The 2026 NFL Draft is in the rearview mirror, which means it’s time to grade how each team did. While many say draft grades can’t be completed until a few years down the road, I like to look at which teams are going about the process of drafting correctly, thus maximizing their chances at future success.
I may have a slightly different take than you are used to seeing on draft grades, as I’m trying to find the teams that are going to gain the most surplus value — the actual on-field value a prospect has relative to their rookie contract salary — out of their draft picks. Team fit matters, of course, but at the end of the day, premium positions don’t hit free agency very often, so teams need to find those cornerstone pieces in the draft.
To expand on surplus value, take the difference between the NFL’s five highest-paid edge rushers (average $44.5 million per year) and its five highest-paid running backs ($16.6 million per year). When you factor in those costs against a rookie contract, using high picks on premium positions not only saves money against the cap, but it also provides a ton of roster flexibility.
For my draft grades, I’ve used our Consensus Big Board to provide an idea of where players should have been selected, then factored in their position to get an expected value of each draft pick. We have assigned a dollar value to each draft slot, which roughly follows the rookie wage scale. We’ve also taken into account trades — they’re a vital part of the draft process. (I’ve considered any trade completed since the 2025 draft here.) For a more detailed methodology, you can scroll to the bottom to read more.
Last but not least, my grades are all relative to the league. That means not everyone is going to get a C or better. There will be F’s (plenty of them), as there are always winners and losers in every draft.
Winners
Cleveland Browns
For the second year in a row, the Browns sit at the top of my draft grades, as they again traded back — and got a haul to do so.
Not only did the Browns get the player they likely wanted all along at No. 9, but they gained about $12 million in value by moving down the board and picking up the 74th and 148th picks. Cleveland selected two offensive tackles and two wide receivers in the top 100; it used its other top-100 selection (No. 58) on safety Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, who ranked No. 22 on our consensus big board.
New York Jets
The Jets kicked off the draft-night drama when they selected Texas Tech edge rusher David Bailey with the No. 2 pick. Even though Bailey was the second-highest edge on the consensus board (behind Arvell Reese), that pick still stands out as a big winner because of Bailey’s potential impact.
Arguably, the best Jets moves happened months ago when they traded Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams to the Colts and Cowboys, respectively — they’ll reap the benefits of those trades next year, too. Those swaps added a ton of value for the Jets on the trade part of this equation and ultimately gave them three first-round selections.
With the rest of their picks, the Jets picked mostly around the consensus, although they did select premium positions with five of their first six picks; the only pick on a non-premium position was of top tight end Kenyon Sadiq.
New York Giants
The Giants followed up last year’s class, which ranked second in my grades, with a class that ranks third.
I did not expect Reese, the consensus board’s second-ranked player, to slide to the Giants, but they were certainly happy to see it. That wasn’t their only good pick, either, as they also addressed their offensive line by selecting offensive tackle Francis Mauigoa at No. 10. The Giants selected two more premium-position prospects inside the top 75 (cornerback Colton Hood and wide receiver Malachi Fields). Hood ranked 28th on the consensus board, so getting him at No. 37 was a nice move.
Carolina Panthers
For picking outside of the top 10, the Panthers did a phenomenal job addressing premium positions and team needs, while also drafting players lower than their consensus ranks.
In offensive tackle Monroe Freeling (No. 16 on our consensus board), the Panthers added a possible franchise left tackle. They followed up with three more picks at premium positions (Chris Brazzell II, Will Lee III, Sam Hecht, and Zakee Wheatley), grabbing several players at value — Hecht and Wheatley both ranked inside the consensus top 100 (79th and 95th, respectively).
This is the second straight year the Panthers have finished inside the top five in my draft grades.
Las Vegas Raiders
Yes, the Raiders made a good pick by selecting the consensus QB1 at No. 1, and Fernando Mendoza’s performance will determine the fate of this draft class.
If we can put the franchise quarterback aside for a moment, this Las Vegas draft could be won with its fourth-round selections. Jermod McCoy, who had a chance at being the top cornerback in this class before getting injured, was a gamble — but for a team that likely isn’t going to be contending this year, I really like the pick in Round 4. Running back Mike Washington Jr. (No. 70 on the consensus board) also marked great value.
Losers
Houston Texans
The Texans started the draft by trading up for guard Keylan Rutledge, who the league might have highly graded but was the 53rd-ranked prospect on the consensus board and plays a non-premium position. That’s quite the reach for a first-round prospect.
