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2024 NFL Draft: Best, worst NFL teams at drafting in the first round since 2014

2PW45P0 Houston Texans first round draft picks quarterback C.J. Stroud, left, and linebacker Will Anderson Jr. hold up jerseys during an introductory NFL football press conference, Friday, April 28, 2023, in Houston.. (AP Photo/Kevin M. Cox)

By Sam Monson

• The Cowboys have few first-round misses in their recent draft history: Micah Parsons, CeeDee Lamb and Leighton Vander Esch are among the team's hits over the past decade.

• A decade of first-round struggles for the Raiders: Perhaps the team most known for reaching in the first round, the Raiders turned six first-round selections from 2019-21 into one capable starter — a running back.

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The 2024 NFL Draft is fast approaching, the single biggest opportunity for teams to transform their fortunes. A great draft can change the course of an organization, but even just a first-round selection can make or break a team.

Here is a list of the best and worst franchises at using their first-round picks over the past decade.

Obviously, most franchises have seen more than one front office staff come and go over that time, and there are no defined criteria for judging this. For example, how much is one colossal mistake, like the Trey Lance trade, worth relative to multiple missed picks?

Best

Dallas Cowboys

The Cowboys seem to draft extremely well when they don’t reach to fill a need. They wanted a cornerback in 2021, but the top two were taken before their pick rolled around, so they “settled” for Micah Parsons, one of the best edge rushers in the game. CeeDee Lamb is another home-run pick, while Tyler Smith looks like an excellent selection on the offensive line even though he was seen as a raw prospect at the time.

Leighton Vander Esch was just forced into retirement by injuries but, when healthy, was an outstanding linebacker, while both Zeke Elliott and Byron Jones had excellent seasons for the Cowboys.

The only clear negative in their drafting was Taco Charlton in 2017, with Mazi Smith too early to write off after a rookie campaign that saw him struggle to a 47.2 PFF grade.

Houston Texans

The Texans nailed their quarterback selection twice in a decade. Obviously, Deshaun Watson’s off-field issues put something of a caveat on that, but in purely transactional terms, the team managed to turn the 12th overall selection in 2017 into a monster trade haul from Cleveland some years later after enjoying some outstanding years from Watson on the field.

Stroud had arguably the best rookie quarterback season of all time en route to the second-best PFF grade among first-year quarterbacks of the past decade — a fraction behind Dak Prescott’s 84.0 in 2016.

Will Anderson Jr. also looks like a star after just one season, notching 68 quarterback pressures and 33 defensive stops in his debut campaign. Derek Stingley Jr. from 2022 had a vastly improved sophomore year and looks like a potential star at cornerback.

Will Fuller V was the game’s prototypical deep threat for a period, and Tytus Howard has become a solid offensive lineman.

The biggest miss on this list is cornerback Kevin Johnson, who displayed flashes of high-level play in an ultimately disappointing career.

Indianapolis Colts

The Colts didn’t have a first-round draft pick between 2018 and 2021, but that leaves them with an impressive run of hits, particularly if Anthony Richardson can build on an impressive start and become a true franchise quarterback.

Ryan Kelly and Quenton Nelson have formed the foundation of the team’s offensive line, and before injury struck, Nelson was the best guard in the game and a truly transcendent force in terms of value in the trenches.

Kwity Paye is a capable starting edge defender, having earned back-to-back PFF run-defense grades of at least 76.6.

The biggest miss was back in 2015, when Phillip Dorsett was never able to become the speed threat at receiver the team hoped he would. Dorsett has averaged 1.08 yards per route run over his NFL career. He saw three targets last season without a catch.

Kansas City Chiefs

Drafting Patrick Mahomes — the game’s best quarterback and already a player with “GOAT” status firmly in his crosshairs — with the 10th overall pick of the 2017 draft would probably put the Chiefs on this list even if they did nothing else of substance over the rest of the decade. The fact that they traded up to secure him only enhances the credit they get for identifying him as their guy when they already had capable quarterback play from Alex Smith.

Trent McDuffie looks like a star at cornerback, and Marcus Peters was an impressive player for the team earlier in his career. Clyde Edwards-Helaire has been a relative disappointment, given his expectations, but is far from enough of a negative to drag down the credit the Chiefs get for the Mahomes move.

Buffalo Bills

Buffalo is another team that receives a huge amount of credit for nailing its quarterback selection in drafting Josh Allen in 2018. Allen was the third quarterback off the board that season and was a wildly risky pick, given his inconsistency and inaccuracy at the time. Buffalo rode out early-career struggles, and he has developed into one of the game’s best players.

