San Francisco 49ers threw up the Mac Jones smokescreen perfectly as Trey Lance was always their guy after trading up to No.  3, the Chicago Bears pulled off a trade of their own to get a falling Justin Fields, and the New England Patriots had Jones slip into their laps as they stayed put.

There are still over 200 picks remaining in the 2021 NFL Draft, which means that the madness is still just getting started. The next two days will have their own share of reaches, terrific value picks and so on.

However, first-round picks are the most important. The players taken with these picks (and where they’re taken) are the ones that have the opportunity to define the future of franchises. So when we look at that and everything Round 1 held, which teams won and lost? That’s what we’re about to unpack.

Winners and losers of the 2021 NFL Draft first round

Winner: Chicago Bears

How could the Bears not be a winner in the first round? After an offseason in which a franchise reeling from the Mitchell Trubisky mistake tried to exhaust resources to trade for a quarterback and consistently came up empty, they were the team to make the move up the board and land Justin Fields.

Despite being the fourth quarterback off the board, Fields was my second-ranked quarterback in the 2021 NFL Draft class. And the Bears got him at No. 11. Yes, they had to trade up a ton of draft capital, including next year’s first-round pick to get him. But Chicago is dead in the water without a future at quarterback. They now have that and Ryan Pace may have salvaged his job.

Winner: New England Patriots

Throughout the week leading up to the start of the draft, the New England Patriots were a team embroiled in rumors about potentially trading up, specifically moving into the top 10 for Justin Fields. But when the Carolina Panthers made their pick at No. 8, it became apparent that wasn’t going to happen. So the Patriots stood pat — and then still got one of the top-five quarterbacks in the class.

Mac Jones in New England has long made sense as he’s the exact type of quarterback who can thrive in Josh McDaniels’ offense. He’s not Tom Brady and anyone who says that is off base. However, what made Brady so effective with the Patriots was his ability to process and get the ball out quickly. That’s Jones’ biggest strength and there’s now a viable quarterback battle in Foxborough between Jones and Cam Newton.

Loser: Las Vegas Raiders

How many times are we going to watch Jon Gruden in the NFL Draft and not think that Alabama and Clemson are the only two teams he watches?

In my final mock draft, I had the Raiders taking Alex Leatherwood, so it wasn’t entirely unpredictable that he would do this. But he substantially reached for a player from a premier college football program whose NFL projection is much more subdued than his college effectiveness. Granted, Las Vegas does plug a big hole on the line. But there were better players on the board at tackle and this was another massive reach from Gruden.

Loser: Green Bay Packers

All cards on the table, the Green Bay Packers being a loser has very little to do with taking Eric Stokes with the No. 29 pick and much more to do with the dark cloud hanging over the franchise as they made the pick. Namely, all signs point towards Aaron Rodgers forcing his way out of the franchise he’s been with for 16 years.

Frankly, it felt as if everyone was on trade watch more so than they were debating what the Packers were going to do in the draft. And though this is unfair to Stokes, it felt as if there was an air of “Does this pick really matter if Rodgers leaves?” over their final decision of who to draft. That’s less than ideal, to say the least.

Winner: San Francisco 49ers

If we’re handing out awards for which teams did the best job not giving us any indication as to who they were going to draft, the San Francisco 49ers would win it running away. The people who refused to believe that the franchise would trade up from No. 12 to 3 now look like Nostradamus as they were exactly right; the move was always for Trey Lance.

Not only is San Francisco a winner for misleading the public, though, the 49ers picked a better player for what they need at quarterback moving forward. They could’ve won now with Jones in Kyle Shanahan’s offense. But adding Lance raises the ceiling substantially for a long, long time in the Bay Area.

Loser: Dallas Cowboys

Make no mistake, the Dallas Cowboys grabbed a player with a lot of upside when they got an extra third-round pick from the rival Eagles to move to No. 12 and then took linebacker Micah Parsons. But everything else about the pick makes no sense and the situation was extremely rough to watch.

By the trade down, it’s obvious that Dallas believed that either Jaycee Horn or Patrick Surtain II would fall to them. They were taken with the two picks immediately before the Cowboys, though, which put them in regathering mode. And they regathered by taking Parsons, a player who only muddles the waters for the Cowboys defense with Jaylon Smith, Leighton Vander Esch and Keanu Neal all already in place at linebacker. This just seemed like a panic move of taking the best defensive athlete on the board, not taking a player who helps Dallas in 2021.

Winner: Miami Dolphins

Some might consider the Miami Dolphins just a ho-hum team for their two selections in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft but I love what they did. Even if I would’ve taken Penei Sewell instead of Jaylen Waddle with the No. 6 pick, the totality of their selections makes a ton of sense for the franchise taking a big, decisive step forward.

Waddle is an ideal fit to help out young quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and the offense as his speed at all levels and ability after the catch perfectly complements the big downfield weapons already in place. Moreover, Jaelan Phillips has top-10 talent in this draft class but questions about his past retirement from football pushed him down. For a team that need’s a pass rush, he’s a player who can provide that now and only get better with more experience. That haul, as a whole, makes for a great look when you consider this is a team that was already on the verge of making the playoffs.

Winner: Baltimore Ravens

For the final winner that we’re naming, I considered the New York Jets. But the fact that Zach Wilson was my QB3 that they took at No. 2 knocked them out. Instead, it was another team that had two first-round picks, albeit late ones, in the Baltimore Ravens that get the nod as they landed Rashod Bateman and Odafe Oweh at No. 27 and 31, respectively, to help cap off the night.

Bateman is a perfect fit to help unlock Lamar Jackson in the Ravens passing offense. He’s a Davante Adams-type player in that he won’t overwhelm athletically but gets open every time, which is exactly what they need. Moreover, Oweh is a home-run swing at a position of need. The upside of the Penn State pass-rusher is obvious with his freaky athletic traits. And this is a staff that has proven to be able to develop in that area, which should unlock a monster on the edge.

Loser: New Orleans Saints

Because the history of the New Orleans Saints suggests that they ultimately know what they’re doing, we often give them a bit of a pass when they make a head-scratching early-round pick. And while they didn’t trade a first-round pick to move up for Payton Turner like they did with Marcus Davenport, this was one I’m not letting slide.

It would be forgivable if the Saints reached on a player at a true position of need if they really liked what he brought to the table. But Turner is a versatile defensive lineman that doesn’t help the lacking wide receiver and cornerback rooms. Instead, he feels like a player who is actually kind of redunant to some of what they have — not to mention the fact they took him about 40 picks ahead of where he was expected to come off the board.