My model liked the Kayden McDonald and Kamari Ramsay picks, but the rest also look like big reaches at non-premium spots: tight end Marlin Klein (No. 133 on the consensus board) at No. 59; guard Febechi Nwaiwu (No. 190) at 106; linebacker Wade Woodaz (No. 241) at 123. When you factor in the trade value the Texans lost (fifth most, per my model), it was just a bad process.
Arizona Cardinals
If you have followed me at all over the years, you’re likely not shocked to see the Cardinals here (unless you actually expected them to have the worst grade).
I have little doubt that Jeremiyah Love will be a good running back, but the Cardinals are in no position to get the most out of a back given the current state of their roster — they have issues on the offensive line and at wide receiver, and that’s before we get into the conversation over who’s starting at quarterback. I’m not saying this is going to be identical when the Giants selected Saquon Barkley at No. 2, but that’s where my mind keeps going.
Seattle Seahawks
It all starts with selecting a running back at No. 32 — Jadarian Price ranked No. 47 on our consensus big board. Maybe there was a world in which teams were lining up for him in the early second round, but that’s a loss Seattle should’ve been willing to take.
Outside of that, the Seahawks had very little draft capital, and they made just three selections in the top 100 (and four in the top 150). I’m a fan of Bud Clark, but he was also a reach at No. 64; the same for cornerback Julian Neal at No. 99. Three reaches inside the top 100 isn’t a recipe to continuing your reign atop the NFL.
Jacksonville Jaguars
I had multiple colleagues and friends reach out to me asking, “What are the Jaguars doing?”
Well, it’s not too shocking — this is the second straight year the Jaguars graded out up in my bottom five. Nate Boerkircher ranked No. 156 on the consensus board, but Jacksonville took him at 56; Albert Regis (129 on the consensus board), Jalen Huskey (206) and Wesley Williams (207) were similar stories.
I did like the Emmanuel Pregnon pick, as I thought he slid too far. But the rest of the Jaguars’ draft — woof.
Chicago Bears
Dillon Thieneman fell to Chicago, so I can’t hate on that pick too much, although I don’t think it’s the home run most have made it out to be. The Bears then drafted for need by taking center Logan Jones (No. 76 on the consensus board) with the 57th pick.
I also thought tight end Sam Roush was a reach, but the worst pick in my model’s opinion was that of wide receiver Zavion Thomas at No. 89 — he ranked 213th on the consensus big board. Again, that’s just a bad use of draft capital, as Thomas likely would have been available at least a round later.
Methodology
The overall process can be understood in terms of dollars. Each player has a value that is transformed into dollars, and each team has a salary cap that constrains how much it can spend in a given year. Every pick has a contract attached to it, which means that each pick’s “cost” is independent of the player or position that is drafted. In other words, the first pick gets the same contract no matter who is selected.
Trades might be the simplest way to understand this. The first pick has a value close to $57 million, while the last pick has a value of around $4 million. If a team traded the first pick for the last pick, it’d lose about $53 million in value. I do include trades involving players, and this includes any trade since last year’s draft, as I want to avoid rewarding or penalizing a team twice for a trade that has draft picks that span multiple years.
Now, let’s get to the players. Each one has a spot on the consensus board and can be assigned pick values in the same manner as the draft picks themselves. For example, if a team drafted the 257th player on the consensus board with the first pick, it would lose about $53 million in value. And if it drafted the first player on the consensus board with the 257th pick, it would gain $53 million in value.
Now, I do make some adjustments for players who fall from their consensus position. That is largely because NFL teams are really good at what they do, and they have more information (medical, character and GPS-tracking data) than the public/consensus board and can make better decisions during the draft. To account for this, I penalize players who “fall” in the draft because that means multiple teams are passing on them. However, if a player is taken above the consensus board, that player does not receive an adjustment to his ranking, as we only have evidence of one team having that player ranked above the consensus.
The last part is the position adjustment. As mentioned above, edge rushers are considered more valuable in the NFL market than running backs: The top running back makes around $20 million per year, whereas the top edge rusher makes about twice that. This process is applied to all positions and applied to the pick. For this method, though, the player picked is not factored into the equation.
These three values are then combined and adjusted to where the league average of value gained/lost is $0. It’s a relative grading scale, as not all teams can be winners in a specific draft.