Tre’Davious White showed superstar potential early in his career before injuries derailed it in recent seasons, while defensive linemen Gregory Rousseau and Ed Oliver have each been above-average players.

The biggest miss for Buffalo is cornerback Kaiir Elam, who was immediately beaten out by sixth-rounder Christian Benford in his own draft class and has played just 780 snaps over his first two seasons with the team.

Worst

Jacksonville Jaguars

Few teams have had as much draft capital as the Jaguars over the past decade. They have picked 12 times in the first round, and seven times in the top 10, including the No. 1 overall pick twice. And that doesn’t even count their three consecutive top-five picks from 2012-14.

The team has spent two of those first-round picks on running backs, including the No. 4 overall selection on Leonard Fournette.

They have selected five defensive linemen, only one of whom is both still on the team and performing like a first-round pick (Josh Allen). Travon Walker was a wild statement pick when Aidan Hutchinson had been the consensus top edge defender prospect all through the pre-draft process. Hutchinson notched 121 quarterback pressures last season, while Walker has just 102 over his first two seasons combined, earning PFF grades of 58.0 and 53.9.

Jalen Ramsey was a home-run pick, but the team then traded him away, while even Trevor Lawrence has yet to quite live up to his pre-draft billing as the best quarterback prospect to enter the league in a decade.

Las Vegas Raiders

The Raiders have been something of a punchline for first-round misses over the past decade, with history not reflecting kindly on the personnel moves of the Mayock-Gruden era. The three-year run of 2019-21 could and should have been a period that built a competing roster, but instead they turned six first-round selections into one capable starter, at running back — arguably the league’s least valuable position in today’s game.

It’s very early to be calling time on Tyree Wilson’s NFL career, but his rookie season was little better than disastrous. He earned a 47.6 PFF grade and tallied just 24 quarterback pressures from 308 pass-rushing snaps.

Multiple first-round selections are already out of the league and have major legal troubles.

Amari Cooper was an excellent selection, but the team traded him away. The only true hit that has lasted with the team was Kolton Miller, who overcame a slow start to his career to become one of the best tackles in the league. He has three straight seasons with a PFF grade above 80.0.

New England Patriots

Seeing New England’s past decade of top selections reinforces the notion that Bill Belichick the general manager got Bill Belichick the head coach fired after too many misses at critical spots.

The most obvious failure was Mac Jones at quarterback. Following Tom Brady — even indirectly — was always going to be tough, but an 80.0 PFF grade as a rookie suggested Jones might be able to manage it. From that point, his career fell into a tailspin, with grades of 67.5 and then 52.2 before the team completely gave up on him and traded him to be a backup in Jacksonville this offseason.

Receiver N’Keal Harry was a disastrous selection and typified a Patriots inability to find receiving help that lasted years, while the best selection of the decade could well be cornerback Christian Gonzalez, who played just 209 snaps in 2023 before injury shut him down for the year.

Tennessee Titans

Tennessee’s recent run of first-round selections includes all-time busts for a variety of reasons. Isaiah Wilson played three snaps for the team before off-field concerns led to his departure. Caleb Farley was immediately struck by serious injury and has played only 164 snaps over his three-year NFL career.

Treylon Burks was put in the unenviable position of needing to replace what the team traded away in A.J. Brown, and he has been completely unable to do so thus far. Jack Conklin was a good player for the team but left in free agency, as did Corey Davis. Marcus Mariota started for a while but was ultimately benched for performance reasons.

The best pick the team has made was Jeffery Simmons, who has become one of the best interior defenders in the game. Tennessee deserves credit for that selection, given Simmons was coming off a serious knee injury and the team still risked a first-round pick on him.

Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles were the toughest team to put on this list, in part because their drafting overall has been very good, and also because they look to be rescuing things with their drafts over the past few years.

But specifically focusing on first-round selections over the past decade, they have made some errors. Jalen Reagor was a poor selection, made to look even worse by the fact that the pick made immediately afterward was Justin Jefferson — arguably the game’s best receiver.

Carson Wentz ultimately failed to work out as the team’s future quarterback, while Derek Barnett and Andre Dillard were each surpassed by other players on the roster.

The Eagles have been excellent at repairing the damage done by misses in the first round, but that doesn’t absolve them of those misses in the first place.

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