Biggest Winners & Losers of the First Round | 2025 NFL Draft

Micah Parsons, Darius Slay Jr, Mike Renner, and Adam Lefkoe break down the biggest winners and losers from the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft.

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Um, if you were to say winners and losers, can we recap uh some of the draft picks in the first round? Just kind of go through the 32 picks and we’ll take a look at the teams that we thought maybe did the best job. So, we started off Cam Ward. The big surprise early on was the Jaguars trading up with the Browns to take Travis Hunter. Abdul Carter goes three. Maybe he’s going to wear the 56. Good journalism from you. Will Campbell at four. Mason Graham at five. Genty the first and one of two running backs taken. Membu that was a big surprise too. T the Panthers definitely caught us off guard. Kelvin Banks and Colston Loveland the tight end going before Tyler Warren uh to the Indianapolis Colts. Then we can look at 11 through 20. 11. Um we started off I know the Cowboys were at 12. They took the offensive lineman Tyler Booker that blew us away in the short stint that we talked to him. Um, and that will come up eventually. There we go. Michael Williams, the edge setter for the San Francisco 49ers. Dolphins go Dline. Tyler Warren, Jaylen Walker fell to the Falcons at 15. Walter Nolan joins um Jonathan Ganon, the defensive minded coach for the Arizona Cardinals. What a what a Bengals pick that was. And Shamar Stewart, Grace Zable can play all the line for the Seattle Seahawks. A Mecha Vuka was a surprise there. Second half there. Derek Harmon goes to the Steelers. Omaran Hampton. Uh Golden Jackson and Dart there. The trade up. The big surprise. Pierce. The Falcons get their second first round pick. Uh second first round pick. Then Malachi Starks, Tyreek Williams, Josh Connorly Haristen, and then the Eagles took Jiad and then Josh Simmons. Uh Slay, why don’t I give you a first crack? Who was your big winner tonight? I think the big winner tonight was for me is uh the Denver Broncos because I think they got a a player that’s going they already was a great defense but I think that defense really going to be out off the charts just because the fact that this guy they got very versatile and I like I like Jade Baron. Yeah, I love versatile corners and I think he going to be a differencemaker for that team. Uh what do we think is your big winner? I’m split. I’m split between New York and uh I’m gonna say New York and Atlanta. So the two teams that traded back up to get a second first round pick I always like aggressiveness and if you’re going to win now and you want to win now and you say we have the team win now, this is how you do it. You know what I mean? You don’t sit back and you wait. If you believe in a guy and you got a guy, you take the guy. I think obviously Abdul, you know, no favoritism, but you you just mash that up and then you don’t know what type of draft capital they’ll get if they do decide to move on from Tibido. You don’t know. So, you know, it would make even more sense, you know, if they get capital back from Tibido. And they just, like I said, they’re not they’ve reset the market with him. They don’t got to worry about paying him. They don’t got to worry about anything like that. And you have a premier rusher that can be pretty much better than Tibido at this point early on. and their D line just goes monstrous, you know what I mean? And then I would say Atlanta just because, you know, this is a team who ranked 31st in pass rush, didn’t get to the quarterback a lot, and you get two premier guys that can get after a quarterback on the ball, off the ball, doesn’t matter. You add some versatility. Young, you know, those two guys for me is those two teams for me did a great job. And then, you know, did you guys do we do losers? Let’s just stay positive for a second. What Rener, what’s your winner? I like Atlanta. I like Micah’s point that the two most highest paid positions in the NFL, they don’t have to pay for the next four years. Quarterback, defense, edge rusher, they are clean there with rookie contracts. But I’ll go a little bit off being path. I love what the Browns did not drafting Travis Hunter at two. They got so much in return in terms of draft capital. And it’s not as if they traded back and got like some guy where it’s like, ah, he he could be okay. I think Mason Graham has Pro Bowl allp proential. He’s a darn good football player that if Travis Hunter didn’t exist, they could have taken that number two overall. Right. So they got that. They got next year’s first rounder. They got a top of the second rounder. They gave themselves a ton of flexibility. So I love what they did taking that lottery ticket and basically turning it into a lot of different pieces. Uh I’m going to go Baltimore Malachi Starks. Just one of those picks where all of a sudden their defensive game plan comes very clear and what that’s going to unlock for Kyle Hamilton and what’s that going to unlock for everybody else is pretty darn special. Why don’t you go losers first? Mario has to be the Chicago Bears. So I I just completely don’t understand Lovelin at 10. Yeah, I don’t understand it. I like for a top 10 pick, I’m thinking Brock Bowers. You could say Kyle Pittz, but just a guy that you don’t truly know about that said, hey, we for gave him the ball a little bit more because everybody else sucks. He’s not considered a run tight end, so you got to package it. You got to stay in a certain personnel. That’s what makes Brock unique. You know what I mean? That’s why you would spend a top 10 pick on a, you know, a guy like that cuz he’s great at run blocking. He’s great. He’s great creating separation. I just don’t see that out of love. I don’t see why, you know, there are so many other players where you could get great value. Even if it’s like we don’t need them, but we’re get, you know, we’re adding depth, you know what I mean? Like I just don’t see him being better than, you know, a lot of these other guys who I can see being future pro bowlers or uh, you know, all pro players down the line. M slice a team that maybe you didn’t have the the best reaction to. I mean he took the one I thinking too just because I think like not say like the tight end is not a very very important like position just that I feel like you can find great great tight ends second day day two guys. You know if I feel like if I went top 10 for a tight end it got to be like yeah gota I don’t know it got to be he got to be able to do everything. I couldn’t have had no pass game at all. He got to come change the whole pass game. Like the Raiders took took Buddy. They feel like they knew they going to lose Devonte Adams, right? So they knew that like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They I feel like they got a thing that’s set over there. So I feel the same way about them. What do you think, Runner? Who’s yours? I think it’s the Minnesota Vikings. I mean, they took a guard 24 of Raw. I thought it was a little bit of a reach. The offensive line run had kind of passed them by. I thought Connor Lee is a much higher potential player than him. And they only have four draft picks this entire draft. They have the least draft capital of anyone in the NFL. and the two teams behind them traded for a lot more draft capital. You you had the Texans move it back and get a couple of third rounders. You had the Rams move back and get a future first. You could have made that move and maybe still got a good guard at one of those picks, but you just stood Pat and now you really can’t add more to this roster in this draft. Um I don’t I don’t really have a loser. I don’t know. I’m trying like Oh, look. Like it’s hard. It’s like it wasn’t that bad of the draft. Like it wasn’t that bad because There weren’t there weren’t uh Okay, I’ll say one and I think I don’t know how you guys are going to react to it. I’m going to say the Tampa Bay Bucks. I I know y’all love a Mecha Bua and I understand what we’re doing here, but like I don’t know. I just thought they had some huge holes on their O line and their Dline and I did not think wide receiver was that big of a need. That was just my thing where I kind of thought you could address other issues there. But he he’s a he’s a wide receiver could be good. Uh, but I I’ll just say uh this and I mean it. I have fun every year doing this with y’all. Slay, thank you for joining us this year, man. It was great having your energy invite. Uh I love the fact that when these young guys see you guys, they light up. Uh and what you guys brought out of them was awesome. I suddenly now care about Tyler Booker. Uh what what you guys were able to to get out of uh Abdul Carter was really special. So I appreciate you guys. Thank you everybody for watching at home. Rener, way to kick ass again, man. Awesome stuff. Uh, pretty good. Micah, any final words for tonight? Cowboys got better. That’s all I’m excited about. Go Cowboys. Boo. Boo. We will be back.